Hello again..
Steve Knightley, one half of retro-folk duo, Show of Hands, recently had to resort to legal action to prevent his song ‘Roots’ from being used as a running soundtrack on the British National Party’s website. I am only surprised that Mr Knightley should himself be surprised that the BNP believed the lyric – a hokey paean to supposedly lost English cultural identity – somehow represented their own views, since it exemplifies the kind of grievance, the sentimentality, the nationalism, self-pity and imaginary persecution that have been articulated by fascists through history, from the Third Reich to apartheid South Africa.
However, Emma Hartley (a regular ‘Polly Filler’ for the right-wing Telegraph) blogged on the controversy thus:
‘It’s a terrific song, political to its core, about loss of identity, insidious American cultural imperialism, liberal embarrassment about Englishness and the resulting loss of musical (and other) traditions. Earlier this week there was a reminder in the news pages, if it were needed, that these concerns will not soon be banished. As with all art, though, what you take from it is a personal matter. ’
I will come to the song’s terrific-ness presently. But first, if Roots ‘is political to it’s core’ then how can ‘what you take from it’ be ‘a personal matter’? I suppose that just might be the case where a polemical sentiment is vaguely expressed, and in generalised abstractions (Think: Blake’s ‘Jerusalem’ whose blood-stirring appeal has, in its time, seen it claimed both by socialists and flag-waving nationalists. ) But there seems to me little in the way of ambiguity in the Roots lyric: it bemoans the passing of a certain, romanticised brand of English cultural identity - implictly caused by an influx of malign foreign influences. While not racist in intent, the song’s appeal to racists is predictable; prevented by ‘incitement’ legislation from campaigning against non-Aryan minorities, the BNP nowadays resort to doing it by proxy: attacking, instead, ethnically non-’British’ culture, religion, values etc.
And there is, perhaps, a dangerously fine line between cultural and racial purism.
Either way, the song’s lyric is, for me, the most ridiculous pile of twaddle yet to emerge from that ‘Anglo-archaic-sentimentalist’ school of folk writing (whose practitioners, mysteriously, have no problem with performing on non-English, non-traditional and electric instruments). I will concede, however, the Roots does have a strong tune and powerful singalong chorus that gets afficionados wetting themselves with delight at folk festivals. But the lyrics? – oh dear…
>>>
‘Roots’
Now it’s been 25 years or more
I’ve roamed this land from shore to shore
From Tyne to Tamar, Severn to Thames
From moor to vale, from peak to fen
[I think Knightley is merely saying here that he has toured the country as a working musican - but lovers of Anglo-archaic-sentimentalism demand something a little more affected. Thus, we get: 'From peak to fen', my arse...]
Played in cafes, pubs and bars
I’ve stood in the street with my old guitar
But I’d be richer than all the rest
If I had a pound for each request
For ‘Duelling Banjos’, ‘American Pie’
It’s enough to make you cry
‘Rule Britannia’, or ‘Swing low…’
Are they the only songs we English know?
[Most English people actually know and even sing hundreds of true folk songs: nursery rhymes, Christmas carols, rugby songs, football chants, cockney music hall ditties etc... songs genuinely handed on through oral tradition - but not the kind of long-forgotten museum pieces and obscurities that career-oriented folkies flog on CDs from websites. Not that there is anything wrong with their traditional output, per se ; rather, it is Knightley's wingeing that the 'English' (whoever they may be) ought to adhere to their own cultural roots in preference to foreign, imported material that is so bloody tiresome]
Seed, bud, flower, fruit
They’re never gonna grow without their roots
Branch, stem, shoot
They need roots
[What the hell is the above slice of banal fifth-form-poetry attempting to say, here?]
After the speeches, when the cake’s been cut
The disco’s over and the bar is shut
At christening, birthday, wedding or wake
What can we sing ’til the morning breaks
[How about 'Knees up Mother Brown' or 'There were four and twenty virgins came down from Inverness..'?]
When the Indians, Asians, Afro-Celts
It’s in their blood, below their belt
They’re playing and dancing all night long
So what have they got right that we’ve got wrong?
