You can buy 'Passing Ghosts - The Alan's Album Archives Guide To The Music of Lindisfarne' in e-book form by clicking here!
Well done, you made it to the halfway part of the
book (or halfway through our 'music' section at any rate!) We can't give you a
prize to celebrate I'm afraid though you probably deserve one, but we can shake
things up a bit by moving outside talking about our respective AAA bands'
discography and moving on to what makes them stand out from their peers and
offer something no other band can. In truth these essays kind of run across the
whole book and you can read them in any order, but now we've reached the halfway
point it's quite useful to take stock of where we've been and why before
working out where we will go next. Which in Lindisfarne’s case is pretty much
where they’d always been going – in a straight line, speaking up for the
underprivileged and the oppressed, whatever their country, whatever their
class, whatever the century. Like a Geordie CSNY, Lindisfarne made politics a
natural part of their sound from day one and made a career out of lampooning
authority figures who were so much more ignorant than the people they were
trying to control. However it’s an under-rated facet of their work that often
gets lost, drowned out by million-selling pop singles and cute novelty songs
about fog and sickly sausage rolls…
Occasionally I forget, dear readers, that the rest of the world
is not like us. At best the people around me think I’m a little bit eccentric
for writing these books in such detail and at such length for so many years. At
worst they think I’m insane. Very occasionally some misguided soul will ask me
what I’m working on and then look confused by my horror that they’ve never
heard what I’m working on. And even more when they try to patiently explain
that it’s ‘only’ pop music. We know that isn’t true of course - music at its
best is everything: it’s a way of explaining the world, of understanding it, of
sympathising with those who would otherwise have no voice, of seeing how other
people see the world, a way of feeling less alone and insane in a world that
demands we be a certain way, a means of getting to grips with. But it’s hard to
express that out loud. ‘But…but…but, its
important!’ I feebly squeak when people ask. The people around me just ask if
it’s good to dance to. Sometimes I despair…
Sometimes I get lucky, well semi-lucky. Sometimes people have
heard of a band I write about. Sometimes they’ll even be able to hum a few bars
of their biggest hit singles. Which can be even more of a curse than when they
know who the person I’m writing about it. Take Lindisfarne: everyone by default
knows [36] ‘Fog On The Tyne’, even those who claim never to have heard of it or
been thirty years too late; it’s just everywhere from radios to football
stadiums (Paul Gascoigne has a lot to answer for!) And if by any small slight
chance nobody knows that one they’ll almost certainly know the cheery [27]
‘Meet Me On The Corner’. Everything else, though, and they haven’t got a clue.
‘Oh’ they say, ‘You’re reviewing a pop band! Is the rest of their stuff as
catchy?’
Err, no. Lindisfarne must be one of the most misunderstood bands
there ever was as you’ll know by now if you’ve got this far through the book.
‘Fog’ was written deliberately, as a funny parody of their usual sombre style
(it even starts with the same sad slow opening to [31] ‘January Song’).
‘Corner’ was written as a sad folk lament before becoming a bit more
commercial. Neither is the true spirit of Lindisfarne great as they are – this
is a band who belong on the ‘adult’ shelf, dealing with intricate politics,
debate and difficult subject matters. Nobody else was as vocal about problems
in British class warfare, the Irish struggles and what the collapse of
communism meant to the working class Russians (as opposed to celebrating the
victory of Western capitalism). This difference can be summed up in one single
album cover, that to 1989’s ‘Amigos’. There the band are grinning inanely,
their arms around each other, on an album cover and title that screams ‘1980s
pop cheese’. But the album itself is an angry, desperate tirade against how the
impoverished were being treated at the end of the Thatcher and Reagan years,
when money was poured into ‘star wars’ missile systems during a credit crunch
that left so many people out of work. The ‘real’ Lindisfarne can be seen in the
subtitle and the working title for the album hidden away underneath: ‘Keepin’
The Beacon Burnin’, a diluted version of their original tagline ‘Keepin’ The
Rage’. This is the ‘real’ Lindisfarne and it’s a task no British band ever did
better.
