Hate Social Rambling: billy bragg daily telegraph frank turner tom waits
by Matthew
28 comments
Toad 2.0
People I Can Do Without #4562
Steve from Festive Fifty kicked this off, but god knows how. I assume he doesn’t read the UK’s broadest toilet paper The Daily Telegraph, but he spotted their scathing article about John Peel nonetheless. I am not linking to The Telegraph because this sort of nonsense is just that – link bait – but the text in its entirety is on Steve’s site if you want to read it.
I don’t intend to spend this post criticising The Daily Telegraph, which is basically The Daily Mail for people who know a few long words. Nor do I have any need to defend John Peel from people who think he was a bandwagon jumper because quite frankly making such baldly ignorant statements really just makes you look a tit and does pretty much nothing to the legacy of the Big Man, so snipe away, pygmy, no-one gives a shit. If you want to read a passionate and erudite defence of Mr. Peel, then read Ed.
The one thing that struck me, however, whilst reading Michael Henderson’s dismal article was how revealing it was of him personally. He represents the sort of utterly depressing human being whose presence on the planet sucks all life out of the human race. I’ve hated pricks like him all my life, it’s only now that I am sufficiently his equal in basic societal measures that I feel unchallengeable in saying that no, I am here, I have attained all you fetishise in life and no, you are still a spineless weasel. I am not jealous, you, mate, are a cunt.
The first and most petty of Henderson’s, erm, well, arguments I guess he’d like you to call them, is his paragraph-long forgiveness of grammatical errors in John Peel’s epitaph. It’s a quotation of course, so the grammatical errors should really be taken up with the writers of the song and thus have nothing to do with Peel. But they suffice to establish both an imagined moral high ground and a condescending generosity on the basis of someone else’s errors. Well done Michael.
Apart from picking on one of Peel’s most ill-considered quotes – “I wish I had the courage to be a terrorist”, which is not as bereft of merit as Henderson thinks: do you believe in anything that much? And if not, why not? – his main beef with Peel is that the man “never really grew up”.
And this is why I hate this article and hold its author in utter contempt. If you want to know why, then try this awful quote on for size:
Self-deception is exactly what is wrong with that memorial. Its banal sentiment is not child-like, merely childish. Pop music speaks to teenagers because, green in judgment, they lack the emotional resources to respond to anything deeper. With helpful instruction, and a bit of curiosity, that should come with age, though in this case it didn’t.
Pop music speaks to people, in much the same way that classical art forms do, because it has a fucking good tune. For those intent on creating something more meaningful out of it, then it can also appeal to the innate snobbery of the listener, which is helpful. The pathetic illusion that classical art forms are in any way superior to or more sophisticated than popular ones is just the same kind of infantile snobbery that indie-kids employ to persuade themselves that no-one but them really gets it. Art forms are different and require different parts of our brain to interact with them. Joseph Conrad may have been a technically brilliant writer, but fuck me his books are dull to read. Are you saying that his intellectual pretensions are innately superior to George MacDonald Fraser’s jarring Flash For Freedom? If so, then I think you are looking for the veneer of smug superiority above actual intellectual or artistic merit.
If ever there was a sound reason to entirely dismiss the attention-starved ramblings of this clown it is here:
People in their fifties and even sixties are seen on our streets every day behaving like teenagers. In their eating and drinking habits, clothing, language, and leisure pursuits, they can be hard to distinguish from people young enough to be their grandchildren. No wonder those youngsters fail to grow up.Funeral directors across the land have spoken with sadness in recent years of the lack of respect shown to the dead. The passing of loved ones used to release feelings of love, loss and reflection. Now they are just excuses to have a bit of a larf.
If this poor fellow had ever read any books he would know that lamenting the digressions of today’s wayward youth has been a favourite past-time of the unimaginative since god was a boy. The world, believe me, has always been going to hell in a hand-basket. And Peel was also a football fan, don’t you know, and they’re all thugs and sheep. Ooh, Betty!
I’ve had this quarrel with people who claim age as a virtue since I was about four years old, and I haven’t changed since then. I am better at certain things, and worse at others, but I am no cleverer nor any better a person. The article implies that you actually become more intelligent as you get older which is simply factually incorrect. Any teenager with a brain knows that real life forces you to compromise on your ambitions and your ideals. Teenagers are not stupid, they just know less and that isn’t always a bad thing. If your teenage dreams were so divorced from reality that you have had to abandon them in order to accommodate the real world, Mr. Henderson, then it implies that you weren’t a very bright teenager. And if you can’t see how someone who looks at the world with different fundamental premises than yours might come to different conclusions as to how to inhabit it, then I can only conclude that you aren’t a very bright adult either.