[Does the 'we' here, include British Indians and Asians? If not, who does Knightley refer to by 'we' - Anglo-Saxons? And the reference to 'Afro-Celts' is plain baffling, since the expression can only refer to this gang: http://www.realworldrecords.com/artists/afro-celt-sound-system, a talented and interesting, experimental world-music collective. Perhaps what the Afro-Celts 'got right that we've got wrong', is, in fact, a broad-minded eclecticism that - get this - many treacherous Anglo music fans seem to be quite keen on.
And, hmm, given the subsequent BNP saga, that 'in their blood' line was perhaps ill-conceived?]
Seed, bud, flower, fruit
They’re never gonna grow without their roots
[Oh, stop it...!]
Branch, stem, shoot
They need roots and
[Now here comes the BIG CHORUS. More hokey Anglo-romanticism with an ill-fitting and preposterous, seafaring flavour:]
Haul away boys, let them go
Out in the wind and the rain and snow
We’ve lost more than we’ll ever know
‘Round the rocky shores of England
We need roots
[The only things I can think of that have been lost 'round the rocky shores of England' are wrecking-gangs, lighthouses, cod stocks, bathing machines and fishing fleets. But if the lyric is veridical, I guess we'll never know what else has gone, unless Mr Knightley cares to tell us. Or perhaps, as claimed, he won't ever know either.]
And a minister said his vision of hell
Is three folk singers in a pub near Wells
[This is a reference to Kim Howells, MP, who in 2001 said his 'idea of hell was three folk singers in a pub in Somerset'. Fair enough - not everyone likes folk music. So what?]
Well, I’ve got a vision of urban sprawl
There’s pubs where no-one ever sings at all
[Oh get over it, you great bleating pranny! Anyway, the singing of traditional songs in pubs, has, in my lifetime, always been much more of an Irish than English phenomenon. The English just sing on the way home. But if anything, there are more opportunities nowadays than at one time, with dozens of alehouses up here on Merseyside - urban sprawl notwithstanding - that run 'open mic' nights where all-comers are welcome to get up and perform anything they like, from Duelling Banjos to Afro-Celtic fusion to embarrassing Show of Hands songs...]
And everyone stares at a great big screen
Overpaid soccer stars, prancing teens
Australian soap, American rap
Estuary English, baseball caps
['Estuary English', indeed? - Disgusting! As Basil Fawlty might say.]
And we learn to be ashamed before we walk
Of the way we look, and the way we talk
Without our stories or our songs
[Speak for yourself, Steve, and less of that 'we' please.]
How will we know where we come from?
[History lessons?]
I’ve lost St. George in the Union Jack
It’s my flag too and I want it back
[Presumably a figurative way of saying that 'true' Englishness has been somehow subsumed by a greater, more cosmopolitan Britishness, or something. Who actually stole the flag and why is not reported, but no wonder the BNP are keen: they want to claim it 'back', too.]
Seed, bud, flower, fruit
Never gonna grow without their roots
Branch, stem, shoot
We need roots
[Yes, yes, the roots..]
Haul away boys, let them go
Out in the wind and the rain and snow
We’ve lost more than we’ll ever know
‘Round the rocky shores of England
We need roots…
>>>>
Mike Harding played this foolishness for the umpteenth time on last week’s Radio 2 ‘Folk, Roots and Accoustic’ show – this time a live, festival recording with the crowd roaring along to the anthemic chorus like nuns on shore leave. An effect that was vaguely reminiscent of that scene in the park in Cabaret, when the young sweet-voiced, swastika’d youth sings ‘Tomorrow belongs to me’ and in minutes the whole thing erupts into a spontaneous Nurnberg rally.
Yes, I know, an over-the-top comparision, and of course all those typically mild-mannered, woolly-bearded folkies aren’t fascists - but a dumb lyric is still a dumb lyric.
You’ve obviously never played a live gig anywhere have you? You miss a huge point in the song, he’s not defaming other cultures he’s just wondering why he can’t have his won. The UK IS in danger of becoming too much like the States with indigenous Brits acting like groveling apologists and everyone in fear of addressing racial issues-THAT is what opens the door for extremism. Not wanting to embrace and explore your culture but being told its “racist” to. Its also just a great song!
