Stumbling and Mumbling

John Lennon and the decline of the left

Since Thursday’s emote-fest – a supplement in the Times for Chrisssakes – I’ve been trying to articulate why exactly I dislike John Lennon. It’s not that his acclaim is out of proportion to his merit – this is true of most famous people. It’s that he's a pivotal figure in the decline of the Left, the decline from empiricism to emotivism.

Think of the iconic pre-60s liberal-left personalities: Marx, Lenin, the Webbs, Russell, Beveridge, Orwell, or most of the 1945-51 government.

What these otherwise disparate figures had in common was a commitment to rational inquiry and empiricism. Be it Marx toiling away in the British Museum, Orwell’s dossing down in Paris and Wigan, the Webb’s poring over blue books or Stafford Cripps working himself to death, all thought the task of the left – be it reformist or revolutionary - was founded upon thorough hard work and intellectual endeavour.

Contrast this with the left of the late 60s, the excrescence of which we’ve seen this year at Live8 and in anti-war demos. To them, a few slogans and a display of self-righteousness seem sufficient. Rather than try to understand the world, they think it sufficient that the rest of us understand their pain, their sincerity.

In this decline, John Lennon was a pivotal figure, because he offered the illusion that slogans could change the world: “power to the people”, “all we are saying is give peace a chance” and – most contemptibly fatuous of all – “all you need is love.”

Revolution, then, ceased to be a matter of hard work and asceticism, and became an opportunity for easy self-expression, for empty gestures like the bed-in, to demonstrate the clarity and superiority of one’s moral vision.

The English middle-class need little enough prompting as it is to demonstrate their smugness. John Lennon gave them even more. And it's the empty-headed emoting Lennonists who are too dominant in the meeja and politics today.

Of course, this picture’s a simplification. The pre-60s left had a big helping of self-righteousness; Churchill said of Cripps: “there, but for the grace of God, goes God.” And they had way too much faith in rationality and empiricism. But none of them thought self-righteousness was sufficient, in the way that much of the post-60s left did, and still does. And in this decline, John Lennon, maybe partly inadvertently, played a role.

Another thing: don’t try telling me that songs must be simplistic. Just listen to Dar Williams.

Picking fault

My old history teacher used to say that one should criticize one’s opponents on their strongest arguments, not their weakest ones. Alan Johnson does just this in rejecting some fatuous oaf’s remark:

I do not believe the electric guitar is acceptable for Muslims.

This is indeed the Islamists’ strongest ground; the electric guitar is responsible for some truly hideous offences.

Sadly, Alan’s defence of it has three flaws.

First, David Rawlings plays a 1935 Epiphone Olympic archtop, which is acoustic. He says of it:

It’s not much of a solo instrument, but I can’t really play by myself worth a darn.

This, Dave, is the silliest statement ever to appear on this blog.

Second, Woody Guthrie’s “This machine kills fascists” was written on an acoustic.

Third, he omits the only defence the electric guitar needs – Brian Miller’s playing on Jolie Holland’s Wandering Angus (yes, the W.B Yeats poem). A of it clip is here. If you like Gillian Welch, you'll like Jolie Holland. And if you don't like Gillian Welch, you can go now - you're not wanted. My liberalism only goes so far you know.

A special day

Today is a very special day. Scandalously, no-one else is marking it, so I will. It’s the 120^th anniversary of the birth of Augustin Barrios, the greatest composer for the guitar of all time. Do yourselves a big favour, and buy this album. My biggest ambition in life is to play Jha Che Valle. If I can do it even badly - and with luck I've got 30-plus years to try - I’ll die a happy man.

The best tunes?

On the bus this morning, I was reading Roger Scruton and listening to Dar Williams and the question occurred to me – why have right-wingers made virtually no good popular (by which I mean non-classical) music? And then this story just reinforced my presumptions.

