Full English

Right, I've got an aphorism. Here's my aphorism. I've had a little search and haven't found it elsewhere, so I'm claiming it.

"If it's not about racism, what about the racism?"

They'll tell you it's not about racism, and maybe it's not. Maybe the day-to-day regular implicit and explicit racism on the streets of England is totally independent of the Brexit thing, eh?

They rely on the liberal metropolitan elite bubble being a real thing, compromised of people who don't leave that bubble, and wonder to themselves if maybe they're getting it wrong, being unfair to the middle Englander.

I don't live in the liberal metropolitan elite bubble. I don't live in it, I don't look like it. I'm just a scrappy frowning overweight guy with a shaved head in the solid satellite towns.

And I hear people being racist all the time. All the time. And I'm an unfriendly person without conversational tricks who mainly exists in the bubble of his own house. I don't go looking for it.

But I overhear it on the streets, I hear it from people I engage in brief conversations with, working people, taxi drivers, casual acquaintances. If eg London is mentioned, people can't wait to say something about all the ghastly people that now live there. They imply it or say it openly. They probably don't think they're racist. They're good respectable people.

Racism gets treated in the media like it's an outrage, a shocking break from the norm which the committer will never be able to live down. It's not. It's every day, all sorts of people. The strongest targets vary, but it's always there.

Anyway. I wrote a poem when the Windrush scandal was going on, inspired, if that's the right word, by a black guy I saw, probably in his 50s, in my local supermarket, wearing a Jam t-shirt inscribed with the words from 'Down in the Tube Station at Midnight" - "They smelt of pubs and Wormwood Scrubs, and too many right-wing meetings".

It was, on various levels, one of the greatest things I've ever seen. That's my country, please.

FULL ENGLISH

I’ve been with you

in your England

since its birth, in desperation,

From the ashes of an Empire

gorged on cruelty and loathing.

Born here as it dragged itself

through shame-faced reconstruction,

I’ll die here as it suffocates,

entranced by its own embers.

A traveller’s child is not himself

a slave to expedition.

I know my roots

but made my bed

in brittle little England.

I know each tiny detail

of my difference

and your myth-wish

For England, some new England,

which, in truth, never existed.

I’ve never not been English,

I am older than your memory

Of battles on a pink map

won by white men

with a black book.

My tanks are not on your lawn,

your gates are not beleaguered,

We’re English,

just as English

as your forlorn deathwish protest.

We’re British

as the Celts

who grasped the bitter joke you bleated -

“We’re all in this together”,

in the same breath as you told us

That a jolly hostile send-off was

the very least you owed us

Yet I know more of England

than these puffing thin-eyed wreckers,

Who only know

their corner

and believe it replicated

In every neuk and hood

where their imagination fails them,

Yet I know every England

like a stranger feels a welcome.

I’m the only black man standing

at the Hammersmith Palais,

Bellowing indie anthems

like a reveller at a wake,

I fought like a true Englishman

in Dublin and on Green Street,

Sometimes, only sometimes,

these boys barely even see it.

In some pub off Charing Cross

that night the Germans mugged us off

I’m just another snarling English voice

rich in expletives.

I’ve lived a modern English life,

I’ve bought myself the t-shirt

“They smelt of pubs and Wormwood Scrubs … too many right-wing meetings”

An in-joke and outsider howl

in every brazen detail,

I wear it as I’m marching

through my mid-life small-town exile.

I’m English all the way through,

I am London and the counties,

I’ve heard every expression

which excuses me my colour,

“present company”,

“not like them” …

as if I should be flattered

By ghoulish poisoned savages

who’ve never known a black man.

They’ve seen me on their TV

In the joyous throes of Blackwash

Greeting Richards, Holding, Marshall

Off HMT Empire Windrush

And they’ve damned me for my graceless

Jumped-up unenlightened blackness.

They’d damn me with the Tebbit test,

The lauded racist’s Sunday best

(I’d pass it, but I gave myself

That glorious day of rest)

They call it like they see it

And they see it as they’re taught it.

They wouldn’t know I’m English

From my birth-cries

To their doorstep.

I fought like a true Englishman

At Goose Green and in Belfast

And, then and there, those boys

I swear

they couldn’t tell us apart.

I’ve seen an Eltham Six

in waiting

Each corner I turned

Looking to release themselves

By some unfettered act.

But English is my language

And my manner and my way.

I’ve hardly missed a step, lads,

And never shown a crack.

My grandkids will be English.

Or at least that’s what I’d hoped.

I’m home. My home is England.

There’s my passport. Here’s my word.

A vs B Part 5: Be My Baby Vs River Deep - Mountain High

Two great songs. I’ve heard both described several times as The Greatest Pop Song Ever.

Both were written by the same three people, Ellie Greenwich, Jeff Barry and Phil Spector. Both were produced by Spector and arranged by Jack Nitzsche. One is by The Ronettes (lead vocal Ronnie Spector), the other Ike and Tina Turner (lead vocal Tina Turner, forget Ike).

