page_title: Itchycoo Park
section_title: Inspiration
hierarchical_section_title: Itchycoo Park / Inspiration
caption_attribution_description: English: Lake Alexandra, a part of Wanstead Flats, the southern-most portion of Epping Forest in eastern London.
context_page_description: "Itchycoo Park" is a song written by Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane, first recorded by their group, the Small Faces. Largely written by Lane, it was one of the first music recordings to feature flanging, an effect at that time made possible by electro-mechanical processes. The location and etymology of the titular park has long been debated; many claiming it to be Little Ilford Park in Manor Park, East London or Wanstead Flats in Wanstead, East London. The single was not featured on any of their UK albums, but was however featured on the North American release There Are But Four Small Faces.
  Released on 4 August 1967 on Immediate Records, the song was the Small Faces fifth top-ten song in the UK Singles Chart, reaching a position of number three. "Itchycoo Park" became the Small Faces sole top-forty hit in the United States, reaching number sixteen on the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1968. It fared similarly well throughout Continental Europe, reaching the top-ten in several countries there. The single was re-released in December of 1975, reaching number nine in the UK Singles chart, and is often attributed as the reason for the Small Faces reunion during the mid-1970s.
context_section_description: The song was first conceived and largely written by Ronnie Lane, who had been reading a leaflet on the virtues of Oxford which mentioned its dreaming spires.
  A number of sources claim the song's name is derived from the nickname of Little Ilford Park, on Church Road in the London suburb of Manor Park, where Small Faces' singer and songwriter Steve Marriott grew up. The "itchycoo" nickname is, in turn, attributed to the stinging nettles which grew there. Other sources cite nearby Wanstead Flats (Manor Park end) as the inspiration for the song.
  Marriott and Small Faces manager Tony Calder came up with the well-known story when Marriott was told the BBC had banned the song for its overt drug references, Calder confirms:
  We scammed the story together, we told the BBC that Itchycoo Park was a piece of waste ground in the East End that the band had played on as kids – we put the story out at ten and by lunchtime we were told the ban was off.
  Ronnie Lane said of the true location of Itchycoo Park: "It's a place we used to go to in Ilford years ago. Some bloke we know suggested it to us because it's full of nettles and you keep scratching actually".
caption: Photo of Wanstead Flats, London E12 near Marriott's Manor Park home
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