Talking Pop and Politics

Back in the dark ages I recall listening to the ‘radiogram’ – the device that was a crafted piece of furniture, turntable, radio. Our source of music, news and entertainment. Here I heard Woody Guthrie for the first time with the scratchy raw recordings of early train hopping and the plight of the struggling worker. His music was part of the background of my childhood.

When he died in 1967 I’d moved on to Beatles pop, the Easybeats,  Bob Dylan and Arlo’s Alice’s Restaurant.  This Land is Your Land had been revived by Peter Seeger and Peter Paul and Mary, and was yet to be done by Bruce Springsteen, or sung at the Obama inaugural celebration. Dylan had recorded Song to Woody in 1962, but I didn’t hear it until years later. 

This week I was at a Billy Bragg concert. This is the third time I have seen him and the fact that 20 or more years on he still maintains the passion for social justice, truth, and the dignity of the common man, just like Woody, blows me away.

The first half of the show was a selection from the Mermaid Avenue project: previously unrecorded songs of Woody Guthrie set to Billy Bragg music. As powerful as the songs, was the storytelling that accompanied each of them.

The second half was vintage Bragg. Raw folk punk belting out Sexuality, There is Power in a Union. All the classics. 

At the end of the show he came out to meet and greet and every waiting fan was treated to an individual photo and chat - generous and gracious, unlike Amanda Vanstone’s rude and aggressive responses to him on Q&A the night before.  

As Ronan would say: It was brilliant.

On Monday I got to listen to Alan Ramsay introduce Bill Leek at the Canberra launch of Leek’s new book Unaustralian of the Year. Nothing like the acerbic wit of an old jurno and a political cartoonist. 

On Friday I was lucky to be at a colleague’s retirement function and hear championed a capacity to ‘work around’ systems in a career that was driven by social justice.

What more could you want in an increasingly over regulated and politically correct world than the voices of great people who have never stopped dissenting.  

As Gough said: Maintain the rage.

 

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 Art Work of the Week

Now for some folk work...given the topic above.

Christmas triffid.