They are probably the most renowned, definitive Spector productions, the greatest testaments to his talent. They are only three years apart, but feel like more, as so many “early 60s/late 60s” things do.

Ronnie Spector and Tina Turner are both phenomenal singers, unique in their abilities, amongst the most iconic in the history of rock’n’roll. Both had their careers wrecked by abusive, controlling husbands (Turner less than Spector, who was literally not allowed to sing or perform for many years). How many more great Roni Spector vocals there could have been!

I prefer ‘Be My Baby’ now, though I have veered both ways down the years.  It is just … more perfect.

When I listen to ‘River Deep’, I can’t help thinking it is both a bit messier and not quite as overpowering as Spector would have hoped. I think you can hear that he’d lost a bit of control. Sometimes it seems a little bitty and disconnected. I kind of feel it’s almost one of the greatest songs ever but doesn’t quite get there.

Perhaps working with an absolute powerhouse like Tina Turner didn’t work for Spector. Perhaps he felt he had to outmatch her with the music – there is sometimes too much going on with ‘River Deep’ … or maybe it was the other way round … stories abound about the producer making the singer do take after take … maybe he asked for too big a performance from her …

Ronnie Spector was a different kind of vocalist … more girl-like but also streetwise – Phil Spector worked with a lot of somewhat similar vocalists (eg on the Christmas album) – clear, poppy vocalists rather than guttural rock/soul singers like Tina Turner.

‘Be My Baby’ was a song I grew up with – in the opening sequence of two films I’ve watched a lot (in, let’s say, different stages of my growth) – ‘Dirty Dancing’ and ‘Mean Streets’ – that it fits so perfectly in two such different films is testament to its power. Of course, the opening drum sound (played by Hal Blaine) is just about the most iconic thing in the history of popular music, constantly borrowed, and if you’d left the song there, that would be enough.

Lyrically, it is slight, of course, but tries to do no more than encapsulate the rapture of a night’s romance. Ronnie Spector’s voice is incredible – particularly for how modern it sounds. In fact, the whole record sounds modern, it fills the ears, while ‘River Deep’ can sound a bit dated.

I guess it’s obvious which one I’m going for. 63 vs 66, I’m going for 63, though I think ‘River Deep’ had the potential to be the greater. I just think the producer had had too much cocaine by that point or something.

There is more to be said. More about precision and innocence, about the Beach Boys and Vietnam and Motown and mistreatment of women. I can’t get there, can’t get anywhere near it, but that’s probably for the best.

A vs B Part 4: Madonna (my long-standing perception of her) vs Madonna (actually)

I was going to write about Madonna anyway, funnily enough, though now everyone’s writing about her because it’s her 60^th birthday.

I’ve gradually, over the last few years, stopped being a dick about Madonna. Though, annoyingly now, as I did with Joni Mitchell, I’m going to use Bob Dylan as a reference point in explaining why I’m now a Madonna fan.

I think I always start with this quote from Canadian intellectual Michael Ignatieff when I think about Madonna;

“I don’t mind that I see her face on every magazine cover. I don’t mind that she is obscene. I don’t even mind that she can’t sing, can’t dance, can’t act and is none the less the most famous person on the planet. What I can’t stand is that she thinks she’s an artist.”

So persuasively dismissive, I think I allowed myself to think for years that Madonna was always reaching above her station.

But really, if you changed it ever so slightly, it’s exactly what some reactionary snobby prick would have said about Dylan in the 60s (and even now). And it’s no more true for either of them.

I remember Clive James did a show in the early 90s about “Fame” and he really focused on Dylan in the 60s and Madonna in the 80s. I was too young to understand much about what he was getting at, and I don’t remember all that much of what he said.

But there are more than superficial similarities between the two – college dropouts from the north country who came to New York at the start of a decade, had it tough for a few years while they found their voice, pissed off the purists, created a new form, influenced everything that came after them (and acted quite badly and had far too many extra-curricular activities for most people’s liking).

What else links them? Weight of songs … simple. The essence of why I still think of Dylan is streets ahead of all his contemporaries is just the number of great songs over the span of time. And the same is true, in a pop sense, of Madonna. Now, I don’t know if there are great Madonna deep cuts, but there hardly need to be. Over 60 Top 40 singles (nearly all Top 10), and sure, there are some rubbish ones (I think part of the reason I solidified my anti-Madonna sentiment was how dreadful I found her turn-of-the-century run) but there really are so many good ones.

So many songs that, when they came on the radio, I couldn’t resist – I’d find myself asking “do I really think Madonna’s rubbish, I mean, I like ‘Like a Prayer’ … and Live to Tell, and Hung Up, and Borderline, and Crazy for You, and Cherish, and Dear Jessie, and Take a Bow, and Rain, and Into the Groove, and La Isla Bonita, and Ray of Light, I guess … oh and Papa Don’t Preach, oh and This Used to be My Playground …” etc etc

And, you know, she’s a great and varied writer. Many of her songs, as well as the hooks and the ability to draw on the sounds of the day, are interesting, mysterious, have a sense of sadness, a sense of a story not wholly told. I think the idea of Madonna as great singer-songwriter is the one I most egregiously underestimated.

