23/07/2011

English Rose/Old England



As a child, one of the things around the house was a wooden jigsaw of the counties of England: I remembered it recently when I saw such an item mentioned in the novel England, England (Julian Barnes). The names of the counties, like Rutland or Suffolk, were as remote and exotic as the names of the cities - Copenhagen, Budapest - on the dial of the old radio that also lay about. As I remember it, the jigsaw was brightly coloured and there were no towns or cities marked, giving the impression of a rural, colourful, miniature world. By such trivialities are impressions of a word- ‘England’ - formed.

.A previous column, Goodbye England (Covered with Snow), looked at one of the perennial images of ‘England’: a snow-covered English countryside and folk memories of a more ancient rural past of old England. The comments in the last column gave many other images that might appear in song. Yet in the early years of British pop the idea of songs about England barely occurred – the perspective was largely an American one. In fact the novelist Colin MacInnes wrote a book called English, Half English (a phrase later taken up by a Billy Bragg song) in which he spoke of bi-lingual singers like Tommy Steele “speaking American at the recording session, and English in the pub round the corner afterwards." ‘England’ in musical terms was largely confined to two genres. There was English folk music, like jazz largely in its own world: it wasn’t until Fairport Convention and their 1969 album Liege and Lief that folk started moving into the pop/rock mainstream. There was also comedy/light entertainment, a world in which ‘English’ meant pompous gents in bowler hats or comic Andy Capp figures in overalls and probably on strike – as in the Bernard Cribbin songs, Right Said Fred (note the recurring references to 'a cup of tea'!) and Hole in the Ground, both UK hits in 1962; or Lonnie Donegan’s My Old Man’s A Dustman.

Otherwise, English pop remained largely westward looking, across the Atlantic to the USA. As mentioned before, the Kinks were a rarity in 60’s pop in their English perspective and especially in showcasing traditional English work-class culture in songs like Autumn Almanac (‘I like my football on a Saturday, roast beef on Sunday is all right. I go to Blackpool for my holidays, sit in the autumn sunlight’), not to caricature it but to lament a way of life disappearing. They were followed by others - the Jam, Blur, the Smiths, Pulp – and the notion of ‘Englishness’ became more of a fit subject to tackle in songs. However, they tended to be from a home grown perspective for, as Laura has commented in a previous column, there are very few examples coming the other way across the Atlantic, of American songs picking up on English mythology : no equivalent of Ian Hunter’s infatuation with American mythology, for example.

Songs about England or being ‘English’ by and large avoided the obvious stereotypes of Beefeaters, bowler hats and red phone boxes. However, there was a delicate balance to maintain and it was easy to end up either sounding nationalistic and overly patriotic or maudlin and sentimental. Kate Bush, for example, went a bit over the top with Oh England, My Lionheart, her 1979 portrait of a romanticised old England seen through the eyes of a Battle of Britain pilot: “Oh! England, my Lionheart! Dropped from my black Spitfire to my funeral barge. Give me one kiss in apple-blossom. Give me one wish, and I'd be wassailing in the orchard, my English rose, or with my shepherd, who'll bring me home.”

