{"id":7336,"date":"2015-04-01T11:14:52","date_gmt":"2015-04-01T10:14:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/?p=7336"},"modified":"2021-01-13T10:42:06","modified_gmt":"2021-01-13T10:42:06","slug":"but-politics-cant-reach-the-parts-music-can","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/2015\/04\/01\/but-politics-cant-reach-the-parts-music-can\/","title":{"rendered":"I was Paloma Faith\u2019s support act \u2013 but politics can\u2019t reach the parts music can"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nope sadly it can’t anymore<\/strong>: Perhaps it is just apathy? Or is everybody really happy about the way things \u00a0are now? \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

\"PoweredThis article titled “I was Paloma Faith\u2019s support act \u2013 but politics can\u2019t reach the parts music can” was written by Owen Jones, for The Guardian on Wednesday 1st April 2015 06.00 UTC<\/a><\/p>\n

Music can inspire, move, even devastate, like few cultural forms. Its functions and roles differ: making that morning jogor an afternoon of exam revision bearable, the backdrop to millions of unforgettable nights out, the comfort blanket after the traumatic end of a relationship.<\/p>\n

Music can date our lives like the rings of a tree trunk. We sometimes listen to a song because it conjures up a period of our lives. And because of its raw emotional power, music has the potential to make us contemplate social injustice more effectively than any column the likes of me can churn out. Yet this function has been neglected \u2013 partly by circumstance, partly by conspiracy.<\/p>\n

When I told friends or acquaintances that I was going to be the Brit award-winning singer Paloma Faith\u2019s support act, the response was a mixture of bafflement and concern that either my career or life was going to end in a volley of bottles at London\u2019s O2 arena. I shared their nerves, though comforted myself with the positive response I received when I took to the stage at Glastonbury to rail against injustice and nuclear weapons in 2013. This audience would be rather different, it was pointed out. Faith was taking a risk, too, but her courage and strength inspired me. The daughter of a Spanish immigrant, fed up with the scapegoating of those at the bottom and the failure to hold those at the top to account, concerned that a disillusioned electorate would not use their hard-won democratic rights, she wanted to find new ways to engage her fans. But here\u2019s what moved me: she wanted to rebuild a link between music and politics that was once strong, but which has been heavily eroded.<\/p>\n

Politics and music once blossomed. When the US was convulsed by struggles over civil rights and the Vietnam war in the 1960s and 1970s, music reflected many of the contemporary traumas. Marvin Gaye\u2019s anguish at the social ills of the era was voiced in songs such as What\u2019s Going On<\/a>. \u201cVietnam, police brutality, social conditions, a lot of stuff,\u201d he said at the time. \u201cWith the world exploding around me, how am I supposed to keep singing love songs?\u201d I remember singing Pete Seeger\u2019s pained anti-war anthem Where Have All the Flowers Gone at primary school; little did I know how he and other politicised musicians such as Paul Robeson were hounded and persecuted by the McCarthyites for speaking out.<\/p>\n

There was Bob Dylan, of course, capturing the upsurge in challenges to the US social order in 1964 with The Times they are a-Changin\u2019<\/a>. He was consciously allied to the insurgent struggles for emancipation, saying later: \u201cThe civil rights movement and the folk music movement were pretty close for a while and allied together at that time.\u201d The blue-collar hero Bruce Springsteen was radicalised by Ronald Reagan<\/a>, and \u2013 rather like Paloma Faith \u2013 railed against the demonisation of immigrants. Hip-hop is often portrayed as corrupted by hyper-commercialism and rampant individualism, but Public Enemy incited rebellion among US youth in the late 1980s.<\/p>\n

The marriage of music and struggles against an unjust status quo is a global phenomenon, of course. Chile\u2019s Victor Jara \u2013 Latin America\u2019s very own Bob Dylan \u2013 was part of the movement that culminated in Salvador Allende\u2019s election. Shot dead by August Pinochet\u2019s henchmen, he penned a poem in his final hours: \u201cSilence and screams are the end of my song\u201d. From the struggle against Nigeria\u2019s military dictatorships of the 1970s and 1980s, Fela Kuti founded the entire musical genre of Afrobeat. As if to underline the potentially subversive power of music, the Russian authorities had Pussy Riot locked up in 2012 for singing against Putinism in Moscow\u2019s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour.<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s the political music traditions of Britain too, of course. When Thatcherism stripped industry from swaths of the country, entire communities were left without work or hope. With despair growing, no wonder the Specials\u2019 Ghost Town resonated in 1981. Red Wedge brought together musicians united against Thatcherism, including Billy Bragg, Madness and Paul Weller.<\/p>\n

Yes, politicised musicians are still there, but all too often they are deprived of a mainstream platform. What happened? It\u2019s complex, certainly. Like much of the media and popular culture generally, barriers have been erected that prevent those from non-privileged backgrounds from making it. From acting to journalism to music, it is those who can afford to live off the bank of Mum and Dad who are favoured: everything from the housing crisis to the benefit sanctioning regime help see off musical acts with limited financial means. The accelerated commercialisation of music hasn\u2019t helped either: the big businesses dominating mainstream music are hardly sympathetic when it comes to musicians sticking it to the man. There\u2019s fear: speak out, and the Daily Mail will retaliate with a series of hatchet-jobs on your personal life. And then there\u2019s the general decline of the left: all those defeats under Thatcherism, the disappointments of the New Labour era, the unabashed free-market triumphalism of the post-Cold War era.<\/p>\n