I think there’s a reason I underestimated her. I’ve been more susceptible and easily-influenced than I’d admit, and there’s always been a lot of that Ignatieff-type stuff about her, a serious male contempt for her as famehound which failed to see that, dodgy films, publicity stunts, aside, she really could dance, sing and write. The notion that Madonna is not a great pop singer is pretty ludicrous. It’s an opinion really only reserved for people who don’t think any pop singer is a good singer. People who don’t understand what being a pop singer is.

I also suspect there was a bit of identity at stake – I grew up with sisters, and there were friends of sisters around, and there was a lot of Madonna around, and it was for them, not me. And I suspect her persona was pretty confronting for a fairly prudish teenage boy in the early 90s.

Madonna, as many people say, invented the modern solo pop star (alongside Michael Jackson, though I think even more so), in the sense that it’s barely connected to what came before and so much that came after her is in her image. Michael Jackson, I’d say, is more connected to soul and disco, and Thriller was a continuation of that , while Debbie Harry (who I’d often compare Madonna unfavourably to) was a singer in a punk band who didn’t quite make it a solo star.

So, yeah, this is a bit of a mea culpa, an acknowledgement of a certain dull misogynist prudery that undoubtedly lies behind a lot of the sniffiness at Madonna. At the end of the day, take it all away, and the songs remain.

Broadstairs and Chapel Down: July 2018

This is called 'Broadstairs and Chapel Down: July 2018'. It's quite long.

It's about how the high quality of English wine is a portent of the apocalypse.

(there are certain bits I need to work on. I meant to put it up for my 40th birthday but pretty close ... ps the 4th line is meant to be longer ...)

BROADSTAIRS and CHAPEL DOWN: July 2018

A beach on an isle off an island soon-beached;

Bleak House proud to left, Dunkirk dead ahead.

We, holding out hands for a deal not yet reached

Both switching in a moment between delight and dread,

Pick shells, poke at crabs - she reckless then tearful,

Me patient then tense -, stare out at the sea,

both Britain’s guardian and ever its curse.

She walks, now prescient, sensible, fearful

Looks at the lapping waves then up at me,

Scenting the peril I know’s ten times worse.

“It’s moving” – she suddenly, leg clamp and clam,

Attached by alarm, grasps quickly that tide

Is far more formidable than I ever am.

I said, “Nothing can harm you if you’re with me.”. I lied.

“It’s moving daddy”. She won’t dip her feet

In the gentle siren threat of sea off Kent

Though we do both know we’re safer together,

Half-baking in the broken July heat –

And, lonely voices of confused dissent

Reserve our joy at this un-British weather.

We revel, a little, of course, bewitched

By glistening yachts beyond the crowded sand,

Admire our land which now seems so enriched -

This grand illusion, golden dawn, unearned, unplanned,

Half-drunk among full-drunks, dogs and outliers

Untouched as yet by the baptist suicide,

A statement that, freed from a withering planet,

we’ll starve alone after each deadline expires –

And I, so glumly overwhelmed with pride,

Pick all the scars off this jewel of Thanet.

The first point of fear, invasion, defence,

mission, belief, communion, immersion,

defiantly English in every sense

long past undergoing any further conversion,

its status, its glory perennially won.

We build her first castle – the centre just holds.

The yelp of triumph echoes round the bay,

it firms, served by the same prodigious sun

as roses blooming, wine divine! I fold …

to the wonder of this one summer’s day.

That thirty-odd miles so close and so far,

I make out the ghosts of the rescue flotilla

And swell with the spirit which now serves as our

Priapic, myopic, patriot pilot-slash-killer.

Boats crewed by good-time old boys born again

As military heroes that perilous May day

Set out under siege from Stella Maris

Return with their prize, bullish supermen

Only half-joking as they proudly say they

Should straightway be sent to liberate Paris.

And while the flags of St George still held proud,

Any identity mine for taking,

I’d have sung that dreary anthem wild and loud

If it kept that rarefied summer spell from breaking.

That England - I loved, that wise man’s mixture,

A cute culmination of all they did wrong

When voting for some England they think they knew

Washing the rest of us out of their picture.

And now, in loss, they can take their dull song

Back to the parched land that history outgrew.

And if we sing the Marsellaise, at least

Our child will know she’s European – not

Held down, but scion of the west and the east,

Of unity her birth month so brutally forgot.

She’s joined to two cities, two counties, three

countries, French, Irish, British as she feels.

We’ll sing “Allez les bleus” if the mood takes,

I’ll sell Celtic soul just as surely as she

Will beat the savage hand this era deals

Will storm the Bastille before the storm breaks.

Celebratory spitfires scatter our sky -

She shouts with glee “see you later, airplane,

Love you!”. Our peacetime idyll serves to defy

Despair, all logic and all data scanned in vain

When faced with her joy in our summer garden.