There were, however, several more prosaic takes on England that struck a chord with their audiences - like Ian Dury’s England’s Glory, rattling through a long and eclectic list of cultural references that you could spend hours dissecting:  “Nice bit of kipper and Jack the Ripper and Upton Park. Gracie, Cilla, Maxy Miller, Petula Clark .Winkles, Woodbines, Walnut Whips, Vera Lynn and Stafford Cripps, Lady Chatterley, Muffin the Mule. Winston Churchill, Robin Hood, Beatrix Potter, Baden-Powell, Beecham's powders, Yorkshire pud “ (Rhyming walnut whips and Stafford Cripps is genius!).There was also a strange song, England, My England, by Alan Price from 1978. He had had success in 1974 with the Jarrow Song, an unusual hit -about class struggle - in the era of Glam Rock: a slice of English history with a tribute to the Jarrow march of unemployed workers of 1936 and which hit the UK charts at the time of the first Miners strike. Four years later, however, England, My England seemed a conservative view of England with lyrics that sounded like a Daily Mail moan about the state of the country: irony or disillusionment, I am not sure which.
The two songs here represent two of the genres about England that have reoccurred over the years. The first is English Rose by the Jam, a Paul Weller ballad from their 1978 album All Mod Cons and seemingly as out of step with its contemporary peers as Autumn Almanac had been in 1967. Many songs about England have taken a Rupert Brooks , ‘Is there honey still for tea?” romantic/nostalgic type of approach and some can end up wrapped up in mysticism or unthinking nationalism. Some, however, have come from a strand of English socialism that is radical and patriotic at the same time, best represented now by Billy Bragg but with echoes in Paul Weller and Ray Davies and back through Orwell, the Chartists and William Cobbett. It is a thought also perhaps found in Ralph McTell’s England: “And the echo from the green hills runs through the city streets. And the wind that blows through England, Well it breathes its life in you and me.”

There are those, however, who would see all the above as sentimental tosh and whose view of England is a much more jaundiced one. The Sex Pistols. Or Lady Sovereign’s My England from 2006 –“ Cricket, bowls, croquet, nah PS2 all the way, in an English council apartment. We don't all wear bowler hats and hire servants, More like 24 hour surveillance and dog shit on pavements.” And the song here, Old England by the Waterboys, from 1985 (with a very 80’s saxophone): a bleak , depressing and rather over-wrought snapshot of England.

“ Evening has fallen, the swans are singing. The last of Sundays bells is ringing. The wind in the trees is sighing.” A welcome home or a death gasp – whatever you want to see, I guess.
Link to English Rose
Link to Old England

38 comments:

  1. I think it's putting it mildly to say that Kate Bush went just "a bit over the top" with this:)
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1So6ok542jA

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  2. Oh my god, that "long and eclectic list of cultural references that you could spend hours dissecting: 'Nice bit of kipper and Jack the Ripper and Upton Park, Gracie, Cilla, Maxy Miller, Petula Clark, Winkles, Woodbines, Walnut Whips, Vera Lynn and Stafford Cripps, Lady Chatterley, Muffin the Mule. Winston Churchill, Robin Hood, Beatrix Potter, Baden-Powell, Beecham's powders, Yorkshire pud'" - I'm opening Google to spend those "hours" you mention trying to translate these things!!!! There goes my Sunday!:) It's a great-sounding list.

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  3. It's so strange that the same artist did both "Jarrow Song"and "England, my England," and within 4 years as well! Do we know at all what was going on with him, why he had such a shift in politics?

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  4. Here's Billy Bragg and The Blokes - England, Half English - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAHgw07M5vU

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  5. I remember having a jigsaw map a bit like that - it looked like this: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VINTAGE-WOODEN-JIGSAW-PUZZLE-MAP-ENGLAND-WALES-UNBOXED-/200632124725?pt=UK_Toys_Rubiks_RL&hash=item2eb69b4535.

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  6. I played that game, "Touring England," that you posted a photo of! Here's what the board looked like:

    http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_NPfWPzF95cs/SR3ZmlvEQFI/AAAAAAAABV0/qOj7X2NAXDw/s1600-h/IMG_1510.JPG

    And here: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_NPfWPzF95cs/SR3Z-6g3tKI/AAAAAAAABV8/NgvOex0xYmo/s1600-h/IMG_1511.JPG

    As you can see in the second photo, although Wales featured on the board, it was omitted from the title of the game! the title should surely be "TOURING ENGLAND AND WALES".

    It was a good game though.Each player picked a number of cards from a pile - ten, I think - and each card had the name of a town on it. Then, setting off from your home town, you had to work out the best way to visit each town and then come back home. You had to throw a dice and moved your counter around the map of England, dot by dot, until you had completed the circuit and the first one back won. Hours of fun!