*have is own*
Why would you assume I have never played a live gig, and why would that be relevant? (I have played in six working folk and rock bands over the years plus folk club duos and also gone busking for small change, even recently). I agree about ‘not grovelling to the States’ but that is not the message I get from the ‘Roots’ song..
As to ‘why can’t he have his own’ culture? That’s just a dumb question, and the whole point of my analysis. Stevie boy has a culture already, and it is multi-ethnic – same as it has been since the Angles, Saxons and Jutes.
It’s a good tune, though. Shame about the lyrics.
All best, and thanks for commenting.
“Stevie boy has a culture already, and it is multi-ethnic – same as it has been since the Angles, Saxons and Jutes.”
I don’t think he’s saying it isn’t, I think what he’s saying is that its his OWN fault and the faults of many of indigenous British geezers and lassies, frumpy in hoodies sitting in estates playing “25 to life” on PlayStation, that have stopped themselves from embracing their own culture. The multi-ethnic component still loves being British but has retained their own patriotism aka “roots” which they celebrate along with the hoodies, playstation, scotch eggs etc.
So I think he’s wondering why everyone ethnically British became lazy about celebrating British traditions.
Cheers!
Sorry I assumed you were not a musician by the way. Sounds like you’ve played fewer dives than me!
Well I don’t know which of us has played the sleaziest dives, or whatever, but I still reckon the ‘Roots’ lyric comes over as confused and confusing (hence the BNP’s eagerness to sieze on it.) And I’m not sure the British are lazy about celebrating British traditions; the English may be embarrassed by morris dancing, but Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish have never let their musical traditions go away. And even in the case of the English, there is now more media access to folk music than at any time I can remember (as I type, Bellowhead are playing live on Radio 2′s mainstream Radcliffe and Maconie show – that wouldn’t have happened 30 years back). Methinks the man doth protest too much.
But I have to say Knightley’s ‘Country Life’ is a way better song: makes a legitimate point clearly and without ambiguity..
Interesting. I (wrongly, I now realise) took him at first to be making a much more general point about the overall shift of focus there’s been over time from songs and stories handed down through the oral tradition, that capture or at least *use* the imagination, to mind-numbing fodder like Big Brother, gossip magazines, manufactured pop, etc that basically treat the masses like idiots. These things are handed to the general public as pre-packaged “entertainment” that we just need to sit down and imbibe from the sofa, without need for exercising any interactive or creative faculties at all, and although I do think he’s partially saying that, it’s true that the song is about the loss of *English* culture as distinct from even other UK culture.
Also, you mention ‘Knees up Mother Brown’ and ‘There were four and twenty virgins came down from Inverness’ as English songs that people could sing until the morning comes…now not having actually lived in England (only Scotland and before that Belgium) I can only guess based on my experience in Scotland, but my impression is that although most people know the odd folk song or can dance a Gay Gordons, there aren’t many people for whom singing/dancing to traditional music is a totally familiar and comfortable experience. For most people it’s something they’ve only done occasionally, at weddings and similar things, and doing it still has a strong aura of unusualness or specialness and not-part-of-my-everyday-lifeness. And in *that* sense, it’s been lost from English, and in my opinion, Scottish, culture and I think that’s a sad thing. Not that there’s anything inherently wrong (I think?) with sequins, blue WKD, trackies and screeching drunkenly all the way home, although it’s not to my taste, but if nobody has a feel for the less manufactured sort of beauty had by traditional music and music written by individuals rather than commissioned by record companies to fill gaps in the market, I think we really have lost our roots and we do become slaves to big corporations (obviously this applies to big business in general and not just the music industry). But it’s not so much about losing and regaining English roots, or Scottish roots or whatever, as about retaining our roots as human beings generally. That, if anything, is what we’re in the process of losing. And that’s why the BNP’s position is a load of pants.
Sorry about that!
Sorry for the extreme length, I mean. I put at the end originally, but wordpress thought it was an actual html tag and hasn’t shown it up.
Cheers, and interesting post.
grr! “/rant” is what it keeps not showing up. The end!
Very belated thanks, Nate, for a thoughtful and intelligent reply – appreciated, especially this sentence: ‘But it’s not so much about losing and regaining English roots, or Scottish roots or whatever, as about retaining our roots as human beings generally.’
