Show of Hands

Rusty Reno writes of an English folk-rock band called Show of Hands, and its agrarian, Chestertonian, cultural-traditionalist protest ballads. Excerpt of his analysis of the band's song "Country Life":

The background for the song is the post-Thatcher boom in England that has transformed social patterns. Whatever was left of nineteenth-century industrial society has been swept away. Global agricultural markets have changed farming. The explosive growth of wealth, almost entirely focused in London, has created a large class of the well-to-do. The end result for a great deal of southern England: failing village economies now sustained by money infused by London weekenders, many of whom have bought charming cottages as second homes.

Our free-market friends like to remind us that this is all part of the process of creative destruction. And anyway, aren't those country folks making their own decisions to sell out and pocket the cash? All good and well, but Show of Hands sings of a different, existential truth: "Redbrick cottage where I was born / Is the empty shell of a holiday home. / Most of year there's no one there. / The village is dead and they don't care." The kitchens have been redone tastefully, but the village empties during the week.

"Country Life" is not a polemic against free markets or Thatcherism. It thrusts against the left as well. "No one marched to subsidize and save the country way of life," they sing. We are reminded that so-called progressive politics long ago shifted its focus toward securing lifestyle freedoms for the new-economy winners (gay-pride marches, women's rights marches), as well as toward movements to satisfy the refined moral palates of the educated elites (animal rights, nuclear disarmament, global warming). The local guy with a high-school education and ordinary expectations from life gets pushed to the side.

Another verse evokes the outsider's mentality: "We hate the blood; we want the meat." The London weekenders want the charming atmosphere of an English village--but without all the difficulties of having to live with the villagers. The song ends with a staccato of loss: "No trains. No jobs. No shops. No pubs."

We hate the blood; we want the meat. In eight syllables, the lyricist has summed up modernity's tragedy.

More from Reno:

If "Country Life" gives you a Chestertonian tingle, then strap on your seat belt and click over to "Roots." This song crashes onto the shore of contemporary multiculturalism like a Cornish storm surge.

The major premise of "Roots" is simple: "Without our stories or our songs / How will we know where we come from?" The minor premise is implied: England now encourages cultural forgetfulness rather than memory. The conclusion: an urgent imperative of cultural renewal that gives this song extraordinary emotional power.

We hear the voice of anger--ready to strike back against the cultural elites who look down on love of place and love of country, assuming that it amounts to a primitive nativism, a reactionary racism, or a weepy nostalgia unwilling to face up to the realities of a global economy. Political correctness be damned: "I've lost St. George and the Union Jack / That's my flag too and I want it back."

What's especially interesting to me about this song -- and I've embedded the videos below the jump -- is that it is not exclusivist-nationalist in the way you might expect. The singer points to other ethnic groups in England and praises them for keeping their cultural heritage alive in song. What do they know that the Anglos have forgotten? he asks.

If you don't read anything else linked to from this blog today, read the rest of Reno's post. His remarks about "Sweet Home Alabama" exactly capture why the song moves me so deeply. You might also consider buying the Show of Hands album -- I know I'm going to. All this recalls last summer's discussion on this blog about the terrific song "Degeneration" by the Quebecois folk band Mes Aieux, which performs in a similar vein. I've embedded that video below too. Check them all out.