No era lasts forever, of course. That celebrities such as Paloma Faith, Russell Brand and Michael Sheen are speaking out about politics is symptomatic of a broader trend. There is a rich seam of disillusionment with Britain\u2019s current social order, and it occasionally bubbles to the surface. It is often directionless, lacking a coherent alternative in which to invest hope and truth, and frequently contradictory. But it is there all the same.<\/p>\n

The current election campaign will be marked by character assassinations, while the Britain of food banks, zero-hours, in-work poverty, housing crisis, job insecurity and young people facing a future bleaker than their parents will not be given the hearing it deserves. When I supported Paloma, no bottles were thrown: the crowd (some who I\u2019m sure were pretty bemused) listened politely and cheered me at the end, no doubt with varying degrees of enthusiasm.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s be honest, though; even well-intentioned commentators and politicians fail to stir popular emotions about the great causes of our time. Music, though, can reach us where modern formal politics often does not: our hearts. Love and loss always have their place in music. But there are other traditions, too, and maybe our musicians should start rediscovering them.<\/p>\n

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010<\/p>\n

Published via the Guardian News Feed<\/a> plugin<\/a> for WordPress.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Times change and musicians seem much less political these days, but can we discover new songs of struggle, and music that will change the world? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,48,50,99,51,25,281,200,199,198,53,68],"class_list":["post-7336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musings","tag-article","tag-comment","tag-comment-debate","tag-culture","tag-main-section","tag-music-2","tag-opinion","tag-owen-jones","tag-paloma-faith","tag-protest","tag-the-guardian","tag-world-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6NRDR-1Uk","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4285,"url":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/2014\/06\/22\/tens-of-thousands-march-in-london-against-coalitions-austerity-measures\/","url_meta":{"origin":7336,"position":0},"title":"Tens of thousands march in London against coalition’s austerity measures","author":"diana Stone","date":"June 22, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"An estimated 50,000 people in London addressed by speakers, including Russell Brand, after People's Assembly march","rel":"","context":"In "Musings"","block_context":{"text":"Musings","link":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/category\/musings\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Powered by Guardian.co.uk","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/image.guardian.co.uk\/sys-images\/Guardian\/Pix\/pictures\/2010\/03\/01\/poweredbyguardianBLACK.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":7741,"url":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/2015\/04\/08\/dont-blame-rising-inequality-on-technological-change\/","url_meta":{"origin":7336,"position":1},"title":"Don\u2019t blame rising inequality on technological change","author":"diana Stone","date":"April 8, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"If governments had taken a hands-on approach to industrial development the UK wouldn\u2019t have suffered the huge loss of secure jobs we\u2019ve seen in recent years","rel":"","context":"In "Musings"","block_context":{"text":"Musings","link":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/category\/musings\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Powered by Guardian.co.uk","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/image.guardian.co.uk\/sys-images\/Guardian\/Pix\/pictures\/2010\/03\/01\/poweredbyguardianBLACK.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":60649,"url":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/2016\/11\/19\/article-50-could-be-reversed-government-may-argue-in-brexit-case\/","url_meta":{"origin":7336,"position":2},"title":"Article 50 could be reversed, government may argue in Brexit case","author":"diana Stone","date":"November 19, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Lawyers consider potential change of tack for supreme court challenge to ruling that MPs must vote to trigger EU exit","rel":"","context":"In "Musings"","block_context":{"text":"Musings","link":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/category\/musings\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Powered by Guardian.co.uk","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/image.guardian.co.uk\/sys-images\/Guardian\/Pix\/pictures\/2010\/03\/01\/poweredbyguardianBLACK.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":36060,"url":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/2016\/03\/17\/mhari-black-talking-to-owen-jones\/","url_meta":{"origin":7336,"position":3},"title":"Mhari Black talking to Owen Jones","author":"diana Stone","date":"March 17, 2016","format":"video","excerpt":"This is quite revealing, but not surprising.","rel":"","context":"In "Musings"","block_context":{"text":"Musings","link":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/category\/musings\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4186,"url":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/2014\/06\/15\/owen-jones-talks-a-lot-of-sense-here\/","url_meta":{"origin":7336,"position":4},"title":"Owen Jones talks a lot of sense here","author":"diana Stone","date":"June 15, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Post by Diana Stone.","rel":"","context":"In "Musings"","block_context":{"text":"Musings","link":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/category\/musings\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1911,"url":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/2013\/11\/08\/rings-true-to-me\/","url_meta":{"origin":7336,"position":5},"title":"Rings true to me","author":"diana Stone","date":"November 8, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Owen Jones seems a sensible chap I think I agree with most of this. Post by Owen Jones.","rel":"","context":"In "Musings"","block_context":{"text":"Musings","link":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/category\/musings\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7336\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}