Mike Scott is on something of a late-career renaissance at the moment. Following on from his superb tribute to Denis Hopper last year, The Waterboys have just dropped this instant sing-along classic... although this one's about someone else, and it's a lot less complimentary.
Who assembled this enterprise
To deny the evidence of our eyes?
Who presided over this offense
Against decency and common sense ?
Whose dedication, whose labour
Turned neighbour against neighbour?
Who indeed should we blame?
I don't even have to say his name*
Who put the dogwhistle back in style?
Who makes every white supremacist smile?
Who put violence in peoples' heads?
The spider at the heart of the web
Who granted Ice immunity
To murder with impunity?
Who indeed should we blame?
I don't even have to say his name*
Two trains are rolling across America tonight
I can hear their wheels, I can see their lights
Well I don't know, but maybe you hear them too
One leads to Auschwitz, one leads to the new
Who took democracy and its sacred vote
And wrapped a noose around its throat?
Which insurrectionist and bogus King
Buried the White House under bling?
Who threatens like other people breathe?
Insults women every day on TV?
Who turned this country we hold dear
Into a land of fear?
Who indeed should we blame?
I don't even have to
I don't even have to say
I don't even have to say his name*
(*That line has a couple of extra words added when Mike sings it.)
Wait a minute, baby... we may all be long past the edge of seventeen, but who'd want to be a kid in this day and age? Far better to take our pleasures in the more relaxed pursuit of Snapshots.
Who are these people and how might their songs be connected?
15. Sounds like Jonathan, running down the road with one member of a D.C. band.
14. Told by a lavender clock.
13. Calm A Partridge by taking nothing from his surname.
12. Lottery, grid, curriculum.
11. Regularly used by Robson, Jerome and Sam.
10. Never stop looking for... Huey.
9. Made Stacy jump.
8. Found messed up in a crapulent YMCA.
7. Daley Thompson.
6. Thank God that's all over!
5. She's A Star in her playhouse.
4. Steve Rogers no longer wants to be associated with America.
We're back to over-analysing and justifying the track-list of the 32nd in-car compilation CD I made to introduce my son to the exciting world of pop music...
Track 9: Teardrop Explodes - Reward
One of those clear "why didn't I put this on an earlier CD?" moments, to which I have no sensible answer. Julian Cope's biggest hit, and arguably his finest hour. What can I say about Reward that hasn't been said by far smarter musicologists... like JC, The Vinyl Villain, for example...
The Guardian newspaper, in March 2015, had a feature on Reward in which Julian Cope and keyboardist Dave Balfe explained how they came up with and went about making the song. It turns out it was written in the main by guitarist Alan Gill, with him coming up initially with the bassline. Cope wanted it to sound like a northern soul classic and their first stab at it came via an effort for a BBC radio session but when they later got into the actual recording studio, the frontman decided to remove the drum intro so that the first and last thing you heard were trumpets, which, to be fair, was a stroke of genius as this is the instrument which really drives the song forward at pace. Balfe, in confirming that the band had problems coming up initially with a satisfactory recording and mix, heaps praise on the frontman for the end result, describing it as “…a mad awesome record unlike anything else in pop. We sounded like Vikings on acid fronted by a lunatic.”
Beyond JC's wise words, I will add that Reward contains one of the great opening lines...
Bless my cotton socks, I'm in the news
...apparently, Julian's reaction at becoming a music press darling back in 1981. The irony being that if the artist wishes to maintain any consistent level of popular success, he needs to sell out or shut up. You can't have your cake and eat it, pal.
Prisoners stand in queues and stand accused
Live in solitude like Howard Hughes All wrapped up the same All wrapped up the same
Silence has it Arrogance has it I can't have it, ooh Until I learn to accept my reward
Like all the very best pop songs from the early 80s, Rewards benefits greatly from the trumpets JC mentioned... although the trumpeters are seen driving around in a jeep in the video. As a former brass instrument player myself (see below), I'm not sure you'd get the best sounds out of your trumpet in that scenario.
Track 10: Kaiser Chiefs - Ruby
Another one of those songs I included more because it's a big catchy hit than because I love it. I do try and support the Kaiser Chiefs, since on paper they're my sort of band - local lads made good with one foot in pop and the other in indie, and generally their lyrics are a step up from the twaddle-swagger of Oasis and their ilk.
But...
But...
Beyond their debut album... maybe even beyond their debut chart hit (the undeniably excellent I Predict A Riot)... whisper it... Kaiser Chiefs are a little annoying, aren't they? They don't display the same levels of colossal arrogance as the Squabbling Mancs... but they can't help but appear ever so pleased with themselves at times. Nowhere more is that going to to be true then than on their sole Number One from 2007, when for a week at least, they were kings of the world.
It seems especially galling to me now that I slipped this one in between Reward and the track that follows it. But it's a big pop hit, and one of the few I can stomach from 2007, so that's my defence...
Track 11: Joni Mitchell - Big Yellow Taxi
...which brings us back to the classics.
