Every week in Sunday papers
Some silly sod is bound to say
That the fact that British High Streets
Have the same national chains
Means that all our city centres
Are now utterly the same
It seems that life within the M25
Gives you brand names on the brain

Because they say that City Centres
All look the same
Because our modern city centres
Have been taken over by shopping chains

Lift your mind beyond the signs
Of the franchises and you'll find
That the hills and stone of Sheffield (for instance)
Are no way alike
To Peterborough's bricks and flatness
Or to Truro or to Milton Keynes
Even though they've all got Marks & Spencers
Boots and Body Shop and HMV

Yet you say that City Centres
All look the same
Because our modern city centres
Have been taken over by shopping chains

Go get a book and look
At the city 90 years ago
You'll find it in the Local History section
Of Smiths or Waterstones
The architecture's lasted, the street layout's the same
The weather and geography all remain
Only names on shopfronts
And moustaches have been changed

Yet they say that City Centres
They all look the same
I think it's you that's turning Mental
You've been taken over by shopping chains

And if you think that City Centres
They all look the same
I think it's you that's turning Mental
You've been taken over by shopping chains