Lindisfarne came from some pretty impoverished backgrounds, in a
part of Newcastle where nobody was expected to come to anything very much. Alan
Hull wrote about this in his song [121] ‘The Bad Side Of The Town’, along side
his belief that impoverished communities had something the posher estates never
had – a sense of brotherhood, of unity, of compassion as people helped each
other out where they could. It’s a feeling that Lindisfarne always took with
them across their career as they expanded that community out to their fanbase
in a way that not many other bands achieved. It didn’t matter where round the
world you lived, or what you did or didn’t do – if you were a Lindisfan, then
you were ‘one of us’. And Alan Hull frequently got outraged on their behalf,
especially when speaking up for communities that weren’t given a voice in the
mainstream media.
As early as his first single, before he ever joined Lindisfarne,
Hull is singing about the divide of ‘us’ and them’ [11] ‘We Can Swing Together’
is a funny song if you take it that way, a ‘breakthrough’ song where the
wannabe songwriter working as a window cleaner and psychiatric nurse paying for
the upkeep of three small children was able to put into words how frustrated he
was at being told what to do for a lifetime. A late baby boomer, he’d found
that the world of peace and love and flowers hadn’t reached Newcastle, where he
and his friends got booted out of a party and hauled up in a magistrate’s court
for, shock horror, making tiny bit of noise on a Friday night. Hull never
forgot the injustice, or the fact that posh men in wigs were judging his
community for letting off steam after a hard week’s physical labour, something
the judge and half the jury had never experienced. That ‘how dare they judge
me!’ comes across in a lot of Hull’s work, long after every other band had
caved in and started wearing suits or speaking in posh accents (Lindisfarne
were always delightfully Geordie, right up to the very end). [48] ‘Court In The
Act’ returns to the same scene with a series of false charges which didn’t
happen but ‘sounded like fun!’ The judge, though, has a judge, man – against
the person in the dock simply because of where he comes from and how he talks.
There were so many people in Lindisfarne’s sights over the years
and what linked them all was that they saw the people they ‘controlled’ as
statistics to be treated as cheaply as possible, rather than humans who were
suffering. These include 1) town planners: architect [32] Peter Brophy was
invited by Newcastle council member [115] Dan ‘The Plan’ T Smith to erect a new
building to house as many dispossessed locals as possible for the cheapest
possible price, The solution was a concrete monstrosity with few windows and no
greenery which achieved its objective of being cheap but led to such
ostracisation and ugliness that it made a bad situation worse. Many people
ordered to move into the building claimed that they would rather have lived on
the streets. I think it should be a law that every architect who designs a
building has to live in it for a year to make it habitable and make sure that
it is fit for human consumption! [39] ‘All Fall Down’ looks at the people who
physically tore up Hull’s old Benwell estate, asking them to ‘tear down’ their
prejudice along with the buildings and asking for some green to be set against
the concrete.
2) People in charge of homelessness. There’s something of the
vagabond gypsy in Lindisfarne’s nature as they lurch from one disaster to
another. [15] ‘Winter Song’ imagines how life might have been for Hull had he
not met his wife or his bandmates and had been stuck on the dole for eternity.
Passing a tramp in the street just as his career is taking off during a harsh
snow-filled Christmas Hull starts to think how easily his life could have been
the same – and urges us to do the same.
3) Soldiers! It’s not just Hull. Si’s first song, written long
before Lindisfarne were formed, is [29] ‘Uncle Sam’, where a Newcastle teen who
would never have had a chance in the British army wonders what it might have
been like had he been called up to serve in Vietnam or Korea, two spectacularly
dunder-headed and un-necessary wars the Americans lost badly but still try to
pretend they ‘won’. Si imagines someone just like him, weedy, short, poor of
health and complexion, urged to ‘volunteer’ for a war that was itself voluntary
and which only he can see through. Other Lindisfarne songs attack war in a more
general sense: [72] ‘When War Is Over’ is about things returning to normal in
peacetime, as if nothing had happened – which makes the war, whatever it is,
utterly pointless for both sides. [171] ‘1983’, meanwhile, imagines the
outbreak of World War Three ‘the biggest show I’ve ever seen’ – but that’s all
it is, a show, as more innocent people suffer on both sides suffer because of
the stupidity of war leaders.