But history recalls, amidst all the spoilers

The sparkling dawn b’fore the darkest hour.

once more, my mind and my heart’s hopes harden

Recalling we’re subject to wasteful, joyless

Demagogue traders’ unquenched lust for power.

Sunburnt, exhausted, defiant, yet still

Clear enough-headed to want to be lost

In the splendour of Kent’s blooming hills

We break from the dismal rigour of counting cost

As the heat dial hits thirty-three, we spy,

In Tenterden, en route to the winery

A gathering of mayors of various places

Gloriously flaunting their small piece of pie

Roasting their lunch off in sweet sozzled finery,

Their bumbling airs enhanced by Three Graces.

The sun’s full force slams the Weald’s rowed slopes,

Once barren, now primed with vines of the south –

The yield and range beyond all wildest hopes,

A weight on the pocket and a gift to the mouth.

I’m sold – the history, the science, the taste.

This is our time, we people of the Downs,

We blessed Cantiaci, we converts-by-line

These grapes have produced, these bottles have graced

The tables and tastebuds of sceptical towns

Who’d have sworn by the Mediterranean wine.

A county reborn as holiday hotspot

Claims champagne chalk from the first (free) degree,

Barely looks back at the home grape’s gut rot

Proclaims itself centralised, unleashed, wholly free.

A country consumed by former glories

Plans the big projects, blocks out the midwives,

Lets in the suckers, the slavers and frackers,

Telling themselves unearthed empire stories

Dizzied, determined on living their best lives

Lost to all gods barring Eris and Bacchus.

The waves are rising to the darkening cliffs.

The shore is moving, we’re a smaller land

Shrinking with each feckless tectonic shift

As the wrecker extends his tiny, oily hand

And we watch in horror as it’s accepted.

I look across one more time to Dunkirk

Where the French army was left to fight and die -

No wonder our grudging requests are rejected

Now, still expecting the old tropes to work

On a union sneered at and slowly bled dry.

This sweet spot, right now, ripe, tanned and ready

For harvest, strawberry red to be picked

Suffering a summer goldrush so heady

That most have forgotten (or stopped caring) they’re tricked

By the knot at the bottom of the flourishing vine

Into thinking we’ve seen the last of the weevil

Who’ll reduce all this beauty to a savage grey season.

Then, if we’ve time, we’ll record the decline

As “The Age Anthropocene Ultaeval” –

That’ll give the last lie to the Age of Reason.

A foolish country now can’t be protected

By any sharp wits or carping voices,

It hardly yet matters which path’s selected –

choices were made long before, we live by those choices.

You’re wise to be wary, my little beauty -

This sea, here, divides and rules as it wills –

There’s so much, I worry, I can’t hold at bay,

Such weight in this one defining duty.

The tide comes in and our feeble moat fills,

But we’re long gone this time, this one summer’s day.

A Vs B: Part 3 - Kanye West vs Jay-Z

These comparisons won’t always involve great expertise or indeed superfandom. Neither is hip-hop my natural milieu nor am I completely familiar with all of Kanye or Jay-Z’s back catalogue.

But I’ve listened to both quite a lot, and I like both quite a lot, and I think their friendship/rivalry is pretty interesting. I was also amused to discover that both share birthdays with close relatives of mine, so I looked up to see if I also shared a birthday with a titan of rap. I found Coolio. Oh well …

They are the only two rappers to have headlined Glastonbury, Jay-Z in 2008 and West in 2015. How the two sets went down is instructive. Probably there was more pressure on Jay-Z, being the first and with more consistent luddite outcry, but his set was a triumph. He got the crowd onboard with his covers (inc Wonderwall and Rehab) and converted many new fans. At that point (pre ‘Empire State of Mind’) he didn’t actually have that many massive UK hits (not including Crazy in Love and Umbrella, on which he was very much in a supporting role. )

Whereas people somewhat assumed Kanye West would be a triumph. 2015 was pretty much peak “Kanye is a genius” … not only was he an acclaimed artist, he also had an awful lot of well-known bangers he could call on. Yet his set was odd, and in the end, a disappointment. He read the crowd wrong, basically. It’s not that the songs weren’t good, he just didn’t really provide a great show, chose the wrong guest (Bon Iver, big in indie but not Glastonbury-headline exciting) and the wrong cover (Bohemian Rhapsody, dreadful). His judgement was poor. It was weird. He didn’t control the narrative.

A pretty simplistic comparison is that Jay-Z is like the hip-hop Rolling Stones and Kanye West thinks he’s the hip-hop Beatles, but he’s more like …hmm … I don’t think ELO is quite right, maybe … Queen – maybe he thinks that himself actually, maybe that’s what Bohemian Rhapsody was all about (though of course Queen famously seized their big gig). He is capable of brilliance, but there is so much excess, all his albums have induced boredom and the skip button in me at some point.

Whereas I’d say Jay-Z is generally compelling, concise, funny, clear-headed. When I listen to Kanye West there are a lot of attention-seeking phrases which turn out to be not much more than self-serving wordplay gibberish. I think the thread, the point of Jay-Z songs is nearly always clear.

