In Old England Very Hard Times
So I went to a performance of the Imagined Village today, which is a reimagining of English folk music which aims to update it and in some way reflect the multi-cultural aspects of society. It integrates musicians from english, folk, indian and reggae backgrounds - of and Billy Bragg of course. There's more at http://imaginedvillage.com - definitely check out Tam Lyn Retold - it features a very intense performance by Benjamin Zephaniah - and is just generally fantastic.
There was a very strange moment for me, or two - as the first song the support act performed was a lovely song about my birthplace - which captured a lot of how I feel about it - The Cottager's Reply here if you're interested. Anyway, when I'm plotting a story out in my head I often find a scene with music - and what type of music it is to some extent defines the world I'm writing in. The last story I finished had one of these scenes - it was a folky, Irish vocal with indian instruments and a fast pounding rhythm - one of the songs tonight was that music.
More than the actual music (fantastic as it was) it was the ideas that excited me. We went to a question and answer session with some of the performers before hand where they discussed folk music and the cultural cringe and what it is to be English. Between that and the performance I felt like a dialogue was being opened in my own mind - I loved it.
In England right now, there's a sense of crisis and threat - we are being invaded by immigrants and being robbed of our livelihoods and homes and english-ness - or so some papers would have us believe. The thing is we have always been an island, where people and ideas and culture have flowed in and out again. We have been invaded so many times that it is joked that there is no englishness left - but, I think at least, that is where our Englishness really lies - our ability to absorb and evolve with these new things - to grow from them.
Terry Pratchett says of his city of Ankh-Morpork that no invasion had ever succeeded because they had always flung the gates open, invited them in and before they knew it they had become just another citizen. That's England.
An example Billy Bragg used, which I liked, was The Beatles. The Beatles are an exceedingly English band - they probably define us better than any other band of the twentieth century - but they were created by the influences of so many other cultures - from the Indian music that defined their later years to the American music that was swept into Liverpool and absorbed them in their youth. It's the dialogue between the Englishness and the Otherness that has created what they were - and what we are.
That's where I think things have maybe started to go wrong now. That dialogue can't exist if one of the sides is weak - and England is weak right now - we don't have the pride in what we are to stand strongly in it and absorb those other elements - instead we try to imitate them and copy them or deny them.
There's shame now - the cultural cringe - a feeling that there is something vaguely obscene in showing pride to be English - an embarrassment in our traditions and ways. It might be a leftover of Colonial guilt - perhaps that was where we went wrong, when we tried to force our ways onto others rather than accepting what they had to give - and whatever bravado we present I think there is some shame in what we did to those countries.
And the bedfellow of shame is fear - so we no longer stand firm and take part in the dialogue - but become defensive and turn to nationalism instead or hide our heads completely. But that way is a dead end - tradition is not meant to be static - but until we can feel pride in being English again then we can't evolve. We can only look to the most defiant among us to stand their ground in our place. But I don't think it's hopeless - I don't think we're the savage youths I've heard us described as - we're not lost, we're just wandering.
I don't know if that makes any sense. Whether I'm anywhere near the truth or a truth - or whether I'm a million miles away. But I'm a Ravenclaw and so I think.
There was a very strange moment for me, or two - as the first song the support act performed was a lovely song about my birthplace - which captured a lot of how I feel about it - The Cottager's Reply here if you're interested. Anyway, when I'm plotting a story out in my head I often find a scene with music - and what type of music it is to some extent defines the world I'm writing in. The last story I finished had one of these scenes - it was a folky, Irish vocal with indian instruments and a fast pounding rhythm - one of the songs tonight was that music.
More than the actual music (fantastic as it was) it was the ideas that excited me. We went to a question and answer session with some of the performers before hand where they discussed folk music and the cultural cringe and what it is to be English. Between that and the performance I felt like a dialogue was being opened in my own mind - I loved it.
In England right now, there's a sense of crisis and threat - we are being invaded by immigrants and being robbed of our livelihoods and homes and english-ness - or so some papers would have us believe. The thing is we have always been an island, where people and ideas and culture have flowed in and out again. We have been invaded so many times that it is joked that there is no englishness left - but, I think at least, that is where our Englishness really lies - our ability to absorb and evolve with these new things - to grow from them.
Terry Pratchett says of his city of Ankh-Morpork that no invasion had ever succeeded because they had always flung the gates open, invited them in and before they knew it they had become just another citizen. That's England.
An example Billy Bragg used, which I liked, was The Beatles. The Beatles are an exceedingly English band - they probably define us better than any other band of the twentieth century - but they were created by the influences of so many other cultures - from the Indian music that defined their later years to the American music that was swept into Liverpool and absorbed them in their youth. It's the dialogue between the Englishness and the Otherness that has created what they were - and what we are.
That's where I think things have maybe started to go wrong now. That dialogue can't exist if one of the sides is weak - and England is weak right now - we don't have the pride in what we are to stand strongly in it and absorb those other elements - instead we try to imitate them and copy them or deny them.
There's shame now - the cultural cringe - a feeling that there is something vaguely obscene in showing pride to be English - an embarrassment in our traditions and ways. It might be a leftover of Colonial guilt - perhaps that was where we went wrong, when we tried to force our ways onto others rather than accepting what they had to give - and whatever bravado we present I think there is some shame in what we did to those countries.
And the bedfellow of shame is fear - so we no longer stand firm and take part in the dialogue - but become defensive and turn to nationalism instead or hide our heads completely. But that way is a dead end - tradition is not meant to be static - but until we can feel pride in being English again then we can't evolve. We can only look to the most defiant among us to stand their ground in our place. But I don't think it's hopeless - I don't think we're the savage youths I've heard us described as - we're not lost, we're just wandering.
I don't know if that makes any sense. Whether I'm anywhere near the truth or a truth - or whether I'm a million miles away. But I'm a Ravenclaw and so I think.