Of course, right-wingers have produced some execrable stuff – quite a bit of country music, and these twats. But generally speaking, the best non-classical music has come from people who were either non-partisan (Elvis, Hank) or leftish: Leonard, Dar, Johnny, Bruce, Emmylou. Even Frank Sinatra was a lifelong Democrat who was denounced as a Communist sympathizer. (I exclude John Lennon and Steve Earle here, who I think are over-rated.)

All the right can bring up is a racist quote or two from Eric Clapton, who’s rubbish anyway, and a David Bowie’s claim in the 70s to be a fascist – which was almost certainly just a pose or the drugs talking.

So, why don’t the right have the best tunes? Two possible answers won’t do. One is that leftist views are simple enough to be sung, whereas conservatism is too sophisticated. This fails because conservative ideals – patriotism, liberty – are quite straightforward, and as Dar and Leonard show, lyrics can convey complex ideas.

The other inadequate possibility is that popular music is quite new and deliberately rebellious - the rock n’roll lifestyle and all that.

This won’t do because the non-classical music that’s decades old is also dominated by the left. You’ll not find many Tories among the performers and audience of English folk songs. And the blues arose out of class conflict; those lyrics about “my woman gone done me wrong” are code for “my boss/master gone done me wrong.”

So, here are my questions. Why is it that the right is under-represented in the best non-classical music? Is it really the case that right-wingers are too insensitive to produce good music? Is this a symptom of the right’s general under-representation in the arts or something more? Are things different in classical music (leaving Wagner aside)? How embarrassed are right-wingers about this? Or am I missing something?

In praise of late learning

Sir Tim of Worstall has got some good advice for everyone here. But there's one assumption I find jarring - that learning a musical instrument is something only young people should take up.
Why? I started learning guitar 18 months ago, just before my 40th birthday; it was that or a Harley. And it's the best thing I've done in ages.
I don't see why people of my age or older shouldn't start to learn new things. After all, we - more than young people - have learnt how to learn. We have the experience to know that many obstacles can be overcome. We have become creatures of routine, so regular practice comes naturally to us. And we are more self-disciplined than we were as teenagers and less prone to distractions.
What's more, it seems that learning helps to develop the brain even in adulthood - it's called neuroplasticity. The idea that our brains are fixed from childhood onwards is apparently false. The benefits of later learning are therefore greater than was thought a few years ago.
All these advantages should at least partially compensate for the tendency for younger people to learn things quicker.
Put it this way. It's a stylized fact that it takes about 10,000 hours of practice to become a top-class musician - that's 3 hours a day for 10 years. Why shouldn't these hours come between 40 and 50 rather than between 10 and 20? Of course, I'll certainly not become a top-class player. But I'll be better than the average pub-rocker by the age of 50. That's a fantastic prospect.
Above all, though, there's something rebellious about learning something late in life - be it a language or an instrument. I'm rebelling against the idea that our lives must be career ladders, where we start at the bottom and work our way to the top.
This is a relatively new idea - the OED reckons the first use of the word "career" in this sense came as recently as 1803.
But why should we stick to one ladder, especially if it was chosen with imperfect information from limited options? And why should we worry about climbing? Shouldn't we recognize that we perhaps have more freedom than that? Or is this just a mid-life crisis?

I'm Alone

The people have spoken. The bastards. The deaf bastards.

Where’s Dar, Leonard (a Jeff Buckley cover at no.57 isn’t good enough), Jimmy, Kraftwerk or the Velvet Underground?

Was I the only one under the age of 50 who voted? (I'm 39 and a few months - and will be for a long time.)

And isn’t the popularity of the Rolling Stones just pot-addled 60s nostalgia? I’ve always thought there was something repellent about middle-class white boys pretending to be rebels whilst poncing off genuine blues musician. You can’t sing the blues if you can see.

Rant over. Norm was spot on, though – you should listen to pre-Beatles stuff. But the Everly Brothers are a bit modern for me. If it’s brothers’ close harmony singing you want, try the Louvin Brothers. Or best of all, the Blue Sky Boys. But don’t bother if you voted for the R……g S….s.

