My Top Ten Strike Songs

I've been on strike today for the first time in my life. I managed 41 years without ever going on strike; I've been a full time teacher just over a month and already I'm unionised and refusing to cross the picket line. Billy Bragg would be proud.... which probably gives away this week's Number One.

Special mention to the Flying Pickets... obviously.


10. Ewan MacColl & Peggy Seeger - Daddy, What Did You Do In The Strike?

Perhaps one day Sam will ask me this question. Perhaps I'll point him to this post.

The song itself... you won't hear a better chronicle of the darkest days of the 1980s.

9. Strike Anywhere - You're Fired!

Very loud but extremely apt.

Hopefully the name of the band won't lead me to the title of the song.

8. Elvis Costello - Clown Strike

I hate clowns, so they can stay on bloody strike for all I care. 

7. Titus Andronicus - A More Perfect Union

Perhaps not about that kind of union, but what it lacks in relevance it makes up for in passion. And any song that mixes Bruce Springsteen with Billy Bragg gets my vote every time...

No, I never wanted to change the world, but I'm looking for a new New Jersey
Because tramps like us, baby, we were born to die

6. Ry Cooder - Strike!

Lots of songs about striking miners... couldn't find any about striking teachers.

We've got it easy, to be honest.

5. Manic Street Preachers - A Design For Life

Growing up in Wales, the Manics were hit hard by the miners' strike. Their biggest hit was inspired by it... and they're still angry (referencing the Battle of Orgreave) on their excellent new album, Rewind The Film.

4. The Smiths - Bigmouth Strikes Again

Yes, yes, this is also somewhat off-topic... but you didn't really think I was going to leave it out, did you?

3. Billy Joel - Allentown

Even the union can't help the inhabitants of Allentown. For anyone who dismisses Billy as a balladeer, here he's as angry at his country as Springsteen on Born In The USA. Great song.

2. Pulp - The Last Day Of The Miners' Strike

Coming from South Yorkshire, Jarvis will have seen the worst effects of the miner's strike firsthand too. Working in Barnsley, I'm reminded of it regularly. Those scars are still raw.

Well by 1985, I was as cold a cold could be
But no-one was underground to dig me out and set me free
'87 socialism gave way to socialising 
So put your hands up in the air once more
The north is rising

1. Billy Bragg - There Is Power In A Union

Sharing its title with a song written in 1913 by Joe Hill (presumably not Stephen King's son... unless time travel or supernatural naughtiness are involved), Billy's version sounded defiant against Thatcherism in the 80s... but is it a forlorn hope today?

Now I long for the morning that they realise
Brutality and unjust laws cannot defeat us
But who'll defend the workers who cannot organise
When the bosses send their lackies out to cheat us?

Those were my striking anthems. Which one would cross your picket line?

My Top Ten Irish Songs

 Happy St. Patrick's Day.


10. The Thrills - The Irish Keep Gate-Crashing

Ah, The Thrills. Whatever happened. So much more interesting than Coldplay, and yet... where are you now? "On hiatus."

I finally shed my puppy fat
No kids, there's no encore tonight

9. Prefab Sprout - Dublin

With a name like "Paddy McAloon", he obviously has some Irish heritage... though apparently, he was born in Durham.

Dublin, Dublin 
Home of pretty Coleens
Dublin, Dublin, 
Nurse of such bitter dreams

8. Dennis Leary - Traditional Irish Folk Song

Being of Irish-Catholic descent gives Leary a pass from getting lynched for this hilarious folk song mickey take. I think.

They come over here and they take all our land
They chop of our heads and they boil them in oil
Our children are leaving and we have no heads
We drink and we sing and we drink and we die

7. Flogging Molly - Paddy's Lament

Kind of like the Pogues if Shane was from LA and could still stand up straight.

6. The Boomtown Rats - Banana Republic

After being banned from playing live in their home country, this was Bob Geldof's typically restrained tribute to the "septic isle" of his birth.

5. Morrissey - Irish Blood, English Heart

Well, he's half-Irish, half Salford... as he likes to keep reminding us. One of his most visceral and exciting rock songs... even if, in the end, it's more about England than Ireland. Still...

4. The Pogues - Dirty Old Town

A song written by Ewan MacColl (Kirsty's dad), made famous by the Dubliners (see below), but it's Shane's version that does it for me... if anything, he sounds even dirtier than the town he's serenading.

I met my love by the gasworks wall...

...is one of the greatest opening lines ever.

Which brings us to...

3. The Pogues & The Dubliners - The Irish Rover

I wouldn't normally include two songs by the same artist in one Top Ten, but this is the very best version...

There was Barney McGee
From the banks of the Lee
There was Hogan from County Tyrone
There was Johnny McGurk
Who was scared stiff of work
And a man from Westmeath called Malone
There was Slugger O'Toole
Who was drunk as a rule
And Fighting Bill Tracy from Dover
And your man, Mick McCann
From the banks of the Bann
Was the skipper of the Irish Rover

And this is only Number Three...!?

2. Paul Brady - The Island

There's been a fair few songs written about "The Troubles" (spare me Sunday, Bloody Sunday) but this has to be the most breathtakingly beautiful.

Best use of a minor chord in a pop song ever?

1. Thin Lizzy - Whiskey In The Jar

A traditional Irish folk song, recorded by everyone from the Dubliners to the Grateful Dead, Metallica to Pulp. But there can surely be no greater version than this. That guitar is just electrifying.

Musha ring dum a do dum a daiii.
Wack for my daddy-o.

Those were my favourite songs about the Emerald Isle. Which is your sham-rocker?