I have made some compromises due to the practical facts of life, but I have no illusions that I was forced to make them. You can always be an iconoclast if you choose, Henderson, but have the courage to acknowledge your compromises for what they are. I accept the discipline of a 9-5 job not because the world is more complicated than I realised, but because I have looked at the options and decided that the restrictions on my personal freedom are worth the sacrifice, and I make no apology to my teenage self for this decision.
What Michael Henderson manages to come across as, and I would be amazed if this weren’t accurate, is morally vacant with no courage, no principles and no integrity. We have all made the same compromises as you, Michael, but we do not try and pretend our cynical self-interest makes us better people. And we treat that as cause to admire the idealism of our youth, not denigrate it. For who has the greater courage, you spineless turkey, the man who knows no better and yet believes in idealistic principles, the man who surrenders his idealism at the first sign of conflict with his own self-interest, or the man who accepts that his ideals may never be achievable, may be at odds with the world, and yet strives to live up to them nonetheless?
And yes, there is a right and a wrong answer to that question. People like you, Michael Henderson, make the world a significantly worse place simply by lumbering about in it in your own snivelling, cowardly little weaselly way. As I get older the more I realise there is less and less excuse for giving in to the multi-nuanced ‘real world’. That is basically just a limp excuse for abandoning moral responsibility, and I would far rather deal with a futile idealist than a successful cynic.
Teenage dreams are hard to beat precisely because they are naive, but that is a good thing and any attempt to paint them as infantile, rather than occasionally just wrong, is almost invariably the work of someone sniffing about for any justification for his own selfish moral capitulation. They take their fat corporate salaries and pretend that they actually earn them, but that voice in the back of their heads never quite gives up whispering to them that they might just have turned into a dull, insecure, spiritless little lickspittle. People like this just depress me. What the fuck purpose is there for this sort of depressing individual, with his cowardly outlook and childish obfuscation? If you have no moral courage, Henderson, and you’ve surrendered your ideals to pamper your vanity then just fucking admit it you spineless bimbo.
It’s nearly lunchtime and christ I need my pint!
Billy Bragg – From Red to Blue
Tom Waits – I Don’t Wanna Grow Up
Frank Turner – Once We Were Anarchists
Well it’s not just about him. The whole ‘life’s just not that simple’ crowd make me sick. They make an innately selfish decision and then try and dress their greed up in smug superiority. Just admit to your lazy avarice, you whores. And grow some balls.
Brav-Fuckin’-O – Checkmate to cynicism and a great post. Better to die on your feet than live on your knees
Well, I for one, can accept that this chap is an utter knob and won’t be paying too much attention. All I would say is that I grew listening to John Peel, and his enthusiasm for new bands for different musical experiences shaped my listening (and ultimately inspired me to pick up a guitar) and so, where there are people like Toad out there doing the same, Ii feel glad. That journo is so missing the point and probably is still listening to his Genesis records. John Peel will always always remain on my heroes list, simply because he allowed me to embrace joy.
Thanks Matthew for your kind words too. Hope to see you at the Cloudberry gig… Rob
I’m at a loss for words after reading that hateful and mindless ‘article’, so thank god you had an arsenal at your disposal and spoke for all of us still in shock. What a wretched, vile, joke of a man he must be. Of course, if he values the dead so, why has he written an entire article attacking a dead man that can’t defend himself? And to attack the punctuation in a quote?! The man stinks of desperation.
Or indeed the petty meanness that comes from somewhere deep down in his little black soul knowing that he is an insufferable prick, despite his outward show of smug self-satisfaction.
You can’t run from the voices Michael, you can’t run!
Jonathan Richman’s Not Yet Three is another great ‘fuck you, grown up’ song. Another brilliant post Matthew.
Henderson is a absolute tosser, lets tie him up and subject him to extreme noise terror at full volume for a year while the ghost of john peel laughs that the record is playing at the wrong speed .
I don’t know Jonathan Richman at all actually, but I get the feeling I should because more and more people keep mentioning his name to me.
I would have played Charmless Man by Blur, but I don’t have it.
Cheers for the shoutout toad, still amazed the guy wrote this shit,
Ed
I am also amazed. But it looks like pretty obvious internet link-baiting, so I’m glad no-one’s linked to the prick. Controversy over content – welcome to the 21st Century.
He’s just a tosser that’s all. Probably doesn’t even like rock music. Most definitely doesn’t like people expressing genuine joy whilst listening to it. Certainly doesn’t like men showing up to work without a tie and, I can’t imagine he’s too fond of all these new laws which allow just anyone to vote!