You know, these kind of things by and large come down to “whose voice do you prefer”, “whose rhymes do you prefer”, “who’s done more great songs” but I do think, with major hip-hop artists more than in other genres, staying congruent and steering clear of being ludicrous is pretty important. Kanye West has seriously damaged the acclaim in which he might be held, and I think that infects his music.

What else? Kanye West’s music is exhausting. Even his best albums are exhausting. At his best, there’s a punkish, claustrophobic questioning brilliance to what he does with both music and words, but you can never just settle into it. And too often, when it challenges you, you don’t end up going “god, that’s something I hadn’t considered before” but “you know, that’s just silly”.

At his worst, Jay Z is still pretty decent, whereas Kanye West, at his worst, is dreadful. Honestly, I think I started out thinking it was quite close between them, but the more I listen to them, it’s really not close.

A vs B: Part 2 - Blue vs Court and Spark

And for my next trick …

Sometimes, I’ll pit two entities against each other which both have strong arguments and weigh those up, but here, you know, this isn’t terribly close, and isn’t generally thought to be.

There’s nothing controversial or interesting about saying I like Joni Mitchell’s ‘Blue’ better than her ‘Court and Spark’. ‘Blue’ is pretty universally agreed to be Mitchell’s masterpiece. It’s either, at any given time, my favourite, second favourite or third album in the world.

Firstly, I should say I have a pretty weird internal thing going on where comparing Joni Mitchell to Bob Dylan has been, over the last few years, my personal testing ground for whether I’m utterly in thrall to the patriarchal received truth of things.

Quite a lot of intelligent voices (not just David Crosby) have said in recent times that Mitchell should not just be seen as the great female songwriter but the great songwriter full stop, whose musicality and originality place her above Dylan. A little challenged by this, I have tried to give the same amount of time and effort to listening to and reading about Joni as I used to with Bob.

Well, I think, after all that, I’m still in thrall to the patriarchy, sadly, but I do think I should stop comparing Mitchell to Dylan and instead compare her to herself.

So … Bob Dylan was inspired by ‘Blue’ to write ‘Tangled Up in Blue’ whereas he fell asleep in a playback of ‘Court and Spark’ …. ha, no that’s all …

Firstly, it’s not entirely “apples and pears” to compare them. ‘Court and Spark’ was Mitchell’s most commercially successful album at the time and is still highly acclaimed, usually, I’d say the second of her albums in all-time lists.

‘Blue’ and ‘Court and Spark’ are 2 ½ years apart, but it sounds longer. ‘Court and Spark’ marks a “progression” – vocally, in arrangements, in maturity of the subject matter. But … it’s all a bit boring.

Compared to ‘Blue’, there’s so little jeopardy. Maybe it’s about the men (jeezus, no …). But the subjects of the ‘Blue’ heartache were songwriters like James Taylor, Graham Nash and Leonard Cohen. ‘Court and Spark’ is about Hollywood lotharios like Warren Beatty. Much duller.

And she is involved but also amused and distant. ‘Help Me’’s first lines are “Help me, I think I’m falling in love again”. Imagine those lines on ‘Blue’ the potential power and desperation they might possess.

Whereas here, they’re just a gentle sigh. Silly me, she says. She doesn’t actually need any help.

Don’t get me wrong, ‘Help Me’ is a great song, one of the best on the album. It’s her most successful pop song, and it’s a great tune.

In fact, the album starts brilliantly. I love the title track – it hints and intrigues, it takes its time and solves the mystery of the album’s slightly odd title.

After those two, it’s ‘Free Man in Paris’ – again, considered something of a classic – and sure, it’s a good song, but, you know, I always feel the chorus doesn’t scan that well, does it … “I felt unfettered and alive … “ “stoking the starmaker machinery behind the popular song …”. It’s all a bit Manics-y, no? And, you know, who cares that much how tough things are for billionaire music executives?

Still, strong start … but then … honestly, the album gradually loses me every time. It’s like ‘Swingers’ or something, just an indistinct blur of barely intriguing playboys and parties, of the geography of LA and somewhat involved observations.

‘Blue’ cuts with every word, every chord, yet is still fun, funny, cool. And of course, she shouldn’t have to play the victim every time, and being the amused observer-participant is great, but I think she’d go on to do it in a much more interesting, bold way elsewhere – on ‘The Hissing of Summer Lawns’ and particularly ‘Hejira’ which I think is streets ahead of ‘Court and Spark’.

An … ‘Raised on Robbery’ is pretty dreadful, and ‘Twisted’ is even worse.

Quite a common take is that Mitchell’s golden period from ‘Blue’ through to ‘Hejira’ is one of the greatest runs in the history of pop music, and I actually agree, but I think it’s first and last are its greatest, and its middle its weakest.

I would score them

Blue 10

For the Roses 8 ½

Court and Spark 7

The Hissing of Summer Lawns 8 ½

Hejira 9

So there …. This is fun.