For many years, Big Yellow Taxi was the only Joni Mitchell song I knew. I remember when I started working in radio, it would have been the only Joni song that stood a chance of getting played on our station (her only UK hit), and yet we didn't have a copy of it in the record library. Somebody brought their copy in from home and I dutifully recorded it onto cart so we could play it when needed.
Big Yellow Taxi is one of those perfect pop songs - as long as you promise never to listen to anyone sing it except Joni. Here's the lady herself, talking in 1969, telling the story of how she came to write it...
"Two weekends ago I went to Hawaii. It was my first time there and I was only there for two days which was kind of a bummer, I wish I could’ve really seen more of the island and I arrived there at 11 o’clock at night and the next morning I ran to the window and threw back the curtains and sure enough, there it was, paradise, you know, green, lush hills, old Sugarloaf Mountain up there, white birds flying low, Myna birds all over the place, and, right in the middle of it all, was a big parking lot [laughing]. So I wrote this little rock and roll song to commemorate the occasion. It’s called “Big Yellow Taxi,” or, alternately, “They Paved Paradise and Put in a Parking Lot.”
I have included the lyric above in English lessons as an example of good alliteration in pop songs. I'll crowbar my favourite songs into class however I can.
Track 12: John Miles - Music
I won't claim that every song I've put on these CDs for Sam has been a winner, but only occasionally has he asked me to take a song off (The Yeah Yeah Yeah song by the Flaming Lips was one he found particularly disturbing). Apathy is more likely than antipathy, and of all the songs on CD32, this would probably be the one that's sparked the least interest.
It is, let's be honest about it, a rather odd little pop song - not that little and not particularly pop, despite the message which appears universally aimed at those of us who cherish pop music as a lifeline.
Music was my first love And it will be my last. Music of the future And music of the past.
To live without my music Would be impossible to do. In this world of troubles, My music pulls me through.
You may not like the song, but I'd be surprised if you can't get behind the sentiment.
This relatable piano ballad section only accounts for about a third of Music's 6 minute run time though - the rest is orchestral pomp and swagger that would make Jimmy Webb proud. (McArthur Park was clearly an influence.) Apparently Music was regularly performed at The Last Night of the Proms, and I can understand why; it has that rousing, anthemic quality that would go down well with the flag-wavers, even though there's nothing remotely political or patriotic about it - unless you're patriotic about music itself, which I certainly am (far more so than I am about any particular patch of earth).
The song holds special significance for me because we used to play it in brass band - it's one of the few modern songs I remember performing as a tenor horn player. And whenever I remember those times, I remember how much in love I was with the horn player I sat next to, but she was a year older and she had boys in her room. Music was my first love... and it will be my last.
Welcome to the penultimate edition of the Cancel Culture Club. Yes, the steam's running out of this feature, but I like the idea of doing a Top Ten before calling it quits. Plus, I promised Ernie we'd find room for one of his favourites.
Meanwhile, we come to Lola. One of the biggest, most-loved hits by arguably Britain's best band of the 60s. Who in their right mind could possibly consider this classic pop song worthy of cancelling?
Step forward, honorary Cancel Culture Club member Richard Melville Hall, aka Moby, who last month decided that every copy of Lola should be burned in a big bonfire outside J.K. Rowling's mansion.
Here he is speaking the Grauniad, who probably cherished this quote and sent Moby a medal for his Services To Pseudo-Woke...
Lola by the Kinks came up on a Spotify playlist, and I thought the lyrics were gross and transphobic. I like their early music, but I was really taken aback at how unevolved the lyrics are.
OK, with the cat now firmly ensconced amid the pigeons, I wonder what the original CCC Committee members think about this matter? JC, The Vinyl Villain - care to offer your thoughts?
And to be honest, if that was the only response Moby's rant had elicited, I'd have been pretty content to leave it at that. But JC wasn't alone in his opprobrium. Here's the aforementioned Secret Agent and Alan Wicker replacement, Ernie from 27 Leggies..
Can we cancel Moby for being a pillock and, according to Natalie Portman, a bit of a creepy perv?
Do I need to add the word "allegedly" to that? Just to be on the safe side?
Blur - Girls & Boys
All very good, of course, but none of this is getting us any closer to considering the issue at hand - is Lola transphobic? SWC from No Badger Required...?
I do as it happens, have a very good story about Lola by the Kinks.....
Well, I do hope you'll share that with us one day, SWC, perhaps on your own blog in between all the other top notch features (currently a reader-generated list of the world's most underappreciated bands, of which my own entry will stick out like a sore thumb).
That's how I've always interpreted it, C - and as always, you are able to express that in a far more precise and succinct way than I could have managed. And although songwriter Ray Davies remained silent on Moby's comments, his brother Dave was less reluctant to wade in...
“I am highly insulted that Moby would accuse my brother of being ‘unevolved’ or transphobic in any way.”
Dave goes on to explain how the song had support back in the 70s from San Francisco band The Cockettes, which included transgender members.