4) Taxmen. Lindisfarne were hit by more management problems than
most – but a majority of their problems came from finding accountants who
‘allowed’ them it use their money for charitable ends instead of squirreling it
away. Hull described [206] ‘Ode To The Taxman’ as ‘about a sneaky, evil,
horrible, slimy sort of a person…’ and sets off on a tirade that takes his
vitriol to a whole new tax bracket. The thing is, you see, the taxman is
getting away with fiddling his own taxed because he’s one of ‘theirs’ and will
never be caught, even after he chases the poor for every last penny. Goodness
knows what he would have made of the credit crunch and the bankers’ meanness in
the modern age had he lived, never mind the hypocrisy of making out that a
non-regulated banking error committed by posh big-headed twonks behind the
scenes was all the thought o a few ‘scroungers’ trying to live hand-to-mouth
off a few pence. If I know Hull, there would have been entire concept albums
about the recklessness and greed of the Conservative Government and a blow-up
Ian Duncan Smith doll everyone got to behead night after night.
5) Posh people in general. [55] ‘Country Gentleman’s Wife’
pointedly uses the names of Gentlemen and Ladies, but they’re behaving more
like the stereotypical chav: he’s out with his mistresses even though he’s got
a wife half his age at home; she’s lonely and sexually frustrated and randy
enough to make a play for the passing lowlife she sees outside her door. Only
he’s more noble than either of them, protesting at her moral scruples and
refusing to take part – until she dangles enough money in front of him. Also
[166] ‘Marshall Riley’s Army’ for instance recalls a people’s march from Jarrow
in the days of the great depression by so many working class people desperate
to work to feed their families – and the politicians in London wouldn’t even
read their petition. Alan-Rod collaboration [224] ‘Working For The Man’ also
has a poverty stricken person leaving their family and travelling the world in
search of work, which no one has. He’s struck by how similar the scheming
politicians are in every continent though, always finding work for themselves
and not for him and his ilk. Right up until the very end Hull was attacking a
system he thought was unfair: ‘Put on your uniform, your top hat and tails’ he
mocks as he tries to overthrow the aristocracy from the inside, starting with a
song about ‘ne’er do wells’ like many a ‘posh’ band before turning on
‘aristocrats and fat cats’ instead. Everyone in power is too busy singing about
statues from the past or liberties that mean nothing – but they don’t know what
it really means to suffer. He does. And he has to say something. All of these
songs are a sorry mess of the rich’s creating but where it’s the poor who
suffer because of it and there’s a sense of many of these Lindisfarne songs
that the working classes would be much better off in charge of the world than
the rich – it would be a lot fairer for one thing…
6) Mostly though Hull saves his anger for politicians around the
world. Hull looks on aghast as he watches the orders given during the ‘Bloody
Sunday’ uprisings in Ireland in 1972, as innocent people are beaten up and
killed for standing up for their rights. There are many AAA songs about the
Irish troubles in this period – including three by ex-Beatles, no less – but
Hull’s weary sad song [42] ‘Poor Old Ireland’ has it the best. ‘Imagine if this
was you!’ he says to his English listeners, as he ‘sees through the lies’ and
argues that no belief or cause is ever enough reason to make ‘blind children
bleed’. Over in Russia, too, Hull is quick to point out amongst the gung-ho
we-won spirit of the collapse of the Berlin Wall that the Russian people have
been left with nothing. ‘Your sadness tears my heart out’ he sighs on [241
‘Mother Russia’, seeing the atrocities first hand as he empties his pockets
during a Russian Lindisfarne tour, ‘But it ain’t easy to explain’. Lindisfarne
are the people’s band, no matter where around the world they are, ganging up on
the politicians for hurting ‘his’ people. You can hear that wrath on other
songs: ‘President Reagan ain’t thinking when he says he wants to teach the
Russians good!’ he scowls on [188] ‘Cruisin’ To Disaster’ before turning on
Thatcher as a ‘lunatic running the show’ on his angriest song [197] ‘Stormy
Waters’. ‘Come on boys…come on girls…it’s time that we all stick together!’