An ongoing series ... A vs B: Part 1 - A Design for Life Vs Common People

On my sport blog, I recently did a few “Who/what’s better – A or B” posts. It was fun – it’s obviously reductive and far more subjective when it comes to music than sport, but I thought it would be nice to do a series of these, not least because it starts as a way to write the following post in a simple way.

Oddly, I’ve been trying to write this post for about four years – it’s literally just a comparison of two pop songs, but each time I’ve tried I’ve found myself going down so many blind alleys, torturing myself with how to say a simple thing correctly.

So, the simple thing is, I prefer ‘A Design for Life’ by The Manic Street Preachers to ‘Common People’ by Pulp.

These are the two great class-based indie anthems of the mid-90s, one a Number 2 in spring 95, one a Number 2 in spring 96.

What I instinctively felt about ‘Common People’ I still feel now. It’s wrong. It doesn’t earn the right to be anthemic.

This is an oddly delicate point for me to make, which necessarily leads me to being open to accusations of entitlement and privilege. Weird, isn’t it?

Jarvis Cocker tells a story (of doubtful truth) of a certain kind of rich/posh person who wants to slum it for a while with the “common people” Of course, these people do exist, but, you know what, not that many of them.

Not enough for the song to then become a universal anthem, which people claimed told a timeless truth about the British class system. That, above all, was what bothered me. The song was catchy and witty sure, but it was disingenuous and over-inflated.

Here’s a caveat for my overthought views. I never felt I was a Pulp person. I saw Pulp people around, and they were skinnier than me, had better hair, and were the kind of people who sneered at you for liking sport, I thought. Pulp sang for the mis-shapes but I felt they had to be a certain shape of mis-shape.

Whereas the Manics … they did songs about communism, despair, death penalty, art movements, bulimia, sure…. but they also did songs about Matthew Maynard and Steve Ovett. They were beautifully different but also beautifully mundane. I had no problem being a Manics fan, because I didn’t feel the Manics had “typical” fans.

So I was never on board with Pulp.

The target of ‘Common People’ is, if you will, the “good posh”. Not the indifferent, heartless ones, but the ones who at least show a movement towards empathy and understanding the world. And the lyric to ‘Common People’ picks on the kind who play lip service but are really just engaging in class tourism.

But my genuine experience is that that’s a vastly overstated group. Actually overwhelmingly the good posh aren’t trying to fuck about and they end up living a life – early signs of empathy, even crassly expressed, are likely going to lead to a life with some element of value and of consideration.

These people are not the problem, not really. It’s the ones who have absolutely no fucking interest what the “common people” are doing who are the problem.

If ‘Common People’ had been a little story-song, I’d be fine with it, but I hate its expansion, its epic quality. It’s a con. It’s a clever trick by a clever writer.

I will say that a) Jarvis Cocker has written some beautiful poignant songs and b) he’s written one brilliant, simple, universal anthem, ‘Running the World’, which is every kind of unquestionable, fiery truth that ‘Common People’ is not.

As is ‘A Design for Life’, which I love more every year. I love its sound, I suppose I think if you’re going to go big, go all out. I love its proud, redemptive place in the lifeline of the band, I love its defiance, its positivity, its fury, its simplicity, I love its target – the universal subjugation of and careless condescension to the British working-class. It rings true. The Manics are a true British liberal’s ideal (probably something they’d despise) – the childhood oddball friends who went on to be the smartest, the most humane, the longest-lasting and the most popular.

They deserve every accolade. Sure, Jarvis Cocker and others write archer, wittier lyrics (which scan better sometimes …) but there’s a truth and beauty to this band which you rarely find. Certainly not in ‘Common People’.

Right, done. That’s the short, unwhiny version …

100 Nick Cave Songs

Here are my 100 favourite Nick Cave songs, in order. They're by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds unless otherwise stated.