“We appreciated them. Why is Moby being so rude about this simple song? We’re not transphobic. Why does he have to have a go at us?”
Furthermore, Dave shared a letter from Dallas-born trans-punk singer Jayne County who admitted to being “thrilled and amazed” by Lola...
“Lola will always be one of those songs that for me ‘broke the ice’ so to speak! A song that breaks down barriers and brings a used to be, hush, hush subject to the forefront and makes it sound perfectly natural to be singing a song about a ‘girl’ named Lola!”
All of which sounds pretty conclusive to me, but it does open up a wider issue, which - once again - I'll let C put into words far better than mine...
What concerns me more instead is if there becomes an increasing trend of jumping on the 'woke' bandwagon without actually thinking something through and fully examining why, and Moby's outcry about these lyrics strikes me as a perfect example of that - a knee jerk response. There's only one jerk here as far as I can see, though, and it's not Ray Davies.
When I was initially putting together a list of songs for the Cancel Culture Club to tackle, I never considered Lola... until I asked Professor Google and found a number of people online who held the same opinion as Moby... and it wasn't just Lola that raised their hackles. No, there's also a lot of grumbling about this little beauty...
Holly came from Miami, F.L.A.
Hitch-hiked her way across the U.S.A.
Plucked her eyebrows on the way
Shaved her legs and then he was a she
She says, "Hey babe, take a walk on the wild side"
And because I figured that tune might well come up today, I mentioned it to the rest of the committee. Here's Walter from A Few Good Times In My Life with his thoughts on both tunes...
In both The Kinks’ song and “Walk on the Wild Side”, the lyrics are taken out of their original context. I can’t detect any homophobia or disrespect toward gender identity in either of them. What they have in common is that, in their lyrics, they tackled topics that were still considered taboo more than 60 years ago.
I don’t think anyone should have the right to judge a historical phenomenon in hindsight. If such texts are no longer used today, that’s fine. But they shouldn’t be criticized in hindsight or from a narrow perspective. In that sense, “cancelling” them is not appropriate.
Thank you, Walter. I think one thing we've agreed upon (with a couple of exceptions), through the duration of this feature, is that "cancelling" isn't appropriate in most circumstances. Maybe that's why we need to Cancel the Cancel Culture Club. Otherwise, we're just encouraging the likes of over-sensitive bandwagon-jumpers like Moby.
Our final response today comes from Swiss Adam, the man in charge of the Bagging Area...
Moby is, not for the first time, wrong.
I've always heard Lola as being totally sympathetic to Lola and to trans people. In fact Ray concludes by saying 'it's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world / Except for Lola'. In the song, Lola is the least messed up and most sorted person. Lola knows exactly who she is.
Walk On The Wild Side is a work of genius, a song by Lou Reed at his post-Velvets best and who was living at the time he wrote it (and for the rest of the decade) with Rachel, a trans woman. Lou is celebrating Holly, Candy, Little Joe, the Sugar Plum Fairy and Jackie and all the other mixed up, shook up people who lived in his downtown New York world. His use of the word coloured is dated but we're going to have to let that go, I think.
Yeah, but at that time, "coloured" was considered the less-offensive terminology, wasn't it? Which links very nicely to what Walter says above.
I'm saving Adam's final line to close this post with... but first, a confession.
I had hoped to get an expert, first-hand opinion on today's issue, so I sent an email to an old friend who has become a leading figure in the transgender community. I felt a little cheeky in doing so, but I also felt like I'd regret it if I didn't ask her opinion on the matter.
Sadly, my email received no reply. There could be any number of reasons for this, but now I'm wracked with guilt in case I've caused offence. This is someone who often speaks about her own journey, and who is considered a champion of the transgender community... but there's a difference between being approached for comment by the press, and getting a personal email from an old colleague. Because I didn't want to follow that email up and worsen any potential offence I might have caused, I'd like to apologise here for it, just in case. My intent was honourable, in my mind at least.
But this did make me think... just because Jayne County and other members of the LGBTQ+ community have leapt to Lola's defence, we can't take it as read that every trans person feels the same. As the Cancel Culture Club has proved, our responses to art can vary, and there's no such thing as a "wrong" opinion, if you can justify it. I find Forrest Gump a deeply offensive film, for example, while other people think it's just a bit of light entertainment with a cheery moral. Am I wrong or are they? Or are we both just responding to a text in our own ways? I guess what I'm saying is, if a trans person does find Lola objectionable, who am I to say they're wrong? They've got more right to their opinion than I have to cast aspersions on Gump.
Against Me! - Transgender Dysphoria Blues
Still, I do think it comes down to intent versus interpretation. Going back to Moby's initial objection - is Lola... or Walk On The Wild Side, for that matter... actually transphobic? It may be possible to interpret either song in that way, but that surely wasn't the intent of either songwriter. One might infer an offensive meaning, but it doesn't appear either songwriter meant to imply that interpretation.
Or, as Swiss Adam puts it...
If Lou Reed and Ray Davies are on the wrong side of this debate, then I'm not sure where the debate has gone.
