My St George's Day

[annwfyn]

So, yesterday was St George's Day, which I don't usually celebrate, but last night was a little but different. I went to the Barbican, sang 'Jerusalem' and 'Swing Low, Sweet Chariot', listened to some poetry by Rudyard Kipling, and waved the flag of St George.

What made it particularly peculiar was that I was at a Billy Bragg concert.

Billy Bragg, bless him, has decided that his new campaign is to 'redefine Englishness' and reclaim it from the far right. To be fair, that's a pretty good aim, although Evil Left Wing Progressive Sally did think 'if he's so keen on opening up 'Englishness' and making it a more inclusive identity, how come all his featured acts in this St George's Day concert are so very white?'. This aim also seems to involve him getting left wing Billy Bragg fans to wave the St George's Day flag, sing Jerusalem, and listen to a really odd, but quite cool mix of Northumbrian folk songs (Rachel Unthank & Winterset), a short but angry young man (Tom Clarke, who is normally the lead singer of the Enemy, and who reminded Ginnie and I of ragged_halo, and a rockabilly trio of teenagers (Kitty Daisy & Lewis).

There was, of course, also an extended period of Billy Bragg rambling cheerfully in between his songs, and also Billy Bragg playing around with music, culminating in his singing 'Pinball Wizard' to the tune of 'I Walk The Line' by Johnny Cash, which worked surprisingly well.

I enjoyed it. It was interesting, and livened up a huge amount by the presence of ksirafai who rapidly decided that Billy Bragg was an offense to the very core of her being. It started going wrong when he set Rudyard Kipling's Pict Song to music, and presented it as an anti-imperialist song, and said that Kipling 'knew it was wrong to invade other people's countries'. Ginnie nearly shot out of her seat, and starting hissing 'He's lying. That's from Rewards and Fairies. Kipling was never anti-imperialist'. It rather went downhill from then on, and culminated in Ginnie ranting at high volume afterwards, whilst my solid old style socialist brothers, inskauldrak and skinny_cartman, glowered at her with the face of outraged True Believers.

Next time I go to a Billy Bragg concert I'm taking davywavy if I can. It would just make the evening perfect.

I bimbled home afterwards, with my assorted comrades (see what seeing Billy Bragg does for me?) and collapsed into bed. Today has been a quite nice day spent skiving off college and bimbling around Greenwich with Matt before he went back to Cambridge.

And that was my St George's Day.

How was it for you?

Comments

[badgersandjam.livejournal.com]

Erm...I have sheet music for two versions of The Pict's Song. It's Classic Filk TM.

Other than that, I failed to get out of bed. Only I failed to sleep, too, so you may get a hallucinating tree tonight...

[adze.livejournal.com]

I quite enjoyed mine, even if I don't make the write-up...

;-)

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

You didn't argue with Ginnie enough. That was all the rest of them got mentioned for. :p

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I recently read his latest book; it's interesting. It reads like an incorrect answer in a maths A-level, in that he makes one or two basic errors at the start and then draws completely logical conclusions from them. His thinking is sound, it's just that his premises are incorrect.

[ksirafai.livejournal.com]

I've been discussing the matter, on and off, in far more polite terms, with both Jamesina and Sarah. :) My basic premise says 'If you're wrong or lying about one thing, how can I trust that you're telling the truth about the rest of it?'

Also, I fail at Being Told What To Do unless someone can give me a better reason than '...Well, I've got this song, right?'. I accept that voting is one of the best measures to protect liberties and so on, but dear me, you don't need to preach as if I'm in some kind of Church to the Spirit of the Seventies... :P

[ksirafai.livejournal.com]

#Enterprise, Enterprise, wombling free, the booklets of Enterprise, proofread are we...

Making good use of the papers we find, Things that the ordinary socialists leave behind...

For we make a lot of new curriculum things, things that mean everyone has to learn about...

