This was the last big song from sixties crooner Matt Monro who was better known for smoochie ballads ("From Russia with Love", "Portrait of My Love") than upbeat numbers like this. In fact, no-one is associated with numbers like this because there's no song quite like it.
Some take it to be a protest song but I don't hear it that way. It's certainly about a street protest but, if anything, it's more of an un-protest song. It offers a snapshot of three fictional women. Two go out on a protest march (Shirley Wood and Margaret Beatty) and one doesn't (Annie Harris).
So the chorus is the gloriously hooky protest song bit:
Come with us, run with us
We're gonna change the world
Simple and fun, almost a chant. All very protest-y. But then there's this:
You'll be amazed, so full of praise
When we've rearranged your world
And there's the un-protest bit. It's poking some fun. We've gotten so used to the idea of the earnest protest song that it's actually quite surprising to hear one that turns the tables and satirizes the protesters.
You get a sense of this in the verses too. Compared to the simple chorus, the verses are more musically complicated with a bouncy melody shadowed by a bouncy chromatic bass line.
We get a couple of lines to introduce the protesters:
Shirley Wood gulped down her breakfast,
Shut the fridge and joined the throng
Margaret Beatty snatched the milk in,
Scanned the news and went along.
Then we modulate up a minor third. That's an unusual modulation. On top of that there's an awkward 3/4 bar thrown in just before the modulation. I think the music is doing everything it can to tell us that our perspective is shifting as we hear from the un-protestor:
Annie Harris drew the curtains,
Screwed her eyes up, had a peep
Saw the marchers, heard their voices, making early morning noises
Stumbled back to bed and tried to sleep
The words and music are setting up two worlds - the active protesters and the passive un-protester - and puts them side by side. And there's more satire of the protester's side:
Sit in front of all the traffic Harry busy shopping wives Try to stir their ostrich notions, whip them up to wild emotions
Put some fire into their wretched lives
Now I'm not sure of all the lyrics of this song. If I were being a lyrical purist, I'd look at the lines just preceding these and get out my big red marker pen, shake my head and 'tut' unnecessarily loudly as I noted the tricky-to-sing double consonants ("numbers swollen"), unnatural reversed verb order ("Up the marchers' banners go") and awkward scansion ("Protest for everyone to know").
But, honestly, I'd forgive any and all all of these lyrical hiccups for the quality of that last line: "Put some fire into their wretched lives". That is beautiful and wonderfully, funnily captures all the passion, as well as the self-righteousness, of some street protesters. If someone ever writes a jukebox musical about Extinction Rebellion, this song would get first dibs.
In the end, though, the song isn't really making a political statement; it's just describing a divided country. One group with plenty of vim and vigour but also plenty of condescension for the politically disengaged; the other group more concerned with their own lives, their work, doing what they have to do. The final verse speaks of the two female protesters getting roughed up the police whilst Annie Harris works in her office and thinks of Don (who, we assume, was her husband killed in war) who "died for others to live better". It's not a statement, just a contrast.
The contrasts still exist today.
Thankfully, so does this very odd, very brilliant song.
No comments:
Post a Comment