My case entirely: damn all nationalisms and multi-national capitalism and embrace humanitarianism. Agree with you – and probably Knightley too – on pre-packaging of entertainment and pretty-well everything else right down to boil-in-the-bag kippers. A theme that could make a wonderful song, once you take the silly national flags out of it…
Leon Rosselson did just that with his ‘We Sell Everything’… Don’t know if it’s on youtube yet…
Coming late to this…
A friend recently nominated this song for our weekly acoustic jam. I didn’t know it, so I looked it up.
Meh, it’s not a great song – archaic cliche drips from many of the cracks – but I read it a little differently, and I think the sentiments I glean are pretty ok.
The wording is careless, ambiguous and clumsy, but the points I take from it are that people from many other parts of the world (many of whom have joined as as residents here, and I welcome them) seem to have cultural traditions – some old, some embyonic – that are clearly identified, and which are widely celebrated without embarrassment: Jamaican reggae, Panjabi bhangra, American bluegrass and hip hop, Irish and Scottish traditional dance tunes and ballads, African folk songs and distinctive popular styles such as soucous.
Even in a rural English acoustic pub session such as the one I run, many participants are embarrassed to play the folk songs they know, they’d rather knock out an Oasis song or a sixties pop relic… That’s fine, there’s room for all, but the more traditional folk songs – even pub and music hall songs – quite often get sneered and laughed at. In my opinion, it is largely the apologetic and half-hearted attitude of the performer that is to blame in many cases.
We had a brief flirtation with popular cultural identity with “Britpop” a few years back, but it was superficial, and contrived.
“We” – the English, however you care to define us – don’t seem to have anything coherent and distinctive like our neighbours do. Yeh, we have nursery rhymes and football and rugby songs etc, but does that equate to anything that feels like an integrated expression of our national identity in the same way as Irish pub music or West Indian reggae does?
I tend to think of people in terms of their music, and my mind conjures images to fit. When it comes to the English… well, I have no clear stock image, no caricature, no icon, no *stereotype* if you like. I know that word has negative connotations, but I mean it in the sense of a representative mental picture – an association to help me map the world.
As for the “It’s my flag too and I want it back” thing… In my naivete I assumed the reference was to the hijacking of the flag by nationalists and racists. A call to restore the more wholesome image of our flag.
I don’t have a patriotic bone in my body, but anything that offers the middle digit to racists is fine with me.
Not a great song, but personally I thought its heart was sort of in the right place.
Assuming one could find the heart under all the stodge.
And there was me thinking this was a song about the English reclaiming there cultural identity – like the Scots, Irish & Welsh, Indian, Polish, West Indian, Italian & the other 200 odd languages that are regually used in homes in this multicultural country of ours. Or are we all on the wrong path & heading for bland city?
he’s not defaming other cultures……..
He’s bloody defaming mine – I was born in South London and ‘Estuary English’ is part of my (English, if that matters) culture.
when you write a song half as good as Steve Knightley’s I’ll listen to your whinging pedantic load of bollocks.
Oh yeah and as for their “non-English, non-traditional” instruments, they are made in Exeter which is in England by and Englishman called David Oddy.
Hi Doris, thanks for your comments. But ‘whingeing and pedantic’ seems a little harsh, as does your use of the word ‘bollocks’; but at least I have tried to explain my objections to the Roots lyric – and at some length. Your reply seems to contain abuse but no argument I can reply to.
BTW: Normally I wouldn’t bother blogging about or criticising a song or musician I didn’t like – especially in the folk genre where it is hard for anyone to scratch a living – mostly from a sense of admiration for any musician who’s managed to stay the course and gain themselves a living from their craft. But when you get a song that is so blantantly a ‘message’ song – and a shouted message, at that – and a song that is all over the mainstream media for what it might or might not be trying to say, it seems ‘fair comment’ to me, to add my own thoughts …
Could I write a song as good as Knightley’s? – I’ll let others be the judge of that. But I don’t think any of my songs (or my wife’s – on Ribblehead Song) are in any danger of being hi-jacked by the BNP. Try these:
The Dogs of Spain:
Ribblehead Song:
Ipaminondas:
Cheers..
