waiting for an opportunity that doesn't happen, waiting for the dole queue or some documentation for the NHS. It's about hopes being dashed. You can read a book about what you should do, or write a letter to the paper, and still nothing happens because no one cares. The first line sets up the song. It's an angry song about Thatcherism. Mrs Thatcher came in on the promise of firm government and I'm interpreting 'the smack of firm government' literally as hitting someone. That's what firm government tends to mean - you hit the weakest person, the man at the back of the queue. I think there's something almost Biblical about 'only last night I found myself lost...' It's like an epic nightmare. 'The dead and wounded on either side, it's only a matter of time,' is another Aids reference. At the end - 'so I went looking out today' -there's a detective, and he's looking for someone, and this mythical place, King's Cross, is the end of the line, the place from where there is no escape but death. It's the death of all hope. And I'm saying that waiting there isn't enough. You've got to break out, you've got to react, start a revolution. You can't just behave in a fatalistic way. I still think it's one of our best songs, and I love the video where Chris gets off the train that Derek Jarman made of it for our 1989 tour.

Chris It's very sad.

Neil When we recorded it with Stephen Hague, he suggested that it should have a key change in the Middle, which we added. He also went and recorded the trains going through North London to King's Cross, which you can hear. The last verse came from an argument I had with my best friend from Newcastle. He was very down, and he said we'd got where we were because we'd had so much good luck and he hadn't had good luck. He said, 'you can't deny, Neil, you've had a lot of good luck in your life'. I said, 'it's not about good luck- it's a matter of knowing what you want to do and sticking with it'. I felt a bit guilty the next day. There seemed to be this appalling contrast between the ways our lives were going. In the original running order of the album 'King's Cross' was the first track. My friend listened to it and said, 'well, that's great, you've managed to make the album sound really boring'. After the album came out there was the King's Cross fire, and The Sun wanted us to release it as a charity single.

Chris and in our film It couldn't happen here, there was a man on fire when it's playing.

Neil That was very spooky. Jack Bond, the director, asked the widow of someone who'd been killed and she said, 'you should leave it in'.