Exactly the sort of person Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart would have held in total and utter contempt! Beethoven too for that matter. Picasso too while we’re at it. He wore baggy trousers and hung around on street corners into his forties too you know. But the primary and the latter of these men were also able to tap into their inner child and were quite joyful for it. Reflects in their art, and in me while I’m listening to, and looking at it. But that’s okay, they are artists and can get away with it. People appreciating art don’t get such a long leash because they can’t be defined in the same bracket. Does he honestly think Shakespeare, Lois Armstrong or Monet wanted people sitting around in smoking room tapping their hands together in a dignified but appreciative fashion? Because if they did they shouldn’t have filled their art with whores and drinking!
Pillock!
Sometimes I think you should write this blog instead of me, you smart-arsed bastard.
OK Toad, there was a Jonathan Richman track played a few TWR’s ago &, frankly, he is the mutt’s nuts at what he does. There’re a lot of sound-a-likes (accidental & purposeful) out there, but he is a genuine one off in terms of tenacity & wit. A marvel live, too. Start off with The Modern Lovers’ first & then cherry pick from his extensive, but consistent, back catalogue.
Looks like I opened a whole can of worms here, Matthew. I found the article through links provided by the Yahoo Peel group: I’m afraid I don’t have time to read newspapers, especially not if they’re as patronising and self-satisfied as this. Thank you for an elegant and detailed dissection of a piece of writing that frankly doesn’t deserve it.
P.S. I will link your splendid column this very day, sir.
Christ, that article made me remember how boring it is to be an adult. I thought it was strange how he would have been fine with the “innocence” of something like Winnie the Pooh over the “fear of growing up” that pop music relates to. Seems it’s okay to appreciate these things only if out of irony or nostalgia. No one can be nostalgic over pop music, though? He’s like a terrible ironic hipster but older and without humor. Very sad.
Side note – DC’s right, Jonathan Richman is quite the mutt’s nuts, both on stage and off. Haven’t heard “Not Yet Three,” but if the song “Ice Cream Man” doesn’t make you smile even a bit, your life isn’t worth living.
Excellent use of the word”lickspittle”. I suspect Mr Henderson has a jealousy arising from the sense that something fun is happening elsewhere and he wasn’t invited.
I was most upset by his despoiling of all things Toad. I can assure, not one of the riverbank folk would pass the time of day with such an insufferable prig.
China – O Yes, Ice Cream Man is brilliant, esp. the false endings that go on & on & on…
I had a funny feeling you would have had something to say about all of this – my initial reaction is not to give the prick any publicity at all. And it remains that way.
But….that’s as good a piece of writing as you’ve ever produced at SBT.
I doff my baseball cap to you, as I feed the pit bull terriers being careful not to drop Pedigree Chum on the white Kappa tracksuit. Henderson hates me.
Henderson doesn’t hate you. I get the impression that deep down he actually hates himself.
on a vaguely related theme, I just read that Julie Burchill has gout. Made my fucking night.
Not the clap, then.
one wishes, but we’re not in Kansas anymore.
on another vaguely related note, I hear Sandi Thom has had to cancel her gig in Cardiff (400 capacity Glee Club) due to promotional commitments i.e. she sold 42 tickets. Bless.
Alex Cornish is supporting her in Edinburgh. This is one time I am delighted to accept a guestie because there is no fucking way I am sticking around for the main act. Although it might be interesting for instructional reasons – an object lesson in internet hubris, perhaps.
Poor fucking Cornish. I suspect this might be one of those rare gigs where there’re more people there for the support than the main act. I use the term ‘act’ very fucking loosely in her case.
Garrr! Christ! You have no idea how much I despise that fucking turd of a “song” she did (I can’t even bring myself to type its fucking ridiculously ill-informed title) & her fucking Eastenders script writer-style brass to pass it off as authetic. The ignorant fucking puppet. There’s a drunken ex girlfriend punch in the face with her name written on it somewhere, I’m sure. Let’s hope someone phone-cams it & its on youtube before she hits the ground.
Well I’m interested in her as a case study in marketing dishonesty to be honest. I find it vaguely reassuring that no amount of star-making effort has been able to overcome the fundamental lack of talent, and it’s nice to see their lies fall so spectacularly flat on their faces.
Henderson is a payrolled cunt, pure & simple (Hear’say).
His like exist in order to accomplish two things: wind up people like you & I into frothing mouthpieces for an opinion opposite to his own (so he can then justify future rants, citing you & I as the reason this country is swimming with immigrants, where gays & jews have most of the lucrative jobs); &, to get those who agree with him quivering with rage & spiking blood vessels over breakfast – so much so one of them, at least, sends a letter into the shitrag declaring Henderson the rightful Heir to the throne &, just for good measure, why don’t we bring back drowing & burning to find out who’s gay or black or in favour of the EURO or doesn’t like the thought of 2 lesbians having a munch on each other? Huzzah!
Best ignore the fucking waste of biological resource & concentrate on not buying his cocking awful comic.