They’re lucky they can afford English-made instruments. All mine are Chinese or Romanian.
Seriously, cuatro, mandolin and mandocello are certainly not traditional English instruments, no matter who makes them. Trust me, I’m a folk mandolin player, and I wouldn’t dream of claiming that my mando was trad in any British or Irish genre.
Mr Oddy’s instruments are well thought of, but his name on a mandocello would not make it “traditional”.
Well said – and agreed; I think Doris (if that’s really her name – it’s usually only men using aliases who post short abusive hit-and-run posts) missed my point about ‘English instuments’. Are there any traditional English instruments – pipe and tabor, maybe? Lutes are old, as are harps, but neither are English. The concertina was an eighteenth century import … most standard ‘folk’ instruments, from banjo via guitar, mandolin, harmonica to electric bass etc. share the same provenenance as ‘pop’ instruments. I’ve no problem with any of these – I love the way The Imagined Village use sitars and Bengali drums to perform centuries old English trad songs. I only get pissed off by purists – musical or sociological – insisting that there is something wrong with the present state of musical and other culture in England, and that ‘we’ve lost more than we’ll ever know around the rocky rocky shores (LOL!), etc…’
I prefer to think that we’ve *gained* more in the last fifty-years of post-war, multi-ethnic Britain, from late-night curry houses to reggae to bangra to punk rock to hip-hop to the 60′s blues boom to northern soul. Please, why does this silly, English identity thing matter so much to some people?
You’re well-fed and well-educated and have a National Health Service. Hundreds of African kids die every week (yes, I know, a boring, unsexy old story – but still horribly true) because they have no access to clean drinking water or basic medicine.
As the late, great (non-Englishman) Josef Locke once put it: ‘Count your blessings, one by one…’
Actually, what I’d *really* like to read would be Steve Knightley’s utopian vision of what England would be like, once we’ve found those oh-so-necessary roots.
Over to you, Steve…
“And everyone stares at a great big screen
Overpaid soccer stars,”
So Mr Knightley objects to people being in an English institution (i.e. the pub) watching a game which was codified / invented by the…er…English? Football (to give it its proper name Mr Knightley) is an integral part of English culture. Obviously then it’s not the loss of English culture he objects to but the loss of the ‘right’ culture.
What bollocks! (to use a fine old Anglo-Saxon term).
Well said, Sir – wish I’d thought of that
I agree that football is very much a part of English cultural tradition. I don’t think the transformation from sport to business has done anything to make the game better.
The facts that a) so much is now done in an effort to make the game attractive to media companies, b) that digital/satellite broadcasters try to make us pay to watch instead of having stuff shown on mainstream TV, c) that many players and their agents care less about the sport and its fans than they do about lining their pockets and funding flashy lifestyles… All that has contributed to the devaluing of British culture. Its transformation to a US style, shallow, materialistic sham that doesn’t give a feck for tradition or culture.
The way I read it, yer man isn’t slagging football, he’s lamenting the travesty it’s become, and the loss of the days when it wasn’t all about money and TV companies.
As I’ve said before, not a very good song, but I think he’s moaning about *some* of the right things.
He’s also just begging to be misinterpreted with his carelessly ambiguous lyrics.
Thanks for this dose of good sense. I heard “Roots” for the first time last weekend at the Cambridge Folk Festival: one of the less pleasant experiences of my life, as I blogged here. (“Tomorrow Belongs to Me” has been in my mind too ever since.)
Hi Una, and many thanks….
At least one person out there gets it – phew! – I was almost worried that I’d gone over the top with the Cabaret allusion. And you were there too to witness the moment – and well done you for walking out. (For others reading, I’m referring to Una’s linked festival blog post – v. highly recommended).
To all the other people replying to this thread – whether from partial agreement or outright hostility to my analysis – I would suggest they check out the official SOH ‘Roots’ video on youtube linked in an above thread. And read the viewers’ comments: no doubt to Mr Knightley’s chagrin, last time I looked, his biggest fans would appear to be a spread of opinionated right-wingers, ranging from Little-Englander nationalists to outright ‘deport-the-lot-of-’em’ racists (Ukip to BNP?) Surely not the fanbase he was looking for – I hope…
To Una – I’ll reply properly on your own blog…
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I, too, read the verse about the Union Jack as referring to the fact that these flags have been “appropriated” by the likes of the BNP and the EDL as their own, and there is no corresponding emblem to allow ordinary people to express their pride in, and identification with, some of the things which still, just, make England still such a good country, compared with some others, anyway
Still getting comments after nearly two years. That has to count for something!
