# Most British-sounding rock song
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-british-sounding-rock-song/395219
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [March 9, 2007, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-british-sounding-rock-song/395219 "2007-03-09T04:45:08Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@Martha\_Medea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martha_Medea)
#### Post date: [March 9, 2007, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-british-sounding-rock-song/395219/41 "2007-03-09T20:13:16Z")
This is a good resource for me to refer to next time my son asks me why songs are always in an American accent.
Here’s another one: Carter USM - The Only Living Boy in New Cross.
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### Author:  [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)
#### Post date: [March 9, 2007, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-british-sounding-rock-song/395219/42 "2007-03-09T21:03:06Z")
[QUOTE=Ms Boods]
‘Holiday in Waikiki’ is also very English in its own way. So many of their [Ray’s] songs are essentially English – ‘House in the Country’, ‘Rainy Day in June’, ‘Most Exclusive Residence for Sale’, ‘Dead End Street’, ‘Mr Pleasant’, ‘David Watts,’ ‘Tin Soldier Man,’ ‘Autumn Almanac’ and so on up through Ray Davies’ current stuff, like ‘Next Door Neighbour’ and ‘Stand Up Comic’.
[/QUOTE]
Except, what Brit would sing about “A Gallon of Gas”? 🙂
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### Author:  [@Khampelf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khampelf)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2007, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-british-sounding-rock-song/395219/43 "2007-03-10T00:02:50Z")
I was going to mention the eponymous ‘Kids in Bristol’. But it turns out they’re Pennsylvanians.
> **[Bristol Stomp](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bristol_Stomp)**
>
> "Bristol Stomp" is a song written in 1961 by Kal Mann and Dave Appell, two executives with the Cameo-Parkway record label, for The Dovells, a doo-wop singing group from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who recorded it for Cameo-Parkway late that year. Appell also produced and arranged the track and his Cameo-Parkway's house band served as the studio musicians.
> The song was written about teenagers in 1961 who were dancing a new step called "The Stomp" at Good Will Hose Company dances in Bristol, Penns...
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### Author:  [@sciurophobic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sciurophobic)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2007, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-british-sounding-rock-song/395219/44 "2007-03-10T00:32:28Z")
[QUOTE=Krokodil]
“Alfie” by Lily Allen. Ska-punk by way of old 60s girl acts like Lulu.
[/QUOTE]
Or “Friday Night” where she sings about getting in to a “queue” outside a club after the pubs have closed at 11:00.
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### Author:  [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2007, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-british-sounding-rock-song/395219/45 "2007-03-10T00:44:07Z")
For something more recent, how about **The Streets**? It took me a while to even understand what he was saying in [Don’t Mug Yourself](http://www.amazon.com/gp/music/wma-pop-up/B00006L88F001009/ref=mu_sam_wma_001_009/103-2530367-1639823).
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### Author:  [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2007, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-british-sounding-rock-song/395219/46 "2007-03-10T00:50:26Z")
[QUOTE=Johanna]
1. Beatles - “Maggie Mae”
[/QUOTE]
😕
Really? Which album?
Anyway, I’ve always found The Pet Shop Boys’s _West End Girls_, and Dire Straits’s _The Sultans of Swing_ to be pretty quintessentially Limey.
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### Author:  [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2007, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-british-sounding-rock-song/395219/47 "2007-03-10T01:14:25Z")
Queen - “Brighton Rock” no scratch that - “The Faery-Feller’s Master Stroke.” And “Seaside Rendezvous.” So adorable.
[quote=kaylasdad99]
Really? Which album?The original 1970 Apple release of _Let It Be_, which was filled with such odd little outtakes. “Maggie Mae” not to be confused with the similarly named Rod Stewart hit sounded like an old Liverpool song done in a broad Scouse accent. I could not make out many intelligible English words until I saw the printed lyrics. So the less I can understand, the more British it is.
Jethro Tull is rock ‘n’ roll, but trad folkie is ethnic by definition i’nnit? Steeleye Span, Fairport Convention, Linda Thompson, Pentangle, etc. go without saying. And that’s just England… Scots folk is another whole world itself… I listen to the Thistle & Shamrock every week, that’s all I’m going to say about it.
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### Author:  [@Martha\_Medea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martha_Medea)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2007, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-british-sounding-rock-song/395219/48 "2007-03-10T01:51:21Z")
Somehow that reminded me of Roy Harper - you don’t get more English than songs about [cricket](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_An_Old_Cricketer_Leaves_The_Crease).
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### Author:  [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2007, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-british-sounding-rock-song/395219/49 "2007-03-10T02:03:04Z")
How about [“I’m Henry the Eighth, I Am”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I'm_Henery_the_Eighth,_I_Am) as performed by **Herman’s Hermits**? An old music hall song, referencing an English king (well, sorta), and delivered in a _very_ English accent. Hard to get more British than that.
And as for singing in an English accent, I’d say **Billy Bragg** takes the cake.
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### Author:  [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2007, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-british-sounding-rock-song/395219/50 "2007-03-10T02:14:35Z")
[QUOTE=kaylasdad99]
> [@Johanna](#):
>
> 1. Beatles - “Maggie Mae”
😕
Really? Which album?
[/QUOTE]
**Let It Be** , Track #7.
But don’t be too confused – it’s not the same song as the one performed by Rod Stewart (which is probably what you’re thinking of), which is spelled **Maggie May**.
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