A few years ago, Terry Eagleton, then professor of English literature at Manchester University, reckoned that "for the first time in two centuries, there is no eminent British poet, playwright or novelist prepared to question the foundations of the western way of life".
No Shelley speaks for the poor, no Blake for utopian dreams, no Byron damns the corruption of the ruling class, no Thomas Carlyle and John Ruskin reveal the moral disaster of capitalism. William Morris, Oscar Wilde, HG Wells, George Bernard Shaw have no equivalents today. Harold Pinter was the last to raise his voice. Among today's insistent voices of consumer-feminism, none echoes Virginia Woolf, who described "the arts of dominating other people... of ruling, of killing, of acquiring land and capital".I'll be honest, I don't read anywhere near enough to make a judgment on that. However it did make me think that we just limit ourselves to poets, playwrights and novelists we exclude the dissenting voices of film makers such as Ken Loach and song writers like the Bard of Barking, Billy Bragg.
We're only 3 months on from a songwriter, Bob Dylan, winning the Nobel Prize in Literature. It seems a little elitist to exclude practitioners of other art forms from the voice of great dissenters. Although as Billy acknowledges in Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards
Anyway that's a long winded introduction to my take on what I consider to be the best rock/pop song ever written.
It came down to two choices. The first is the Bard's Greetings to the New Brunette
The song is written from the point of a young man singing to his girlfriend, a couple who just seem to be drifting along on the fringes of society. It's hard to mix humour into a rock/pop song, but this delivers in spades.
One of Billy's great writing techniques is how he can take a well known phrase and puts his own twist on it:
- I've made passes at women of all classes (Sexuality)
- I am the milkman if human kindness/I will leave an extra pint (Milkman of Human Kindness)
- I never made the first team/I just made the first team laugh (The Saturday Boy)
And in Greetings to the New Brunette, Billy gives us an absolute beauty:
- How can you lie there and think of England?
- When you don't even know who's in the team
The song is filled with memorable quotes:
- Shirley, it's quite exciting to be sleeping here in this new room
Shirley, you're my reason to get out of bed before noon
- Shirley, your sexual politics have left me all of a muddle
Shirley, we 're joined in the ideological cuddle
- Politics and pregnancy
Are debated as we empty our glasses
And how I love those evening classes
- The people from your church agree
It's not much of a career
Trying the handles of parked cars
Whoops, there goes another year
Whoops, there goes another pint of beer
The song end with the line
- Shirley/Give my greetings to the new brunette
repeated over and over. What does it mean? Have the singer and Shirley broken up?
The song is lifted by the guitar playing of the great Johnny Marr and Kirsty MacColl adds backing vocals.
A beautiful song about 2 people in love who are struggling through life, with a whole host of wonderful lines.
However if there can only be one winner, then it is Nick Cave's, The Mercy Seat.
In '20,000 Days' Nick talks about how some of his experiences with religion. He recalls how we would go to church in the morning and then score from the dealers afterwards. He continued that thought he was balancing out some good with some bad until 'I mean it was mad. When I met Susie, she was like you're doing something really dangerous here...and life threatening, you know I want you vow to me that you'll never go to church again'.
The song tells the story of a man on death row. The song brilliantly mixes religion into the story.
I hear stories from the chamber
How Christ was born into a manger
And like some ragged stranger
Died upon the cross
And might I say, it seems so fitting in its way
He was a carpenter by trade
Or at least that's what I'm told
How Christ was born into a manger
And like some ragged stranger
Died upon the cross
And might I say, it seems so fitting in its way
He was a carpenter by trade
Or at least that's what I'm told
It's really nothing short of brilliant. The mixing of religion into the story adding in the irony of a carpenter dying on a wooden cross. It's a fantastic example of gallows humour, and where more fitting to have this than on death row.
The religious connections continue as the plight of the condemned man is further linked to Christ.
In Heaven His throne is made of gold
The ark of his Testament is stowed
A throne from which I'm told
All history does unfold.
Down here it's made of wood and wire
And my body is on fire
And God is never far away.
The ark of his Testament is stowed
A throne from which I'm told
All history does unfold.
Down here it's made of wood and wire
And my body is on fire
And God is never far away.
In '20,000 Days' Nick talks about how much more brutal he is now in the editing process in shortening songs. Thank goodness that The Mercy Seat wasn't shortened as it ends with the same chorus repeated 7 teams but with some subtle and important changes, and this really adds to the song.
4 times the story teller informs us:
And I'm not afraid to die
However in the last 2 versions this is changed to:
- But I'm not afraid to lie
- But I'm afraid I told a lie
I don't support the death penalty. Leaving aside the moral conundrum of whether it's ok to take another human life, I think we have seen enough problems in our (the Australian, British & US) legal system to know that way too many innocent people have been found guilty of murder. The advent of DNA teats has led to the release of scores of innocent people and has really shone a light on how unreliable eyewitness testimony can be.
Then of course there is the problem of police bias/judicial bias against different ethnic groups resulting in far too many incorrect verdicts.
When the storyteller tells us:
And anyway, there was no proof
And nor a motive why
And nor a motive why
We are confronted with the prospect that is an innocent man about to be executed?
Then again later he tells us:
And anyway I told the truth
But I'm not afraid to lie
But I'm not afraid to lie
Oh so storyteller is telling us even though is telling us he is innocent that he would be prepared to lie. And when facing the death penalty, how many people would tell the truth?
The song ends with:
And anyway I told the truth
But I'm afraid I told a lie
But I'm afraid I told a lie
This is brilliantly contradictory and ambiguous. What has he lied about? That he's not afraid to die? In some sort of confession? In his claims of being innocent?
A fantastic end to a great song on such an important issue.
The video.
The lyrics
It began when they come took me from my home
And put me in Dead Row,
Of which I am nearly wholly innocent, you know.
