King's Cross (song)

"King's Cross" is a Pet Shop Boys song, written by Chris Lowe and Neil Tennant and is a track on their 1987 album Actually. It was covered and released as a single in 2007 by Tracey Thorn.

Original version and the King's Cross Fire

Although the lyrics appear to refer to the King's Cross fire of November 1987, the album that the song appeared on was released two months before it. The song is actually about desperation and unemployment.

It was suggested that Pet Shop Boys release it a single to raise money for charity following the fire, but they never did. Music magazines at the time though (such as Smash Hits) carried adverts to call premium rate phone lines to hear the song, and the money from the phone call would then go to the charity for fire victims.

Tracey Thorn version

On 9 December 2007, Tracey Thorn released "King's Cross" as the final single from her Out of the Woods album.

A cover of "King's Cross" first appeared as an iTunes exclusive bonus track to Thorn's album Out of the Woods. Recorded for inclusion on the main album, Thorn says on her Myspace page that there was not enough room to include it.

Kings Cross

Kings Cross or King's Cross may refer to:

King's Cross (ward)

King's Cross is a ward of the London borough of Camden, in the United Kingdom. The ward has existed since the creation of the borough on 1 April 1965 and was first used in the 1964 elections.

Councillors

1965–1978

King's Cross ward has existed since the creation of the London Borough of Camden on 1 April 1965. It was first used in the 1964 election to Camden London Borough Council.

1978–2002

There was a revision of ward boundaries in Camden in 1978.

From 2002

There was a revision of ward boundaries in Camden in 2002. The ward covers parts of Bloomsbury and Kings Cross, which also crosses into St Pancras and Somers Town and the London Borough of Islington. For elections to Parliament, King's Cross is part of Holborn and St Pancras.

Kings Cross lies in the south of the borough, and is one of three wards of Camden south of Euston Road (along with Bloomsbury and Holborn and Covent Garden). It is separated from Bloomsbury by Upper Woburn Place, Tavistock Square, Tavistock Place, Hunter Street, and Grenville Street; from Holborn and Covent Garden by Guilford Street and Calthorpe Street; from the borough of Islington by Kings Cross Road and Pentonville Road; and from St Pancras and Somers Town by Euston Road.

Kings Cross, London

Coordinates: 51°31′49″N 0°07′25″W / 51.5303°N 0.1236°W / 51.5303; -0.1236

King's Cross (also Kings Cross) is an inner city area of London, England, 2.5 miles (4.8 km) north of Charing Cross. It is the location and namesake of King's Cross railway station, one of the major gateways into London from the North.

Formerly a red light district and run-down, the area has been regenerated since the mid-1990s with the terminus of the Eurostar rail service at St Pancras International opening in 2007 and the construction of King's Cross Central, a major redevelopment in the north of the area.

History

Toponymy

The area was previously a village known as Battle Bridge or Battlebridge which was an ancient crossing of the River Fleet. The original name of the bridge was Broad Ford Bridge. The corruption "Battle Bridge" led to a tradition that this was the site of a major battle in AD 60 or 61 between the Romans and the Iceni tribe led by Boudica (also known as Boudicea). The tradition claims support from the writing of Publius Cornelius Tacitus, an ancient Roman historian, who described the place of action between the Romans and Boadicea (Annals 14.31), but without specifying where it was; Thornbury addresses the pros and cons of the identification. Lewis Spence's 1937 book Boadicea – warrior queen of the Britons includes a map showing the supposed positions of the opposing armies. The suggestion that Boudica is buried beneath platform 9 or 10 at King's Cross Station seems to have arisen as urban folklore since the end of World War II. The area had been settled in Roman times, and a camp here, known as The Brill was erroneously attributed to Julius Caesar, who never visited Londinium. The name is commemorated in two streets lying behind King's Cross and St Pancras stations. St Pancras Old Church, also set behind the stations, is said to be one of the oldest Christian sites in Britain.