#TeenageDreams SIGN OUR PETITION to get it back!

A mural of lyrics from a song by Northern Ireland band The Undertones has been removed from a flyover in Belfast by the Department of Social Development (DSD).

The lyrics “Teenage dreams, so hard to beat” were from the band’s debut single Teenage Kicks.

The song rose to prominence in 1978 when BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel played the song twice in a row on his show.

Sign the petition that we want #Teenagekicks back on the flyover wall. #LoveBelfast

SIGN OUR PETITION to get it back!
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/teenagekicksbelfast/

It was an iconic image in Belfast – the first line from that famous song by Derry’s most famous band, The Undertones, and now it’s gone.

Painted carefully below an underpass in the east of the city, it spoke of love and hope and youth and resonated with everyone who saw it from the window of their car, their bus or train on one of the busiest routes into and out of the city centre.

It had become part of the landscape – in the same way that the two giant yellow cranes across the dual carriageway had – Samson and Goliath; or the new Titanic building, or the Waterfront Hall where the President of the United States Barack Obama spoke earlier this week.

We’ve lots of murals in Belfast but most of them are coldly threatening images of gunmen in childish two-dimensional hand – the only colour being the splashes of either red, white and blue or green, white and gold marking out which side the gunmen belong to.

The Teenage Dream mural was different.

It had no sectarian colour scheme and the blocky bubble writing was a little dated – but in a way it perfectly reminded everyone of those times in the late 1970s, when the song was written.

Troubled times in Belfast, Derry and Northern Ireland – yet this group of youngsters came up with The Perfect Pop Song – and they were ours.

And the mural reminded us of The Undertones…and how we had all felt at seventeen..and it didn’t matter if you were a Prod or a Taig…love’s young dream was the same for everyone.

And now it’s gone. A mess of whitewash has covered those beautiful words.

And Belfast is a sadder, duller place.

SIGN OUR PETITION to get it back!
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/teenagekicksbelfast/