Saturday 27 July 2002

The politics of folk music

Gary North has written a fascinating article on the Lew Rockwell site. The title: Join the Union, and Other Quaint Recommendations

According to North:

So, attendees at Celtic festivals (in the USA) are mainly successful Scots in business and the professions, who come to hear songs about lower-class losers and their lost causes, and middle-class Irish, who come to hear songs about how tough things were before the Brits were booted out. They celebrate, side by side, by drinking a lot of Guinness (British).

Commenting on singer Brian McNeill, North says:

When a movement relies on state-funded urban folk singers to carry its message to the masses, and when the masses are upper-middle-class people at a music concert, that movement has moved into the dustbin of history. It's right down there with Bonnie Prince Charlie's revolt against King George II. McNeill knows that the Bonnie Prince's rebellion was a lost cause for losers, but he hasn't figured out that Arthur Scargill's cause is just as lost.