Songfacts®:

• Pete Townshend wrote "Street Song" about the Grenfell Tower block fire in London that killed 72 people in 2017. The disaster hit Townshend hard as he grew up in that neighborhood and knew people that lived in the building next door to Grenfell, Also, his housekeeper Susanna knew five families who lived in the tower block.
• Townshend and Roger Daltrey were able to help people directly affected by the disaster and they both contributed towards the Artists for Grenfell charity single. However, Townshend thought the song felt a bit gratuitous, so he set out to write something for Daltrey to sing. He told Mojo magazine:
  
  "Street Song's not specifically about Grenfell, but it's certainly inspired by it. I read that a man managed to get a phone call through to his wife; 'I'm just calling to say, so long.' He died in the fire. So I used that line.
  
  It's a song about where we are. We all have to look at where we come from, and what this community is about. It's not about race. It's not about postcodes, it's not about gangs, it's not about the fact that there were a lot of immigrants in that building. It's about the fact that this building rises out of a street: where we gather, where we cannot be separate."
• Daltrey wouldn't sing the original words. Said Townshend: "When he first heard 'Street Song,' he said, 'I don't want to get involved in politics, I don't want to go there, it's still going to court.'"
  
  So Townshend set it aside. Then one day he got a message from Daltrey saying he had done a vocal on it. The Who songwriter listened and thought, "He's nailed it."
• Roger Daltrey told his side of the story to Uncut magazine: "'Street Song' has got potential, but I don't like what's it's about, because it's political. I hate art that's political one way. Because none of them have got the answer, they're all full of s--t."
  
  The vocalist added that the overuse of political language vexes him. "It's stifling some serious emotional issues coming out of people that need to be addressed. I often wonder if political correctness isn't screwing the top on a fizzy can of drink."
• On June 14, 2017, a fire broke out in the 24-story Grenfell Tower a public housing block of flats in North Kensington, West London. Seventy-two residents died because corners were cut and health and safety checks were not carried out. Other songs inspired by the tragedy include.
  
  "Question Time" by Dave.
  
  "White Noise White Heat" by Elbow.
  
  "For the Lost" by Tom Chaplin.
  
  "Blind Leading The Blind" by Mumford & Sons.