The
job of writing satirical songs and skits is becoming increasingly
hard, not least because the world is so bonkers now that you can't
really exaggerate it for entertainment. I decided to re-record a
couple of my old songs recently with updated lyrics for the modern age and
I've put them out on a digital E.P. called 'Trumped.' Check it out on
Spotify, YouTube, iTunes or whatever online music conduit you use.
Having recorded many albums with my mother in recording studios (as Adam Colton and Teresa Colton), this
one is just a 'lo-fi' production, simply because the main emphasis is
on lyrics rather than polish (and because it costs so bleeding
much!). It was good enough for Woody Guthrie after all...
One
of the songs, 'This Song Wasn't Written by A.I.,' although heavily
influenced by Bob Dylan, is about a modern issue that worries a lot
of people. Creativity is a release of tension and a form of
communication for many, in the way that sports can be for others. The
fact that creative fields are being handed over to computers seems a
particularly mercenary decision to me. Producers and managers no
longer have to pay a human to create when they can get a computer to
just copy what humans have already done and reconstitute it for a new
market. It is surely the most cynical thing the 'fat cats' of this
world have ever done – literally turning machines into expressive
humans and humans into consuming machines. And all in the name of
money, of course.
That
said, so far I would quote the trade descriptions act when it comes
to 'A.I.' Unlike in Kubrick and Spielberg's excellent film of the same
name, what we call 'A.I.' isn't a sentient entity capable of it's own
thoughts but really a very advanced search engine that simply scours
the Internet for information / misinformation and presents it in the
way that a human would present it (coherent but flawed). Somebody
demonstrated it to me by instructing it to 'write a book in the style
of Adam Colton.' The 'A.I.' then scours the Internet for things I
have actually written and approximates the style and content.
Personally I wasn't convinced, although my mum said that it was
indeed the kind of thing that I write. Well, they say imitation is
the sincerest form of flattery...
I
went to watch the film 'No Direction Home' at the local cinema
a while back. The film presented the early
life of Bob Dylan in a slightly fictionalised way. It is certainly
not a glamorised perspective of him, whereas I found the musical
'Sunny Afternoon' to present a much more affable version of Ray
Davies than I encountered in Johnny Rogan's biography 'A Complicated Life.' What
the lyrics of both songwriters have in common though, along with Pink
Floyd's Roger Waters in particular, is a desire for fairness, which
is increasingly seen as a lefty tree-hugging minority view.
I
realise that my own views and lyrics are somewhat to the left of the
majority of local people down here in the Garden of England (Kent), but thankfully free speech still exists. I
find the shift towards money as an end rather than a means to be a
worrying one, with Trump as its ultimate representative. As children back
in the eighties we were taught that we would have much more leisure
time in the future because computers would be doing all the mundane
tasks, but now humans get to do the mundane tasks while computers
create. What the technological Utopian dream didn't account for was
the fact that the owners of the technology are generally unwilling to
share the benefits. If half the work can be done by computers, they
are not going to keep all staff on the same pay doing half the work,
even though their own profits would be exactly the same. Instead,
half the workforce will be laid off. And meanwhile, it's very
convenient for the elite to get everybody blaming each other for the
problem. Down in this southeast corner of Britain politicians have cleverly channelled everybody's anger in the direction of er... the Channel. Meanwhile, the elite and bankers can laugh all the way to the...
OK, enough puns, but I sincerely hope Britain doesn't continue down the same
rabbit hole that gave the world Donald Trump. Time will tell...
So,
aside from my latest release, what other angsty protest material
stands out from the love songs and party anthems. Here's a few I know
well...
Bob
Dylan – 'The Times They Are a Changin' (1964) – After writing the
anti-war anthems 'Blowin' in the Wind' and 'Masters of War,' Bob
gives the world his only all-out protest album. In particular, 'With
God On Our Side' expresses weariness of the litany of wars that never
ends. The title track refers to the generation gap, but yesterday's
idealists are sadly today's tax dodgers. Bob's songs would be mostly
personal after this release, with occasional 'protest' dabblings such
as the songs 'George Jackson' (1971) and 'Hurricane' (1976). His
Christian album 'Slow Train Coming' has some thinly veiled anger at
the state of things too.
Roger
Waters – 'Is This the Life we Really Want?' (2017) – War was
always a major issue for Waters, with Pink Floyd's 'The Final Cut'
being the first obvious sign of this. This album touches on the
'normality' of accepting man's inhumanity to man and refers to Donald
Trump as a 'nincompoop.' The title track is extremely sad and 'Smell
The Roses' has a Floydian feel. Mind your language though, Rog!
The
Kinks – 'Muswell Hillbillies' (1971) – Perhaps the clearest sign
of songwriter, Ray Davies, dabbling in politics, as he longs for a
simpler life and a Britain that was fast disappearing. 'Uncle Son'
sums up conservatism, socialism and liberalism in three concise lines
while his panacea for everything is to 'Have a Cup of Tea.' In truth,
there was often a satirical streak even in some of band's the big
hits. 'Sunny Afternoon' satirises the moans and groans of the rich,
while 'Dead End Street' highlights the struggles of the poor. So
little has changed but we are constantly persuaded that this is the
natural order of things.
Rage
Against The Machine – 'Rage Against The Machine' (1992) - An angry
diatribe against society's norms delivered over some seriously heavy
funk riffs with regular cathartic screaming. The anti-Ku Klux Klan
anthem,'Killing in the Name,' was Christmas number one in 2009, this
in itself being a protest against the annual 'X Factor' festive chart
domination. Colourful lingo, but generally justified IMO.
John
Lennon / Yoko Ono -'Sometime in New York City' (1972) – Whilst
'Plastic Ono Band' (1970) angstily questioned society's norms, this
album is more overtly political, dealing with everything from
misogyny to perceived miscarriages of justice to the Northern Ireland
conflict. Be warned, you get a lot of Yoko on this album too and an
extremely indulgent live disc featuring the next artist on my list...
Frank
Zappa / Mothers on Invention - 'We're Only in it for the Money'
(1968) – This is Zappa's most obvious drift into the protest genre,
as he tackles everything from police brutality to the naivety of the
hippie culture with a send-up of the 'Sgt. Pepper' album cover to
boot. The earlier album, 'Freak Out!' (1966) contains a brilliant
song about race riots, while 'Absolutely Free' (1967) bemoans
'plastic people' and hints at predatory behaviour by the elite. Zappa
would mainly focus on comedy / experimentation after this, although
regular lyrical lashing out would still occur, most natably on
'Broadway the Hard Way' (1988). Hypocritical TV preachers, look out!
Next month I reach the grand age of fifty. I've had a go at marriage and
two attempts at being a 'townie' but like a boomerang, here I am back
in the village where I grew up, living the single life again (lots of cycling and
walking with the odd pub visit thrown in). Although I was always writing stories as a child, my first published piece was written when I was seventeen - an account of a five-day cycling trip for the local parish magazine.
It was when I was 28 that I finally got a book into print, realising a childhood dream as a collaboration with my father who sadly now has Alzheimer's. The content hasn't changed greatly as you can tell from my regular travel posts, although I've ventured into other genres, such as psychological fiction and music reviews. I wonder if I'll still be writing my travelling tales in another 33 years time. Or will A.I. will be writing imaginary trips for me with imaginary meetings with imaginary characters? I think that's called a novel. Please check mine out on Amazon before my digital clone takes over. Toodle-pip!