“I’m really glad that most of our songs were about love, peace and understanding.” Paul McCartney, 1995. Credit where it’s due: when I think about nasty, finger pointing songs, The Beatles aren’t the first band that comes to mind. The earlier stuff was primarily ‘I love you, you love me’ stuff. It wasn’t really until Help!…
Tag: Finger Pointing Songs
Finger Pointing Songs: part 4. Indie Sulkers. Or, The Ballad Of The Binned: The Razorcuts, Felt & The Stone Roses.
“I never took much, I never asked for your crutch, Now don’t ask for mine.” Bob Dylan, 4th Time Around lyric. “Know thyself,” Luke 4:23. The Bible, innit? It’s good advice, know thyself. I suppose it’s a bit bleak in a way and I’ve already talked about Goethe’s glib response to it but I suppose…
Finger Pointing Songs: part 3. The Rolling Stones. Or, Wife Beating Man.
The shadow that Bob Dylan cast over the sixties wasn’t only long and broad, it was dark and cold. Once he’d broken through, any number of scruffy young ‘poets’ came out of the woodwork and started telling it like it was. Social justice songs were back on the agenda but that was before his performance…
Finger Pointing Songs: part 2. The Kinks. Or, A Respecter Calls. Or, It’s A Shame About Ray.
“Pity is easy, but it’s difficult to care,” Ray Davies. I like things to make sense and generally, to me at least, they don’t. I look for logic and I look for rationality in everyday life and, when I can’t find much, I can get a bit maudlin. So, what I’m doing here – realistically…
Finger Pointing Songs: part 1. Like A Rolling Stone. Or, Bob Villain?
The idea that there are only about – depending on who you believe – three, five, seven or however many basic story plots that have ever existed is always being bandied about. Reductionism isn’t difficult – I don’t know why they don’t go further and say that there’s only one: somebody does something. The same…