Enterprise, Enterprise, wombling free, remind me to not have lots of sugar for tea...#

[adze.livejournal.com]

Oh, and at least one of the girls in the rockabilly group had East Asian features, and the guest horn player was black.

[skinny-cartman.livejournal.com]

Okay tbh you can see why kipling's pict song appeals to a socialist though right?
Perhaps its not the best choice if looking at his lifetime of work and when this was written in comparison to when Kipling started having anti-war feelings and so forth, but it expresses within it a sentiment which would appeal to those who feel like they are "the little people" in society, and also one could view the sections about Rome at the beginning in an anti-imperialist light.
Now whether Bill is correct or not in his assumption that Kipling was an anti-imperialist and anti-war etc. shouldn't matter so much as the objective of the whole evening was a reclamation.
And what he's doing with this is essentially taking something from Kipling who is tbh pretty right wing in views normally and using it and its words in a different way essentially reclaiming something, and finding something within that whole soup of old fashioned Englishness or Britishness that gels with left wing ideas - its making a statement - its saying its okay to like these things, its okay to be proud to be english because those great english writers also wrote stuff like this, and yeah they might not have meant X but rather meant Y, but when I read that, when I sing that, X is what I draw from it and so forth.
Its like you can read the Bible or the Hadiths in certain ways and draw one conclusion or you can draw another - it might not be literally the correct one but it should be about what resonates with you the reader how that verse makes you feel and to me thats what poetry and such things are about, its not always about understanding what the poet meant its about what you feel and draw from it.
And if you can draw left wing inspiration from Kipling of all people then thats all good, whatever frigging poem it comes from.

[satyrica.livejournal.com]

sounds cool! I hadn't realised Tom Clarke was playing- I saw The Enemy last month and thought they were fantastic

we went to one of Vauxhall's pub's George's Day celebrations with Mary Poppins singalongs and barboys [they're really nto old enough to be men] dresssed as chimney sweeps :-)

[alasdair.livejournal.com]

Wait, Kipling? Anti-imperialist? Hasn't the big nosed bastard read his Orwell? I mean, I'm one hundred percent fine with re-interpreting his material - I love a good cover version, me - but claiming that the "prophet of British Imperialism" was anti-imperialist is a bit much.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

That was what sent Ginnie into this seething frothing heap of RANT.

She felt that taking his Pict's Song from Rewards and Fairies and trying to use it to prove that Kipling would have opposed the Iraq War was maybe reaching a little bit...

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I should have advertised it more! I didn't know who he was - I've never listened to the Enemy before - so just told everyone I was going to see Billy Bragg and Winterset, who were the draw for me.

I should listen to some Enemy now.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I have no issues with Kipling being reclaimed. I think he's a marvellous poet, with a very great and profound understanding of English history and folklore, who's reputation has been unfairly tarnished by the far right. I actually think some of his Raj writings - Plain Tales From The Hills - are really nice as well.

I like the fact that the Pict Song was used.

I just think that Billy Bragg went a little far in trying to reinterpret Kipling's views.

[eladriell.livejournal.com]

How can you go too far? Christ I draw massive inspiration from people like Paul Elstak in music, Magaret Thatchers writings and other sources of that wonder that is Englands not-quite-right (See what I did there!) attitude. It doesnt matter what someone is saying, its what your hearing thats the key, hence reclamation, taking ideas and ideals and...I dont know why I'm even explaining, you know what I mean...

Not that I'd claim to be very left-wing, I have some pride left.

So kudos to Bragg for trying something like that, pity his music sucks.

[eladriell.livejournal.com]

Using as proof? More likely highlighting the fact that just as some use his writings to justify wars (Look up quoted sources on Stormfront or the other White Pride networks) you could apply the same logic and academic evaluations in exactly the opposite way to his words and thus draw an opposing conclusion. It highlights the poor logic and mentality of those who cite sources such as Kipling for personal justification, as well as inviting listeners to open their minds a bit more and understand the thought processes that shape the people in your nation (including you) and thus the national identity as well.

Erm, its a possibility no?