Singer pens new song as 'love letter' to hometown

A singer from Ipswich has described his new song as a love letter to the town.

Phil Jackson said he wrote songs "randomly" and, until recently, had never considered one about the place in which he was born and raised.

The idea for a song called Ipswich Town came to him on a rainy February day in a coffee shop, taking inspiration from the track London by one of his country heroes, Willie Nelson.

"I haven't written it for any particular reason, it was just a fun moment and it was meant to be," he said.

"If I'd have written it the next day, it would have been a completely different song," he explained.

"I think that's how it works because every day is different, every moment is different but looking back, I've written songs about many different things and why not Ipswich?

"It's bizarre that I haven't done it before, but it never dawned on me to do it."

Jackson, who was born in 1979, said he had seen Ipswich change a lot over the years, but he described it as "beautiful".

"Look up and you'll see the beauty. There's so much history here, there's so much architecture.

"Every place has some darker areas of course that you go into... but I think Ipswich is much better than a lot of places and much better than what a lot of people think."

The first few lyrics detail that "it's complicated, Ipswich town", which Jackson thought people could agree with.

"There's a lot of good things and then there's probably some things where you go, 'Ah that wasn't so great', but that's life in general for everybody," he added.

"I felt slightly nostalgic with the style and the presentation and what the song is all about.

"I said that to someone and they said, 'That sounds like a love letter to Ipswich' and I think that sort of sums it up."

The new tune will be released on 5 June

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