We adored St Jerome’s. Whatever we needed — a place to film a clip, a bird-shit landing to take photos on, a quick ciggie out the back — St Jerome’s provided. So how do you tell a time and a place that you love it? How do you capture that feeling in a jar?
I think that’s what I was trying to do that Sunday afternoon in 2005 when my friend Libby and I played a little gig from the corner of the over-capacity courtyard out the back. For some inexplicable reason, somewhere between the young man who’d brought along his dog in a handbag, and the rogue BBQ sausage that nearly started ‘The Great Fire of St Jerome’s’, I realised I was having one of the best afternoons of my life. So right there and then, I wrote an impromptu ode called ‘St Jerome’s on Sunday Afternoon’. It took the first verse for me to shake off the particularly shitty support-slot I’d just come home from, but from there, I just told it exactly as I saw it. Every word is true, and this is pretty much exactly how it came out and appeared later that week as a b-side on our ‘Divorcee by 23’ EP. The month after I played, a young girl called Lily Allen took to the same small stage, and made history by filling the entire alley with punters trying to get into the courtyard. No luck. Incredible no one was crushed to death. I bet she remembers St Jerome’s too. Does she still have those sneakers, I wonder…?
So this one goes out to my muse, St Jerome’s. Thanks for the good times.
St. Jerome’s on a Sunday Afternoon
Clare Bowditch
Because they didn’t really care, well I remembered
And I watched them throw the largest stage
And I got myself the hell back home again.
So you may be a Dad one day, your daughter may be fair, and you’ll
Wonder how those mother freaking bastards failed to care.
Maybe you’ll think of me.
I’ll be at St Jerome’s on Sunday afternoon,
with big bucks out the back and Danwah’s fixed the roof.
There’s a pretty boy walking around with a mighty juushed up dog,
And some other pretty Spanish boys drinking beer from a teapot,
So when you think of me, I’ll be here, happy.
Because it seemed you kind of cared, I remembered it.
You reminded me of the best that I can do,
and that is what I hope I was able to do for you.
Apologies to all for the small interval fire,
where one noble looking sausage lost its ninth life.
God I’ve had a good day, God I’ve had a good a day.