1. People Ain’t No Good
2. Girl in Amber
3. There She Goes, My Beautiful World
4. The Ship Song
5. Into My Arms
6. The Mercy Seat
7. Darker with the Day
8. The Sorrowful Wife
9. Stagger Lee
10. The Weeping Song
11. Skeleton Tree
12. Jubilee Street
13. Love Letter
14. Straight to You
15. Higgs Boson Blues
16. No Pussy Blues - Grinderman
17. Distant Sky
18. Babe, I’m on Fire 
19. Brompton Oratory
20. Oh My Lord
21. Far from Me 
22. Push the Sky Away
23. No More Shall We Part
24. We Know Who U R
25. God is in the House
26. Nobody’s Baby Now
27. Nature Boy
28. Lime Tree Arbour
29. Where do We Go Now But Nowhere
30. Where the Wild Roses Grow (with Kylie Minogue)
31. Are You the One That I've Been Waiting For?
32. Still in Love with You
33. Hallelujah
34. Jesus Alone
35. Henry Lee (with PJ Harvey)
36. Bring It On (with Chris Bailey)
37. I Need You
38. We Call Upon the Author 
39. West Country Girl
40. Red Right Hand
41. Idiot Prayer
42. From Her to Eternity
43. Tupelo
44. As I Sat Sadly By Her Side
45. There is a Kingdom  
46. He Wants You
47. Get Ready for Love
48. Palaces of Montezuma - Grinderman
49. Right Out of Your Hand
50. Magneto
51. Hide it All Away
52. Papa Won't Leave You Henry?
53. Get it On - Grinderman
54. Death is Not the End (cover, with various)
55. Release the Bats - The Birthday Party
56. Gates to the Garden
57. Breathless
58. Black Hair
59. Stranger Than Kindness
60. Rings of Saturn
61. More News From Nowhere
62. Do You Love Me?
63. Everything Must Converge
64. Mermaids
65. Sweetheart Come
66. The Carny
67. Anthrocene
68. Babe You Turn Me On
69. O Children
70. Up Jumped the Devil
71. Wonderful Life 
72. Finishing Jubilee Street
73. 15 Feet of Pure White Snow
74. Shoot Me Down
75. The Lyre of Orpheus
76. Wide Lovely Eyes
77. We Came Along this Road
78. Heathen Child - Grinderman
79. Lay Me Low
80. I Let Love In
81. Dig Lazarus Dig
82. Water's Edge
83. Lament
84. Messiah Ward
85. Easy Money
86. O'Malley's Bar
87. Worm Tamer - Grinderman
88. Jennifer's Veil - The Birthday Party
89. Jesus of the Moon
90. King Ink - The Birthday Party
91. Come Into My Sleep
92. City of Refuge
93. Today's Lesson
94. Song of Joy
95. Nick the Stripper - The Birthday Party
96. The Hammer Song
97. The Singer
98. Sad Waters
99. Junkyard - The Birthday Party
100. Green Eyes

UNDIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY

Wrote this a while back. Doesn't stop being relevant. This guy ... the king of nothing matters ...

UNDIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY

This will all end happily,

As everything has done for me

From birth to school to public life

This world’s the butter -  I’m the knife.

This will all go swimmingly

Like everything involved with me

The dirt flows off, to god knows where,

I’ve never been inclined to care.

Indulgence brought impunity –

Each crime an opportunity

To line my stomach, free from shame,

Play dumb, accept no crumb of blame.

The hubris of a flattered child

Will not allow that I’m reviled –

My self-regard survives, unharmed,

I feel charming, I am charmed.

For I have set the people free

From red tape and bureaucracy

And still, the ingrates chirp and chide –

Their dull despair my point of pride.

In time, those left in the lurch will

Grasp that I’m their circus Churchill -

All my shames and falls and slips

By rote-learnt rhetoric eclipsed.

I’ve dodged or charged from post to post

Pursued, not caught, by bitter ghosts,

Of love and war and money lost,

For mine to spend is theirs to cost.

There is an alternative draft –

I made a joke and no one laughed

I owned up when the fault was mine

I had the honour to resign.

My face was gaunt and stained with shame,

I realised this was not my game

but people’s lives and nation’s fate

I realised it a day too late.

I took that draft, made sure it burned,

At once, my ripened hue returned.

For I have set the people free

From ever being rid of me.

200 Bob Dylan Songs

There's a commonly expressed theory that pop artists, even the most renowned of them, really only have a maximum of ten truly great songs in them.

Anyway, here are my 200 favourite Bob Dylan songs, from 1 to 200.

