Streets of London (song) Streets of London (song) "Streets of London" is a song by Ralph McTell, who first recorded it for his 1969 album "Spiral Staircase." It was not released in the United Kingdom as a single until 1974. The song has been covered by over 200 artists. The song was re-released, on 4 December 2017, featuring McTell with Annie Lennox as a charity single for CRISIS, the Homelessness Charity. The song was inspired by McTell's experiences busking and hitchhiking throughout Europe, especially in Paris and the individual stories are taken from Parisians. McTell was originally going to call the song "Streets of
Anyone Who Had a Heart (song) sung the standard lyric in live performance. Also, arranger Johnny Pearson utilized a bassoon solo for the instrumental break in Black's version as opposed to the saxophone utilized in the Warwick original. Cilla Black, interviewed for that "Great Performances" telecast, expressed her awareness of Warwick's disenchantment: "It was a No.1; Dionne was dead choked and she's never forgiven me to this day." It was in fact Burt Bacharach himself who backed Cilla to record this song for a British release, after Dionne Warwick had a hit in America with it. "At one point it looked as if Shirley Bassey would