And I'll say it again
I.. am.. not.. afraid.. to.. die.
I began to warm and chill
To objects and their fields,
A ragged cup, a twisted mop
The face of Jesus in my soup
Those sinister dinner deals
The meal trolley's wicked wheels
A hooked bone rising from my food
All things either good or ungood.
And the mercy seat is waiting
And I think my head is burning
And in a way I'm yearning
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
A tooth for a tooth
And anyway I told the truth
And I'm not afraid to die.
Interpret signs and catalogue
A blackened tooth, a scarlet fog.
The walls are bad. Black. Bottom kind.
They are sick breath at my hind
They are sick breath at my hind
They are sick breath at my hind
They are sick breath gathering at my hind
I hear stories from the chamber
How Christ was born into a manger
And like some ragged stranger
Died upon the cross
And might I say, it seems so fitting in its way
He was a carpenter by trade
Or at least that's what I'm told
Like my good hand
tattooed E.V.I.L. across it's brother's fist
That filthy five! They did nothing to challenge or resist.
In Heaven His throne is made of gold
The ark of his Testament is stowed
A throne from which I'm told
All history does unfold.
Down here it's made of wood and wire
And my body is on fire
And God is never far away.
Into the mercy seat I climb
My head is shaved, my head is wired
And like a moth that tries
To enter the bright eye
So I go shuffling out of life
Just to hide in death awhile
And anyway I never lied.
My kill-hand is called E.V.I.L.
Wears a wedding band that's G.O.O.D.
'Tis a long-suffering shackle
Collaring all that devil blood.
And the mercy seat is a-burning
And I think my head is flowing
And in a way I'm hoping
To be done with all this weighing up of truth.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth
And I've got nothing left to lose
And I'm not afraid to die.
And the mercy seat is waiting
And I think my head is burning
And in a way I'm yearning
To be done with all this measuring of proof
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth
And anyway, there was no proof
And nor a motive why.
And the mercy seat is waiting
And I think my head is burning
And in a way I'm yearning
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
A life for a life
And a tooth for a tooth
And anyway there was no proof
And I'm not afraid to die.
Now the mercy seat is waiting
And I think my head is smoking
And in a way I'm hoping
To be done with all these looks of disbelief.
A eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth
And anyway I told the truth
And I'm not afraid to die.
And the mercy seat is waiting
And I think my head is burning
And in a way I'm yearning
To be done with all this measuring of proof
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth
And anyway I told the truth
And I'm not afraid to die.
And the mercy seat is waiting
And I think my head is burning
And in a way I'm yearning
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
A eye for a eye
And a tooth for a tooth
And anyway I told the truth
But I'm not afraid to lie.
And the mercy seat is waiting
And I think my head is burning
And in a way I'm yearning
To be done with all this measuring of proof
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth
And anyway I told the truth
But I'm afraid I told a lie.
And put me in Dead Row,
Of which I am nearly wholly innocent, you know.
And I'll say it again
I.. am.. not.. afraid.. to.. die.
I began to warm and chill
To objects and their fields,
A ragged cup, a twisted mop
The face of Jesus in my soup
Those sinister dinner deals
The meal trolley's wicked wheels
A hooked bone rising from my food
All things either good or ungood.
And the mercy seat is waiting
And I think my head is burning
And in a way I'm yearning
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
A tooth for a tooth
And anyway I told the truth
And I'm not afraid to die.
Interpret signs and catalogue
A blackened tooth, a scarlet fog.
The walls are bad. Black. Bottom kind.
They are sick breath at my hind
They are sick breath at my hind
They are sick breath at my hind
They are sick breath gathering at my hind
I hear stories from the chamber
How Christ was born into a manger
And like some ragged stranger
Died upon the cross
And might I say, it seems so fitting in its way
He was a carpenter by trade
Or at least that's what I'm told
Like my good hand
tattooed E.V.I.L. across it's brother's fist
That filthy five! They did nothing to challenge or resist.
In Heaven His throne is made of gold
The ark of his Testament is stowed
A throne from which I'm told
All history does unfold.
Down here it's made of wood and wire
And my body is on fire
And God is never far away.
Into the mercy seat I climb
My head is shaved, my head is wired
And like a moth that tries
To enter the bright eye
So I go shuffling out of life
Just to hide in death awhile
And anyway I never lied.
My kill-hand is called E.V.I.L.
Wears a wedding band that's G.O.O.D.
'Tis a long-suffering shackle
Collaring all that devil blood.
And the mercy seat is a-burning
And I think my head is flowing
And in a way I'm hoping
To be done with all this weighing up of truth.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth
And I've got nothing left to lose
And I'm not afraid to die.
And the mercy seat is waiting
And I think my head is burning
And in a way I'm yearning
To be done with all this measuring of proof
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth
And anyway, there was no proof
And nor a motive why.
And the mercy seat is waiting
And I think my head is burning
And in a way I'm yearning
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
A life for a life
And a tooth for a tooth
And anyway there was no proof
And I'm not afraid to die.
Now the mercy seat is waiting
And I think my head is smoking
And in a way I'm hoping
To be done with all these looks of disbelief.
A eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth
And anyway I told the truth
And I'm not afraid to die.
And the mercy seat is waiting
And I think my head is burning
And in a way I'm yearning
To be done with all this measuring of proof
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth
And anyway I told the truth
And I'm not afraid to die.
And the mercy seat is waiting
And I think my head is burning
And in a way I'm yearning
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
A eye for a eye
And a tooth for a tooth
And anyway I told the truth
But I'm not afraid to lie.
And the mercy seat is waiting
And I think my head is burning
And in a way I'm yearning
To be done with all this measuring of proof
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth
And anyway I told the truth
But I'm afraid I told a lie.
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