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  7. I love that list of English things by Ian Dury, including walnut whips and Robin Hood. Brilliant!

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  8. I made into the column! Thank you.

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  9. Here's Ian Dury & The Blockheads- Englands Glory - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqkn7cxTo9g

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  10. You might as well have the whole list then, Martha!

    There are jewels in the crown of England's glory
    And every jewel shines a thousand ways

    Frankie Howerd, Noël Coward and garden gnomes
    Frankie Vaughan, Kenneth Horne, Sherlock Holmes
    Monty, Biggles and Old King Cole
    In the pink or on the dole
    Oliver Twist and Long John Silver
    Captain Cook and Nelly Dean
    Enid Blyton, Gilbert Harding
    Malcolm Sargeant, Graham Greene (Graham Greene)

    All the jewels in the crown of England's glory
    Too numerous to mention, but a few
    And every one could tell a different story
    And show old England's glory something new

    Nice bit of kipper and Jack the Ripper and Upton Park
    Gracie, Cilla, Maxy Miller, Petula Clark
    Winkles, Woodbines, Walnut Whips
    Vera Lynn and Stafford Cripps
    Lady Chatterley, Muffin the Mule
    Winston Churchill, Robin Hood
    Beatrix Potter, Baden-Powell
    Beecham's powders, Yorkshire pud (Yorkshire pud)

    With Billy Bunter, Jane Austen
    Reg Hampton, George Formby
    Billy Fury, Little Titch
    Uncle Mac, Mr. Pastry and all
    Uncle mac, Mr. Patry and all

    allright england?
    g’wan england
    oh england

    All the jewels in the crown of England's glory
    Too numerous to mention, but a few
    And every one could tell a different story
    And show old England's glory something new

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  11. It's good you mentioned the Kinks - there would be have no The Jam without the influence of the Kinks.

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  12. Definitely a death gasp, I think.

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  13. This is me playing at Ballyduff House, playing The Jam's English Rose, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjN33ojaxw8

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  14. I love the Jam song - second only to "Down in the Tube Station at Midnight."

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  15. Here's Lady Sovereign’s My England: www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGr0843DV8k

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  16. Interesting blog and interesting perspective - and you might like my site, which I designed and run, www.thejamfan.net
    Cheers, Rick

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  17. Here's Bernard Cribbins's "Right said Fred" and "Hole in the Ground"
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7Bvd33V9dQ
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGk4AKOwJbc
    (I think it's Cribbins, not Cribbin)

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  18. Yes, you are right-Cribbins!
    Thanks for the link to your site, Rick -the Jam were a truly great group

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  19. I love the Waterboys' sound - it is orchestral, expansive, ambitious, a gale of brass, strings, percussion, piano, crowned by the stunning poetry and singing of band leader Mike Scott. Scott’s lyrics are at once angry, remorseful, yearning, and are some of the finest lyrics I’ve read.

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  20. I normally hate the saxophone, but it's not too bad on this song by the Waterboys!:)

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  21. I really love the Waterboys, I love their music and to be honest I love their style/mythology.

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  22. Oh noooooooooo, well, thanks Geoff!!! There goes my Sunday evening, working through the rest of that song!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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  23. The Waterboys are of the greatest bands of all time - shame they're not more well know.

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  24. I reckon that The Libertines – ‘Time For Heroes’ is a pretty good song about England.

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  25. Billy Bragg’s ‘A New England' is still the best song about England, I think.