I also assumed the “reclaiming the flag” lyric was referred to the appropriation by the far right racist bigots. My blonde blue-eyed daughter was given a St Georges cross at St Georges day celebrations the other day and I have to admit to feeling slightly awkward walking back through certain parts of town – I’m a bit liberal like that.
Also, I don’t really know what afro-celt means, so I’d assumed that it was a clumsy shortening of “Africans, Celts” to make the line scan.
Regarding Celts, and as pointed out in other comments, “traditional music” seems, to me at least, to be more healthy in Scotland and Ireland than England. I’m given to understand that in Scotland traditional dances are taught in schools. I’ve been to céilidhs north of the border where the caller felt no need to explain the steps before each dance – I did pretty badly compared to the locals. It’s a shame England doesn’t have something similar but I’ve danced céilidhs at several English festivals and to be honest I’d take a down-to-earth céilidh over the affected eccentricities of a morris dance any day of the week.
The song itself and the comments here seem to confuse “Englishness” and “Britishness” but I’ve always seen that as an interesting quirk of our confused island nation and very much part of the culture.
I wonder if ‘Fitzroy Street’ would feel it appropriate to tell a Native American (for example) “You have a culture already and it is multi-ethnic” or dismiss an old fashioned Irish ballad “a hokey paean to supposedly lost cultural identity”? If the answer is “yes”, I’m happy for him to apply the same views to me as an Anglo-Saxon even though I disagree with them; however, if his is answer is “no”, I think he’s a hypocrite.
Buddhuu said: “As for the “It’s my flag too and I want it back” thing… In my naivete I assumed the reference was to the hijacking of the flag by nationalists and racists. A call to restore the more wholesome image of our flag. I don’t have a patriotic bone in my body, but anything that offers the middle digit to racists is fine with me. Not a great song, but personally I thought its heart was sort of in the right place. Assuming one could find the heart under all the stodge.”
That just about says it all for me. The lyrics are … not his best. They rely on cliches and very lazy rhymes. It’s odd, because his other lyrics are stupendously good. But yeah, I get the thing about taking the various flags in the Union Jack back from the racists. As for traditional folk music, it’s thriving in Ireland, north and south, and in Scotland where I am, but I don’t know about Wales or England.
As for the BNP they’re not known for their grasp of history or antecedents, so I’m not surprised they misinterpreted the song. A bit like a hedgehog trying to mate with a scrubbing brush.
Hey Fitzroy, I really like your songs, especially the Dogs of Spain. I shall definitely be looking into the Dunlin back catalogue.
I think your reaction to Roots (and those of many others on the left, e.g. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/30/folk-music-far-right) is part of what Knightley is lambasting in the song’s lyric, that somehow expressing interest in traditional English songs and culture is distasteful, if not potentially racist.
Your reaction says it all: “I prefer to think that we’ve *gained* more in the last fifty-years of post-war, multi-ethnic Britain, from late-night curry houses to reggae to bangra to punk rock to hip-hop to the 60′s blues boom to northern soul. Please, why does this silly, English identity thing matter so much to some people?”
Knightley isn’t saying that there’s a problem with multi-ethnic Britain “…what have they got right that we’ve got wrong?”, just that what might be termed traditional English culture should also have a proud place in the mix, and the de-legitimisation of the English cultural experience over the last few decades, while at the same time that of the Irish, Scots, Welsh and other British minorities have all been (thankfully) encouraged, is a double standard that we should address.
The idea that it’s either/or, that if you celebrate traditional English culture you must be a closet racist, is absurd, but unfortunately very prevalent amongst the Guardian-reading classes. It’s why articles on Comment is Free on Scottish nationalism, for example, are broadly positive, while those on English nationalism inevitably have a picture of skinheads or the EDL, when it’s obviously perfectly possible to be proud of your English heritage without being a thug and a racist.
