There's a new shopping mall
in the centre of our town
where the old ABC
has been razed to the ground.
It's brash and it's modern
dominating Paragon Square,
and it's nice and convenient
like any town anywhere.
They are mass moulding cities
for profit, the creed of the day,
and all this mass production
takes all their character away.
The old ABC had bad acoustics;
you couldn't always see the stage;
but ask its importance
to any of a certain age.
Buddy Holly played there.
Rock 'n' roll at its best,
and I was in the audience
screaming loudly with the rest.
There's not even a plaque
to show where it stood;
does progress have to mean
throwing away all that was good.
O, I'll shop away in it's comfort,
for it is convenient and near,
but the ghost of Buddy Holly
maybe playing in mind's ear.
I'll leave this palace of commerce,
leave the car park and enter
the stream of traffic from
this mass produced city centre.
And I'll pass through the ghosts of streets
long mauled and distorted to make way
for the clone of cloned commercial city
and increased profits every shopping day.
