Anyone looking for a metaphor for the parlous state of the UK today doesn’t need to go very far. They only have to look at Theresa May’s speech at the Tory Party Conference yesterday. Just about everything that could go wrong did. The prankster illustrating the lack of authority the office of Prime Minister now holds. That letter falling off the slogan in the background which says it all about how austerity has hollowed away national cohesion and expertise. The slogan itself – a blatant example of truth reversal (they’re not building the country; they’re tearing it apart; they never do anything for everyone, they act for themselves, those who fund them and the extremely well-off.) A leader struggling to overcome the problems (albeit not entirely of her own making – though she didn’t do much to prevent their coming to pass and arguably contributed to their increase) in front of her.
And what on Earth was that about the British Dream?
There isn’t a British Dream*. We don’t do that sort of thing. We’re not USian.
But the phrase reminded me irresistibly of this song written by Roger Waters and taken from Pink Floyd’s album The Final Cut, from which I filched this post’s title. And the question it poses is a good one. I can trace all the ills that befall life in the UK today to that government from the 1980s. Kow-towing to the power of money, rampant exploitation of workers, poorly paid jobs, lack of social housing, high private rents – all have their roots in those times.
There are two unfortunate references in the song’s lyric, though. “Nips” (but that of course enables the rhyme) and “England”. She did damage to a hell of a lot more than England, Roger.
Pink Floyd: The Postwar Dream
*If there is it consists of getting the better of Johnny Foreigner and despising its own working class.
This Roy Wood song was originally planned as a single but ended up as the B-side of Flowers in the Rain famously the first song to be played on Radio 1, fifty years ago this week
There’s a great rhyme in the lyric: plans/underpants. Not to mention cider/beside her.
The Move:- (Here we go round) The Lemon Tree
Jeff Lynne (of ELO fame)’s first group The Idle Race also recorded it as a single but it was only released in Europe and the US.
You know I have a soft spot for rhyming. (See for example here and here.) There is an art to it when it’s done well and inventively, the rhymes woven into the overall story the song tells.
In this song Jackson Browne manages to find at seven rhymes for pretender. Some are reasonably obvious – legal tender, his fender, the spender, contender, surrender – but one is inspired; ice cream vendor. I must say though that “end there” is a bit iffy.
The only slight blemishes in its perfection are the lack of any assonance (rather than rhyme) in song/fill at the end of the first refrain – though song/dawn and song/all in the second and third are fine in that regard – and that in the last line of the first verse fret doesn’t rhyme with fear and cheer.
When you’re falling awake and you take stock of the new day,
And you hear your voice croak as you choke on what you need to say,
Well, don’t you fret, don’t you fear, I will give you good cheer.
Life’s a long song. Life’s a long song. Life’s a long song. If you wait then your plate I will fill.
As the verses unfold and your soul suffers the long day,
And the twelve o’clock gloom spins the room, you struggle on your way.
Well, don’t you sigh, don’t you cry, lick the dust from your eye.
Life’s a long song. Life’s a long song. Life’s a long song. We will meet in the sweet light of dawn.
As the Baker Street train spills your pain all over your new dress,
And the symphony sounds underground put you under duress,
Well don’t you squeal as the heel grinds you under the wheels.
Life’s a long song. Life’s a long song. Life’s a long song. But the tune ends too soon for us all.
This is one of those songs which started out in the US and was recorded by a British band who had the bigger hit in the UK albeit this time with an altered lyric. Unusually the hit US version by The American Breed, which I think I prefer, also reached the UK charts. In the video below (set to the recording I would suggest, but with added screams) they were obviously hamming up the miming.
I discovered two sad departures this week, both Peters, though one of them actually occurred in January.
Peter Skellern’s affection for the brass band sound made him stand out as a bit old fashioned in the early 1970s.
His biggest hit was You’re a Lady, no 3 in 1972.
Peter Skellern: You’re a Lady
I remembered his revival of Frank Noble’s song Love is the Sweetest Thing as being a bigger hit than in fact it was. It apparently only reached no 60. It has a brilliant lyric, though.
From the sublime (Al Stewart, last two weeks) to the gorblimey.
I’d almost forgotten about this till the good lady said she’d heard it on the radio this week
The Wurzels were a band from Somerset – a traditional rural farming county – who dubbed their style Scrumpy and Western after the name for a type of cider and a USian music genre.
A parody of Melanie (Safka)’s Brand New Key from 1971 with lyrics more appropriate to agriculture this, believe it or not, was actually a number one hit in the UK in 1976. For three weeks!
Bits of it are still funny, though. I especially like the spoken, “I just can’t wait till I get me ‘ands on your laaaaand,” towards the end.
The Wurzels: The Combine Harvester
Another Wurzels parody, this time of Una Paloma Blanca, got to number three in 1976.
The Wurzels: I am a Cider Drinker
There are clips on You Tube of the Wurzels performing this on TV but on one of them they are introduced by a paedophile and the other is incomplete.
Not the only “pop” song to be about the Spanish Civil War but the subject certainly marks it out as lyrically unusual. But then Al Stewart’s lyrics tended to the eclectic.
I know it’s not good form to speak ill of the dead but I’m afraid I can’t share the “National Treasure” stuff surrounding the passing of Cilla Black. She was undoubtedly a substantial entertainment figure of the 1960s though, with several big hits and many smaller ones. Yet to my mind her singing voice became too harsh when she upped the volume. In softer tones she could be quite effective though.
As to her later incarnation as a television presenter, I saw Blind Date once. It wasn’t for me. I never watched Surprise, Surprise.
I went off her completely when she was introducing some awards ceremony or other and mentioned Margaret Thatcher, at which the audience booed. Cilla then protested (against all reason) “But she’s put the great back in Great Britain.” Maybe for successful entertainers, but not for those left behind.
This was Cilla in her 1960s pomp, in a clip from Top of the Pops:-
Cilla Black: Surround Yourself With Sorrow
And here she is in her softer register. (Interesting that in the intervening almost forty years since I first heard her perform this song, to reflect our modern sensibilities the lyric has had to be changed from “ye’ll gerra belt from yer da’,” to “Ye’ll get told off by your da’.”)
Cilla Black: Liverpool Lullaby
Priscilla Maria Veronica White (Cilla Black): 27/5/1943-1/8/2015. So it goes.
