Nostalgia
Protest Songs
May 15th
The Power of Music
In the musical world of today, it’s easy to forget that the protest song once had real bite, to the extent that its singers were ostracised, relentlessly hounded by the establishment and jailed, or forced to live abroad.
On occasion the government would be clever and let the mood rise, until the ensuing violence that boiled over became the focus of attention, rather than the initial subject of the protest.
Have we forgotten because we have, as perhaps was planned, become immune to and lazy about conflict, or is it that the governments have realised that the best way to dilute protest in music is to ignore it, and to give numbing overkill coverage in the media? It must also be said More >
Remember When…?
Nov 22nd
Mum and Dad never watched TV in our house. We only had a little 7 inch Black and White portable TV, limited to an hour a day’s viewing, except when they were out or I was at my friend Jam’s house. We never watched the soaps, Corrie and Crossroads, still don’t, so here is a list of magical shows that filled the screen when I was little. Wasn’t kids TV great?
Blue Peter and Magpie. CrackerJack and Doctor Who. The Clangers, Mister Ben, Mary Mungo and Midge, Pipkin’s, Hector’s House and Pogles Wood. Vision On and Out of Town. Tales of the Riverbank and The Magic Roundabout. Thunderbirds, Stingray and Captain Scarlet. Marine Boy and Scooby Doo. The Osmonds, The Jackson Five, The Harlem Globetrotters and Top Cat. Looney Tunes and Walt Disney. The Banana Splits, Double Deckers, Tiswas and Tarzan. High Chapparal, Bonanza and The Virginian. The Waltons and Little House on the Prairie. The Flashing Blade and Belle and Sebastian. Follyfoot, The Brady Bunch, The Partridge Family and Happy Days. The Six Million Dollar Man, Kung Fu and Tomorrow’s World. Star Trek and Space 1999. Kojak, Ironsides, Starsky and Hutch, Columbo, Canon and The Rockford Files, Hawaii Five 0 and The Sweeney. Some Mothers Do ‘ave ‘em, Mike Yarwood, Dave allen, Dick Emery and Morecombe and Wise. Dad’s Army and It Ain’t Half Hot Mum. Carry On, Westerns and War Films. Top of the Pops, The Eurovision Song Contest, The Old Grey Whistle Test and The late night double bill of Hammer Horror films. Speaking of which, wasn’t The Texas Chainsaw Massacre film just a nightmare version of every Scooby Doo script? The kids, the van, an old house and a masked monster?
Any I missed? More >