Why does this “silly, English identity thing matter so much to some people?” Simple.
“Without our stories and our songs, how will we know where we come from?”
Blimey, it must be really dark round your way, being so far up yourself.
Just played the Roots CD I’ve had on my shelf for a year or two (not exactly sure) and it’s wonderful. I like Folk Music (and Rock) and it’s refreshing to have a strong contemporary beat instead of the old finger-in-the-ear style for a change. However, this Fitzroy Street a (person or a place…?) protests too much. I don;pt go along with Billy Bragg’s notion that we can reclaim English nationalism and the Cross of St George but there’s nothing wroing or racist in resisting the cultural degradation of our country – particularly from the waves of Yankee crap washing across the Atlantic (which are swamping everyone – not just us in the UK).
If this guy thinks that most young people nowadays know a wide sel;ectin of folk or traditional songs and rhymes then he lives in a differnt world to me. I taught history for many years (admittedly amongst generally poorly educated adaults) and the majority of my students couldn’t recite a single folk song – except perhaps for football chants. Many of them thought that “You’ll Never Walk Alone” was a folk-song (arguable – it was a written for commercial entertainment in the forties). They probably knew the odd line of a nursdery rhyme but that hardly counts as much of a musical or poetic heritage.
The depressing truth is that Working Class culture has been horribly degraded (if not utterly destroyed) among a great number of UK citizens, especially in England. Scotland and Wales may have fared better but what passes for traditional culture amongst most people is still shallow nostalgia and crass imagery with little or no culture being passed down the generations.
A working class without its own cultural roots is a dangerous thing – they are far more likely to be swayed by simplistic tribalist (and racist) notions of identity – identifying themselves in opposition to those they percieve as outsiders (foreigners, blacks and Asians, Moslems etc.).
A culture passed from, one generation to the next is largely what separates us from all other animals (not larger brains or the ability to use tools) and a people with no culture or knowledge of trheir own history is a people vulnerable to fascistic demagogues and charlatans.
I dislike nationalism of all kinds (and the puerile Scottish variety currently so prominent – often based on an outrageous misrepresentation of history – is little better than the unpleasant English backlash) but renewing some pride and identity in cultural and musical roots does not amount to nationalism.
Get real Fitz…..!
I couldn’t agree more with you Steve, nationalism ISN’T racism [although in the wrong 'hands' it can be thanks to the BNP and their ilk]. Personally, I don’t like the term nationalism as it smacks of Colonial days and all the bad stuff that happened then – maybe we need a new definition of “having a sense of pride in our culture and heritage”. Admittedly, we are awash with buzzwords and ridiculous made-up words but sometimes it seems to me that there isn’t an adequate word/phrase to sum up feelings of national pride that aren’t jingoistic or parochial. I do take slight issue with your comment that most young people don’t know any trad folk songs – as you say, you have taught very few young people so how would you know?When I go to folk festivals there are plenty of teenagers rocking along to folk songs both old and new and not just cos their parents have dragged them along. They are there cos they want to be and it always makes me smile to see them so enthusiatic. I also need to check what you mean by the degradation of working class culture – where’s your evidence? You don’t provide any in your post [but admittedly you may ahve wanted to be brief , so not a complaint, just an observation!]so I would be interested to hear your examples. However, I do agree that any class – working, middle, upper, whatever label you like – without a sense of it’s cultural roots can be a dabgerous thing and it is more likely that dissaffected young working class males [and females now, sadly] take out their frustrations through violence and intimidation [and racism]. But not all – I think it’s too much of a generalisation to say that we have no working clas culture and that the ‘degradation [as you see oit] is widespread. and responsible for the anger and violence we see so often. The Summer riots were a perfect example – most of those convected were young working class males from poor areas but they weren’t protesting about the degradation of their culture they were just nicking stuff and kicking in windows for the hell of it. One final point – the upper classes do seem to have aclose relationship with their cultureal background and franjkly, it’s a recipe for disaster – foxhunting, the old boy network, corupt politicians and feeble Lords and old money being passed on to younger generations who have no idea what to do with it. OK, all for now – would be interested to hear your thoughts!