Mrs Albion, You've Got a Lovely Daughter (1965)

When Allen Ginsberg visited Liverpool, Adrian Henri and Arthur Ballard took him to Everton, where Ginsberg spotted a sign saying “Albion Street”. He, of course, read this as a momentous sign that William Blake was reaching out to him. Henri wrote this homage to Ginsberg, Blake and to the girls of Liverpool, while, typically, at the same time making a reference to the pop music, with an allusion to Herman’s Hermits ‘ hit, ‘Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter’.
C.Marcangeli, Poetry and Pop Music, Tate Gallery Liverpool, 2007.

Mrs Albion, You've Got a Lovely Daughter

(for Allen Ginsberg)

Albion's most lovely daughter sat on the banks of the Mersey dangling her landing stage in the water.

The daughters of Albion

Arriving by underground at Central Station

Eating hot eccles cakes at the Pierhead

Writing 'Billy Blake is fab' on a wall in Mathew Street

Taking off their navy blue school drawers and

Putting on nylon panties ready for the night

The daughters of Albion

See the moonlight beating down on them in Bebington

Throw away their chewing gum ready for the goodnight kiss

Sleep in the dinnertime sunlight with old men

Looking up their skirts in St Johns Gardens

Comb their dark blonde hair in suburban bedrooms

Powder their delicate little nipples/wondering if tonight will be the night

Their bodies pressed into dresses or sweaters

Lavender at the Cavern or pink at the Sink

The daughters of Albion wondering how to explain why they didn't go home

The daughters of Albion

Taking the dawn ferry to tomorrow

Worrying about what happened

Lacing up blue sneakers over brown ankles

Fastening up brown stockings to blue suspender belts

Beautiful boys with bright red guitars

In the spaces between the stars

Reelin' an' a-rockin'

Wishin' an' a-hopin'

Kissin' an' -prayin'

Lovin' an' a-layin'

Mrs Albion you've got a lovely daughter.

By Adrian Henri.

© 2019 The Beatles Review of History. All images are copyrighted by their respective authors.
This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/


Last changes made on 21/06/2019, 08:29 CET.