Songfacts®:

• "People Of The Smoke" is a look at London in 1950, the time and place where Steve Hackett was born. It was a few years after World War II; the city was bustling as it furiously rebuilt, but was choked in smog from industrial pollution and exhaust from trains and vehicles.
  
  "It's very dark," Hackett told Songfacts. "In London you rarely saw the sun in those days, it was so polluted. It seems almost impossible to believe now."
• This is the first track on The Circus And The Nightwhale, a concept album based on Hackett's life. As the album moves forward, it gets more fanciful and surreal, but "People Of The Smoke" is more literal, reflecting what Hackett calls a "gritty reality."
• Hackett wrote the song with his wife Jo and with his keyboard player Roger King. He and Jo started writing songs together for Steve's 2015 album Wolflight. Many of the songs they collaborate on are based on travels and experiences they shared together.