Shuffle and see

Everyone’s doing it – Lynne, Will, and the good folks sampled by Barry. So here’s my contribution to the iPod shuffle game. My first 10, in order, are:

Don’t – Elvis Presley

After Hours – Velvet Underground

Bolero – Django Reinhardt

Out of Sight – James Brown

I Walk the Line – Johnny Cash

Sarabandes III – Erik Satie

I Love I Love – Dar Williams

Goodnight – Lucy Kaplansky

Artistry Jumps – Stan Kenton

Touch Your Woman – Kate Campbell

I think this is reasonably representative.

What does it prove? Nothing. But contrast this list to some others (no names, no packdrill) and it strengthens my prejudice Bayesian prior – that whereas it’s Americans who have the musical heritage, it’s the English who have to good taste to appreciate it.

Lights touchpaper and steps back…

More questions

A couple of things from my current reading.

From Chet Flippo’s biography of Hank Williams, Your Cheating Heart:

As Hank’s popularity grew, more and more wise-asses were waiting to fight him. He was beaten up as many times as he beat up the challengers or laid them low with a blackjack. He had a piece of one eyebrow bitten out one night by a drunken psycho.

What would they have done to Justin Timberlake?

And in Leo Strauss and the Politics of American Empire, Anne Norton says that Strauss' favourite film was Zulu.

Not a lot of people know that.

Vote, vote, vote

You’ve still got two weeks to send Norm your votes for the top 10 rock and pop songs of all time. I don’t usually approve of voting, but I’ll make an exception here, if only to stop the list being dominated by over-rated Scousers and Mancs and Stairway to bleeding Heaven.

So, in no particular order, here are my top ten. It would be too male to put them in precise order, wouldn’t it?

The Model – Kraftwerk

No-one else captured that feeling you get when you see a beautiful but unattainable woman.

Starman - David Bowie

Before him, pop stars were just vacuous pretty boys.

I’m Alone – Jimmy Donley

There’s gotta be some swamp pop in the top 10. And Jimmy Donley should be the patron singer of bloggers everywhere – unrecognized genius.

Pale Blue Eyes – Velvet Underground

The original and best indie band.

Always on my Mind – Elvis Presley

It ain’t a top ten without the King. The only good thing John Lennon ever did was name his cat Elvis. (Apart from the collaboration with David Bowie on Fame, and writing Jealous Guy, and inspiring the best Scouse joke of all*.)

Stand by Me – Ben E. King

Dunno why, I just like it. This just edges out Muhammed Ali’s version.

Sam Cooke – Wonderful World

All the maths you need to know.

Once in a Lifetime – Talking Heads

Sounded amazing when I was 18. Sounds true now I’m 40.

Paper Thin Hotel – Leonard Cohen

I guess I’m in a minority here, but to me the greatest pop music collaboration of all time isn’t Lennon and Mccartney, Bacharach and David, Morrissey and Marr, or Lieber and Stoller. It’s Cohen and Spector. Magnificently over the top, this is I Will Survive for heterosexual men.

After All – Dar Williams

The inspirer of this blog shows why she’s the greatest singer-songwriter of all time (bar Hank).

This list is subject to three constraints. I've excluded country music, as Norm asked. I've limited myself to one song per artist. And I've suppressed my patriotic instincts, so there's nothing by Kasabian, Showaddywaddy or Englebert.

Near misses come from other songs by these 10, plus, among others, Tom Waits, Otis Redding, Sex Pistols, James Brown, Low, Joy Division (though not Love Will Tear Us Apart), The Smiths (not How Soon Is Now), Pulp, REM, Percy Sledge and the Ronettes, among others.

* The motto of Liverpool John Lennon Airport is “Above us, only sky” (yes, really.) The motto of the baggage handlers is: “Imagine no possessions.”