1: Bigger All Important Breakfast Show (BAIBS). get it now?
2: The Boomtown Rats.
3: Wensleydale with cranberries.
4: Between 9 and 18.
5: The Boomtown Rats.
6: I've no idea.
7: Def Leppard with an apple pie.
8: Hampshire. Kent if it's a leap year.
9: An unduly large llama.
10: The Boomtown Rats.
Glad we've got that out the way.
Our bin went missing about a month ago. I've just been all down the back alley looking for it or the new bin ordered from DMBC. No sign of either at all. There were about 4 other people having the same problem. I then realised I was in the wrong alley and tried again in the right one. I blame yesterday's events for my befuddledness. Same outcome in the right alley but with 6 people bin hunting this time. There's obviously a spree of bin thefts. If anyone in a Balby pub offers you a second hand black wheelie, no questions asked, can you let me know please.
I mentioned sometime ago about politics in music but I'll be honest I've been avoiding the issue. I know what I'm like for going off on tangents and political ranting so thought maybe I should avoid it. If you still feel I should avoid it you may want to skip to apricot frying later in the blog.
I played Peter Gabriel's Biko on today's show. Steve Biko was an anti-apartheid activist, born this day in 1946 and murdered in a South African police cell in 1977. He was beaten and tortured which resulted into him slipping into a coma. Police claimed he committed suicide by going on hunger strike despite the multiple and massive injuries to his head. No-one was ever charged for his murder. When I first heard Biko I was at that 'What you rebelling against? What you got?' stage and it's the first song that made me politically aware. As Billy Bragg said 'If you've got a black list I wanna be on it.'
I played it some time ago on the radio and received an email saying music and politics should never mix. I flippantly replied on air that music should always be about politics. Part of the problem here is a lot of people assume that a 'political song' basically has a left wing be a socialist mantra going through it. This is rarely the case. Biko itself is about the horrors of apartheid, the murder of an innocent man and a calling to stand up and be counted. A longing for justice not socialism. A political song should make you think, whether you agree with the sentiment or not, it's about making people aware. Nothing more. It's a personal choice if the listener, or writer for that matter, act on what they've heard.
As for my 'music should always be about politics' statement this is obviously not possible. Probably our most political songwriter, Billy Bragg (Between The Wars, The Great Leap Forward, Scousers Never Buy The Sun) still writes songs such as Walk Away Renee - a story of falling in love, thinking it would be forever, then falling out of love. It could be argued this is the politics of love of course.
Chumbawumba were a hugely political band but there biggest hit was a song about drinking.
Madness have always been massively political but their message seemed to get lost in the whole commercial fairgroundness of their singles. Embarrassment was written by Lee Thompson about a member of his family who gave birth to a half-caste child and the fallout that followed, One Better Day (homelessness) and Michael Caine (supergrasses in Northern Ireland) were all political songs who's message never really got across. I urge you to check out Blue Skinned Beast off The Rise And Fall album. An excellent anti-war (in this case The Falklands) song.
I told you I'd ramble. My point, my view, is if a songwriter has a strong viewpoint on ANY subject they're in the perfect position to make people aware. More than anyone else in the public eye. Journalists and politicians are no longer trusted and soap box street preachers are dismissed as Manic. Ian McNabb could stand on a street corner and rant about the banks and fat cats that have brought this country to it's knees or he could write a song like High On A Hill (check that one out too) and make far more people listen.
I personally feel it's more important than ever given this government's divide and conquer domestic policy.
Apparently my good friend Bo got home from his gig Saturday night and decide to poach an egg. It was the healthy option. Given the bottle of red he'd consumed that night I'm not sure any kind of healthy option was really relevant. Still, he poached an egg, with no water. Chaos. Should have stuck with the unhealthy frying option. My mother used to bake regularly and there'd often be an unused egg in a cup in the fridge waiting to be used in some cake. I came home drunk one night, peckish as per, and spied such an egg in the fridge. That'll do thinks I and proceeded to fry said egg only for it just refuse point blank to fry properly. I gave up and went to bed. My mum woke me next morning and asked why I'd been trying to fry an apricot.
Spell check wants me to change befuddledness to bloodletting!
Laters
SS
Playlist Tuesday 18/12/12
Roxette - Dr. Feelgood
Temptation - New Order
So Here We Are - Bloc Party
Do They Know It's Christmas - Band Aid
Never Knew Your Name - Madness
Big Sur - The Thrills
Born Of Frustration - James
Bring On The Dancing Horses - Echo and the Bunnymen
Molly Gray - Sick Note Tez
Time For Heroes -The Libertines
Dancing Makes Her Happy - Jery At Controls
Fairytale Of New York - The Pogues ft Kirsty MacColl
Walking Down Madison - Kirsty MacColl
A Song For Lovers - Richard Ashcroft
Antarctica - Sound Of Guns
We've Gotta Get out Of This Place - The Animals
Somewhere - The Pilots
No You Girls - Franz Ferdinand
I'm Waiting For The Man - The Velvet Underground
Always Like This - Bombay Bicycle Club
Mr. E's Beautiful Blues - Eels
Don't Know Why - The Beeds
Ship Of Fools - World Party
Hush - Kula Shaker
Rebel Rebel - David Bowie
Biko - Peter Gabriel
Song For The Deaf - Missing Andy
Everything - The Darlingtons
It Cant Be Me - The 48ks
Rip It Up - Orange Juice
Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) - U2
Along For The Ride - AVIT Blues Band
Time To Pretend - MGMT
One More Shot - The Rolling Stones
Start Me Up - The Rolling Stones
All These Things I've Done - The Killers
Taste It - Jake Bugg
A Certain Romance - Arctic Monkeys
Egyptian Reggae - Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers
No comments:
Post a Comment