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  26. You got to love the lyrics to Asian Dub Foundation – ‘Real Great Britain’ - as a pretty truthful, non-nostalgic view of England:

    Union Jack and Union Jill
    Back up and down the same old hill
    Sell the flag to the youths
    But who swallows the bill
    "Murdoch she wrote"
    Him have his hand in the till

    Blairful of Thatcher
    Stuck on the 45
    The suits have changed
    But the old ties survive
    New Britannia cool
    Who are you trying to fool?
    Behind your fashion-tashion I see nothing at all

    Care for the commodity
    Cuts the nation into three
    Rich pickings for the first
    Bottom third you never see
    While middle England keeps swinging its
    loyalty
    No concern for the future
    Just with dead royalty

    So will the real, the real Great Britan
    step forward
    This is the national identity parade
    Shoe gazer nation forever looking
    backwards
    Time to reject the sixties charade

    Not enough schools
    Not enough homes
    Just "phony care" in his millennium dome
    More prime cuts than beef on the bone
    And there's too many questions you're
    not answering Tone

    Union Jack and Union Jill
    Back up and down the same old hill
    Sell the flag to the youths
    But who swallows the bill
    "Murdoch she wrote"
    Him have his hand in the till

    So will the real, the real Great Britain
    step forward
    This is the national identity parade
    Shoe gazer nation forever looking
    backwards
    Time to reject the sixties charade

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  27. Also Roger Miller’s ‘England Swings’ and Sting’s ‘An Englishman In New York’........

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  28. Frank Turner's "English Curse" as well

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  29. And the Clash – ‘This Is England’

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  30. And there is the whole album by Genesis, "Selling England by the Pound," all about the pastoral yearning for medieval England - songs about knights and lawnmowers! Gang battles in Epping Forest. And the song "Aisle of Plenty" includes the lines "there's the safe way home. Thankful for her fine fair discount, Tess co-operates..." - where Peter Gabriel carefully includes the supermarket names "safeway, finefare, co-op and Tesco" as he promised he would.......

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  31. In my opinion, if there is such a thing as a "perfect" album, it is the Waterboys' This is the Sea. And when I say "perfect," I don't necessarily mean for everyone. It is perfect for me, specifically. Filled with literary imagery, allusions, spirituality without getting overly "religious," and poetic lyrics. In fact, Bono once said about this album that the word poetry is thrown around too often in rock, but is entirely apt here. He further cites it as being in his top ten favorites. I share this passion for the album. Though I have heard and own other Waterboys albums, none quite stack up to this one. Even Mike Scott, the visionary leader of the band, said that it was "the record on which I achieved all my youthful musical ambitions" (Wikipedia, 2003 citation). "The Whole of the Moon" one of two singles from the album, is an exuberant celebration. Its lyrics exalt an unnamed visionary whom the narrator envies. Comparisons are made between the two throughout the song, with "I saw the rain dirty valley, you saw Brigadoon" as just one profoundly poetic example. Many have tried to guess the target of Scott's praise, offering forth C.S. Lewis, Prince, and Mark Helprin, and musician Nikki Sudden even claimed the song was about him, but it is still somewhat a mystery. I've always envisioned it being a lover who simply has a joie de vivre and vivid imagination. The song builds into intense crescendos, swelling into majestic symphonies of guitar, keys, violin, and horns as Scott unleashes even more lyrical beauty, such as "Unicorns and cannonballs / palaces and piers / trumpets, towers, and tenements / wide oceans full of tears / flags, rags, ferryboats / scimitars and scarves / every precious dream and vision / underneath the stars." The song is simply breathtaking. Even more stunning is the title track and closer of the album. "This is the Sea" rivals "The Whole of the Moon" in every department. I can connect with it on a number of different levels. At its core, I feel the song is about starting over, about making positive changes, leaving darkness behind and moving on into better realms. I'm not sure if this is exactly what Mike Scott was going for on this song, but that is what it means to me, and it means a lot. The concept of "that was the river, this is the sea" makes a simple yet profound comparison that runs throughout the song, reassuring us that even though we may experience trouble and pain, there is always time to alter our course. As such, this track has been a comfort through many points in my life, from the river of small-town life to the sea of college, from the river of loneliness to the sea of self-reliance, and from the river of divorce to the sea of a new direction in life. For these songs, these magical, wonderful, beautiful songs, I will forever be grateful to Mike Scott and the Waterboys. It's not often that rock and roll can change lives, but Mike Scott certainly changed mine.

