It Says Here
Imagine switching on the TV at quarter to nine some Tuesday morning and seeing this.
I thought I’d share an odd slice of the 80s with my one remaining reader. The song and the performance are classic Billy Bragg. Strident, no-nonsense social commentary that remains as relevant now as it ever was (more so, in fact). But the context is just so bizarre. BBC Breakfast Time television… a cultural vacuum designed to do nothing more than fill air-time between news bulletins. Possibly the most conservative (small ‘c’) broadcasting environment outside US televangelism; certainly not a place you’d expect to hear a hard-hitting assault on tabloid media culture and conservative (small ‘c’ and capital ‘C’) politics.
Introduced by Selina Scott in a positively restrained hair-do (bearing in mind the year) holding an album in a manner which suggests she’s never seen one before. And followed by Mike Smith (Princess Diana’s favourite DJ, let us not forget) looking bewildered; no doubt trying to work out how to segue between a song telling us that “politics mix / with bingo and tits / in a money and numbers game” into Russell Grant’s astrology segment.
Anyhoo, enjoy the song. It’s a bit of a belter.
Live on BBC Breakfast Time, 1984
As Stuart Maconie said, Mike Smith was the kind of DJ who you suspected didn’t have any records at home, the kind for whom there was no artist who you could say ‘they’ve just found an unreleased track’ and he’d get excited.
My favourite moment of his was him back-announcing Kajagoogoo saying ‘will they be a Beatles for the eighties?’.
Twat.
August 5th, 2010 | 12:00pm
by Merrick