Fuck me, what a time. Look, I’m sure none of us expected to be alive for the triumphant return of Nazis. I fucking hate Nazis. I’m sure if you’re reading this, you fucking hate Nazis too.
So, I imagine you, like me, are not feeling great about this past week. It’s easy to get disheartened, but please remember that is what they’re hoping for. The most audacious thing you can do at this moment is remain hopeful.
For my American friends, I am so incredibly sorry and I am sending all my hope for your better tomorrow. For those of us who live elsewhere, I hope this has served as a stark warning of the need for vigilance in the relentless creep of authoritarianism. This is how fast it can happen.
When I’m sad about the state of the world, I find solace in the things that make life worth living. Like the presence of my friends, who despite the sadness of the world are still doing beautiful things. Or the words of my favourite writers and artists, many of whom have lived through circumstances far more dire. And of course, music.
Music has been my refuge this week. It kept me from doomscrolling into oblivion. Instead, I sought out songs that would uplift and inspire and in so doing I learned a lot about circumstances that produced some of my favourite protest songs. So in this edition, I thought I would share some of my current favourites and pass them on to you. This is part one of three.
Happy listening. Keep your chin up.
15. I’m on the Rob - Cheap Dirty Horse
Issue: Corporate theft, wealth inequality
I discovered these folks from (appropriately) Nottingham on Instagram, and I low-key love them. By low-key, I mean high-key. In this song, which is a treat to see them perform, they heartily advocate stealing from the corporation you work for if they don’t pay you a living wage - can’t say I disagree.
Remember kids - if you see someone stealing groceries from a chainstore, no you didn’t.
Choice lyrics:
It’s morally and ethically okay to steal from Tescos
Asda, Morrison’s, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose
Not even just if you need to survive, if you’re starving
No one expects you to die
I mean, you absolutely should steal as much as you can
Pet food and BluRays and flowers for your nan
‘Cause big companies are harmed by stealing
‘Cause even if they’re insured, it raises their premiums
Which is cool, and fine, and actually what I wanted
Doing harm to monolithic corporations is awesome
When you add up the eight billion overtime violations
And other four billion in breaktime violations
And the other twenty-billion in wage violations
Then the fucking bread and hummus that I put in my bag
Is fucking… Whatever
14. Monopoly Money - Moon Walker
Well. Isn’t this prescient. Moon Walker teased this song on social media very quickly in the aftermath of the Luigi Mangione shooting and it went viral for obvious reasons. Named for the monopoly money Mangione had stuffed his backpack with and left at the scene, the complete song dropped a few weeks later and it’s a banger. And the lyrics are, uh, relevant.
Issue: Class consciousness
Choice lyrics:
When I was a kid, we didn’t murder CEOs
They just gave us each a penny and we did what we were told
They don’t care how many people they watch work themselves to death
The only thing they’re scared of is a bullet in the chest
Monopoly money, they spend it like it’s nothing
A mansion, an airplane, a couple politicians
Monopoly money, I kinda think it’s funny
You buy your way to heaven
But you die like the rest of us
13. Running the World - Jarvis Cocker
Issue: Political corruption, class warfare
Like any good Millennial with a smidgen of social conscience, I have a soft spot for Jarvis Cocker of Pulp fame. This song ran over the credits of one of my favourite films of all time (and what I think is possibly the most eerily accurate dystopian film of all time), Children of Men. From the man who wrote possibly the best working-class anthem of the past 25 years (Common People), this is about being fed up to the gills with our current power structures. Long may Jarvis rant.
Choice lyrics:
Now the working classes are obsolete
They are surplus to society’s needs
So, let them all kill each other
Then get it made overseas
That’s the word, don’t you know?
From the guys that are running the show
So let’s be perfectly clear, boys and girls
Cunts are still running the world
12. Everybody Knows - Leonard Cohen
Issue: Political corruption, wealth inequality, class warfare
I love Leonard Cohen and this is one of my favourite songs of his, though perhaps it’s also his most cynical. It skewers all the things you feel betrayed to learn when you grow up - that all the fairytales you were brought up on about living in a fair, free and just world are just that - and everybody knows it but you.
Choice lyrics:
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That’s how it goes
And everybody knows
11. Long Violent History - Tyler Childers
Issue: Systemic racism
Tyler Childers is (in my opinion) one of the best country/bluegrass/Americana artists working today. And for him, a born and bred, white, working class Kentucky boy who grew up with a coal mining father, to write, release and perform this song is incredibly important.
In it, he implores his friends and neighbours to try to put themselves in the shoes of black protestors in the wave of the Black Lives Matter protests and the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, asking them what they might do if the positions were reversed.
The album of the same name was released with all proceeds going to underserved communities in Appalachia and with no publicity at all save for a six-minute video where Childers addresses the album’s subject matter directly, calling for:
“Justice for Breonna Taylor - a Kentuckian, just like me.”
Choice lyrics:
How many boys could they haul off this mountain
Shoot full of holes, cuffed and laying in the streets?
‘Til we come into town in stark raving anger
Looking for answers and armed to the teeth
Thirty aught sixes, papaw’s old pistol
How many, you reckon, would it be four or five?
Oh, would that be the tart of a long, violent history
Of tucking our tails as we try to abide
Bits and Bobs
That’s all for now friends. Let me know if you’d like to see the rest of the list. Aside from that, this week I’m desperately clinging to my escapism by:
Reading: The Testaments, Margaret Atwood’s sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale. This may be poor timing on my part.
Listening to: It Could Happen Here. I listened to this podcast about the many ways in which America could find itself in a new civil war five years ago when it came out as a limited series. Now they call themselves “a chronicle of collapse as it happens”, and are doing daily updates - it’s simultaneously chilling and inspiring. And Robert Evans, who is also the brains behind another of my favourite podcasts, Behind the Bastards, is smart, level-headed and ahead of the curve. This is the sort of thing I feel will be listened to by incredulous history students in seventy years time.
Playing: Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. I have not played a video game for probably twenty years. But David and I gave each other the joint gift of an Xbox for Christmas, and this (and Baldur’s Gate) is what I got. I am a massive Indiana Jones fan (they are literally my favourite films of all time) and this is way better than ANY of the post initial trilogy. It’s cinematic in scope, an absolute blast to play, and you can spend as much time as you want beating the shit out of Nazis, just as God and Harrison Ford intended.
Until next time my loves. Take care of yourselves and the vulnerable around you and keep singing!
Siri! Yes and yes. Couldn't have needed this more. ❤️
Love all of this, thank you for sharing! Exactly what is needed right now! 💜💐