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  32. The Jam are amazing - the first band I ever saw in concert. Thanks Geoff!

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  33. I hate hate paul weller, but the jam's tunes were great.

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  34. Bearing in mind the song by The Jam that Geoff wrote about, and sad news about Amy Winehouse's death, it seems appropriate to post this version of "Heard it Through the Grapevine" by her and Paul Weller of The Jam: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVT-BokwmWY

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  35. As the Libertines have been mentioned there was also Babyshambles and 'Albion'.

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  36. I really like your blog! I've been trying to make sense of 80s videos, and I started with The Jam's video for "The Bitterest Pill" for example. Here is the video: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1iowi_the-jam-the-bitterest-pill-1982_music, and here's my breakdown of what I think is happening - quite a story!

    Some fuzzy image that I can’t quite make out, but I suspect it involves cake and cobwebs.

    Angry-looking bride (heretofore, ALB) with a combo ribbon-braided headband/veil throws! flowers! at camera! [Whatever could be wrong, bride?]

    Paul Weller is wearing a trenchcoat, is in a tunnel, and appears to be sad.

    ALB glares at us. [Why? We didn't DO anything. If only we could find out the back story...]

    Ah, warm lighting! ALB and Paul Weller kiss affectionately. [Jesus, Paul Weller was handsome and British and angular.]

    Woman who eventually becomes ALB has a hell of a jawline, and laughs affectionately right into Paul Weller’s face, and he returns the favor. [Is that how British people in 1982 courted? I wouldn't know. I was 11, and living in New Hampshire.]

    Then younger ALB and her awesome jawline laugh with someone else who is in The Jam.

    Fireplace.

    Younger ALB kisses someone else who makes her jawline laugh like Paul Weller used to.

    Aw, sad, handsome, well-lit Paul Weller is still lurking somewhere, singing.

    Aw, bless, a sunny cafe with young ALB and Paul Weller. Her hair is feathered beyond comprehension. [She's holding on to the '70s a bit here.]

    Paul Weller reaches out to younger ALB. Younger ALB PULLS! HAND! AWAY! And shakes head “NO!!!” He must have done something bad. ANGST!

    Paul Weller is sad, and there’s a montage where young ALB is with Paul Weller, hugging, hanging out, looking bored. [How can anyone hanging out with him, let alone making out with him, be bored, ever, at all?]

    Paul Weller is still sad, and sings about it on the boardwalk somewhere really cool where Mod revivalists hang out and express their rainy sadness.

    Young ALB storms out of the cafe, wearing a shirt tucked into really high-waisted jeans by today’s standards. [The realization that women's jeans have always been stupid, no matter the era, has really hit me.]

    One of the other dudes in The Jam [Sorry, I'm not good with names] gives younger ALB flowers by a fire. She sniffs them, and she and her jawline laugh again. [Oooooh, girl!] Looks like Paul Weller didn’t do anything wrong, and certainly nothing worthy of being walked out on so dramatically in a cafe.

    The ALB is downright disdainful. She scowls. [Sorry ALB, did we bore you too? Is that why you're mad at us and Paul Weller?]

    We see that when the younger ALB left handsome, handsome Paul Weller at the cafe, that her white cup had smashed to bits on the ground when she stormed out.

    Paul Weller is still sad, still looking resplendent in a tan trenchcoat, and still in a tunnel.

    ALB spins and spins and spins. [She is spiteful, but moving a lot!]

    More cobwebs on something that I imagine is a cake, but the video quality isn’t doing me any favors.

    ALB is really pissed, but Paul Weller has crawled out of the tunnels, and into a … smoking jacket? Awesome.

    And, scene.

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  37. This commentary is better than the video!Its pretty fuzzy but I think one of 'the dudes by the fire' is Rick Buckler, who commented earlier above!

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  38. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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