Release Date[]
- 7 September 1987 (album track)
Summary[]
Track 10, from 'Actually'.
Background[]
The song was conceived while Neil was hanging out with two friends, and one of them actually said 'someone told me Monday, someone told me Saturday...' "I have no idea what he was actually talking about. It was about a football match or something." King's Cross is an actual train station in London that, at least at the time, was crime-ridden and dingy. "..prostitution, drug addicts, and a lot of tramps come up to you there. I just thought that was a metaphor for Britain - people arriving at this place, waiting for an opportunity that doesn't happen...it's about hopes being dashed...It's an angry song about Thatcherism."
Trivia[]
- The trains are real recordings done by Stephen Hague on their way to King's Cross station.
- Shortly after the album's release, there was a fire at the King's Cross station, and the band was approached by the Sun to release this as a charity single. It wasn't. Eerily, when this song is playing in the movie, 'It Couldn't Happen Here' there is a man on fire in the frame.
Official Versions[]
- 5:11 King's Cross