1. Idiot Wind
2. To Ramona
3. Isis (live unreleased version)
4. Blind Willie McTell
5. Like a Rolling Stone
6. The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
7. Mississippi
8. Simple Twist Of Fate
9. Visions Of Johanna
10. She's Your Lover Now
11. Hurricane
12. Every Grain Of Sand
13. One Too Many Mornings
14. Workingman Blues #2
15. Lay Down Your Weary Tune
16. Boots Of Spanish Leather
17. Most Of The Time
18. Love Minus Zero/No Limit
19. I Threw It All Away
20. Don't Think Twice, It's All Right
21. Lily, Rosemary And The Jack Of Hearts
22. Mr Tambourine Man
23. Not Dark Yet
24. Shelter From The Storm
25. Blowin' in the Wind
26. I Shall Be Released
27. Tangled Up In Blue
28. When The Ship Comes In
29. Masters of War
30. I Feel a Change Comin' On
31. Positively 4th Street
32. When The Deal Goes Down
33. You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go
34. Subterranean Homesick Blues
35. One Of Us Must Know (Sooner Or Later)
36. As I Went Out One Morning
37. Series of Dreams
38. A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall
39. Chimes Of Freedom
40. Spanish Harlem Incident
41. Girl from the North Country
42. Brownsville Girl
43. With God On Our Side
44. Ballad of a Thin Man
45. Talkin' World War III Blues
46. The Man In Me
47. I Want You
48. Up to Me
49. Just Like a Woman
50. Long and Wasted Years
51. It's Alright, Ma, I'm Only Bleeding
52. Dear Landlord
53. What Good Am I?
54. Standing In The Doorway
55. Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest
56. New Morning
57. Gates of Eden
58. I Shall Be Free
59. Restless Farewell
60. Shooting Star
61. All I Really Want to Do
62. Changing Of The Guards
63. If You See Her, Say Hello
64. My Back Pages
65. Baby Stop Crying
66. Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again
67. Baby Let Me Follow You Down
68. You're a Big Girl Now
69. Must Be Santa
70. Highway 61 Revisited
71. Only a Pawn in their Game
72. It Ain't Me Babe
73. Nettie Moore
74. I Shall Be Free No 10
75. Bob Dylan's 115th Dream
76. Ring Them Bells
77. Angelina
78. Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues
79. Gotta Serve Somebody
80. Trying to Get to Heaven
81. Dark Eyes
82. Moonshiner
83. Quinn the Eskimo
84. Bob Dylan's Dream
85. Tombstone Blues
86. Romance in Durango
87. Soon after Midnight
88. Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands
89. Death is Not the End
90. Ballad of Hollis Brown
91. Red River Shore
92. Percy's Song
93. Queen Jane Approximately
94. I Don't Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)
95. Life is Hard
96. Why Try to Change Me Now
97. It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry
98. It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
99. Spirit on the Water
100. Song to Woody
101. Make You Feel My Love
102. Paths of Victory
103. Where Teardrops Fall
104. One More Cup of Coffee
105. The Times they are a Changin'
106. Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance
107. Tears of Rage
108. I Dreamed I Saw St Augustine
109. Pay in Blood
110. Knockin' on Heaven's Door
111. John Wesley Harding
112. Desolation Row
113. Mama You Been On My Mind
114. Oxford Town
115. North Country Blues
116. Love is Just a Four Letter Word
117. If Not for You
118. Love Sick
119. All Along the Watchtower
120. Jokerman
121. Buckets of Rain
122. Corrina Corrina
123. Forever Young
124. Disease of Conceit
125. Motorpsycho Nightmare
126. Senor (Tales of Yankee Power)
127. Sugar Baby
128. Sara
129. Moonlight
130. Dignity
131. Roll on John
132. Fourth Time Around
133. Down the Highway
134. Most Like You Go Your Way and I'll Go Mine
135. Mozambique
136. Duquesne Whistle
137. She Belongs to Me
138. Things Have Changed
139. Precious Angel
140. Early Roman Kings
141. I Pity the Poor Immigrant
142. Ain't Talkin'
143. Meet Me in the Morning
144. I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
145. Lay Lady Lay
146. Solid Rock
147. Drifter's Escape
148. Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window
149. Can't Wait
150. Goin' to Acapulco
151. Po' Boy
152. Tell Me That It Isn't True
153. Bye and Bye
154. Temporarily like Achilles
155. Shenandoah
156. Who Killed Davey Moore
157. Maggie's Farm
158. Abandoned Love
159. He Was a Friend of Mine
160. Tomorrow is a Long Time
161. Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat
162. Caribbean Wind
163. You Ain't Going Nowhere
164. If you Gotta Go, Go Now
165. Rank Strangers to Me
166. Let Me Die in My Footsteps
167. Stay With Me
168. This Wheel's on Fire
169. I'm Not There
170. Beyond Here Lies Nothin'
171. Black Diamond Bay
172. Man of Constant Sorrow
173. That Lucky Old Sun
174. High Water (for Charley Patton)
175. Slow Train Coming
176. I'll Keep it With Mine
177. Cold Irons Bound
178. Forgetful Heart
179. House of the Rising Sun
180. Honest with Me
181. Cry a While
182. On a Night Like This
183. Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With you
184. Walls of Red Wings
185. Thunder on the Mountain
186. Rainy Day Women #12 and #35
187. Joey
188. I and I
189. Day of the Locusts
190. No Time To Think
191. Scarlet Town
192. Tweeter and the Monkey Man
193. When I Paint My Masterpiece
194. Watching the River Flow
195. Born in Time
196. Mixed Up Confusion
197. Crash on the Levee
198. Under the Red Sky
199. Silvio
200. Hark the Herald Angels Sing

A Bob Dylan Album

Much though I respect the man’s stubborn muse, I have ended up imagining in pretty considerable detail the album I wish Bob Dylan would make, wherein, compelled by the tragedy of Trump’s America, Bob returns to his protest routes, while combining elements of his austere early-60s roots with echoes of the mid-70s “Rolling Thunder” tours.

The album will be co-produced by Dylan and Jeff Tweedy of Wilco, with backing vocals/duets by and with Mavis Staples and Emmylou Harris:

It is called:

Same Times

Track Listing:

Side 1:

Poison in the Water

The Deal Won’t Go Down

George Zimmerman Blues

Imperceptibly Like a Swamp

For Every Wall a Thousand Tunnels

The Cruel Landlord

The Ballad of Colin Kaepernick

Side 2:

Draining the Delta

Golf Club Incident

Ain’t Gonna Wear (a Long Black Trenchcoat)

If I Pardon Jack Johnson

The Plague that Never Fades

Talkin’ Red Cap Blues Part 3

Bob Dylan’s Last American Dream