urges Hull, desperate to see the unity in hardship he used to see on his
estate, instead of being divided by politicians for their own evil ends. No wonder
Hull also writes a song titled [41] ‘Bring The Government’ where ‘if you want
your rights you’re gonna have to fight, so bring down the Government please!’
Throughout these songs is the growing gnawing feeling of
injustice. Why should Lindisfarne pretend to be anything other than a Geordie
band just to sell records – [36] ‘Fog On The Tyne’ is as ‘local’ as a song can
be and it still became a best-seller everywhere. Why shouldn’t they be proud of
their working class roots – it’s not as if the rich people have anything to be
proud about! Why should Lindisfarne let the powers that be go by unquestioned
when their policies on war, homelessness, town planning and poverty create so
much unnecessary evil in a world already full of it? Lindisfarne all turned to
music as an ‘escape’ from their bleak surroundings – the difference to many
bands is that they carried on and on and on demanding it. Long after the point
where it was fashionable, or they became ‘rich’, or the first objects of their
anger faded away from power. Instead Lindisfarne made it their life’s work to
speak up for those who had no voice, to represent the grass-roots of what their
fans were thinking, even and perhaps especially the people who could never
actually afford their music (the problem that many political bands for the
working classes have, as they are writing for the smallest possible income
group). Yes [36] ‘Fog On The Tyne’ is cute and [30] ‘Meet Me On The Corner’ is
pretty and [156] ‘Run For Home’ is sweet and there’s a place for all three of
those songs in every self=-respecting catalogue of music. But it’s the politics
and anger and the battle against prejudice of all kinds that’s the heartbeat of
this band’s legacy, sometimes covered up and gentrified, often raw and
sarcastic, that makes them an Alan’s Album Archives band with a catalogue to
match any other group out there.
That’s why I’m proud to be a Lindisfan – and a good example of
why I sigh everyone tells me that I am wasting my time writing about mere ‘pop’
music. Sometimes this stuff matters and everyone needs to see that there is
more to life than what they tell you on the news or in the political party
broadcasts. If people suffer, then their voices need to be heard, whether those
people are speaking from a ne’er do well council estate in Newcastle’s poorest
slum, are speaking on behalf of Russian and Irish citizens or were speaking
from several decades ago and are all dead. It all matters, so very very very
very much. Without bands like Lindisfarne to fight their corner and to shine a
light in the darkness at times the world would be a very lonely place indeed.
Instead they give us courage: if this band can come from nowhere to say
something, if they can beat the class prejudice and get somewhere through
talent, if they can then remember where they came from and help out where they
can – well, that makes a difference, however small. ‘They’ say that politics
doesn’t belong in music, that it puts off people who might listen to it and
that music should ‘only’ be about escapism and dancing and ‘girl power’. ‘They’
are ‘wrong’. Instead music belongs in politics – it levels the playing fields,
it encourages debate, it allows you to see things from someone else’s point of
view you might never ever have understood in your own life and it really warms
your heart when someone speaks up and says something you’re thinking, but
nobody around you seems to agree with. As one of Britain’s most working class
bands, from one of the most working class areas, who were all educated and
intelligent and erudite, Lindisfarne (and CSNY) are often my first port of call
when someone then asks me ‘so why is writing about music important exactly?...’
Sadly they never seem to ‘get’ it. But we do, dear reader. And sometimes that’s
enough.
A NOW COMPLETE LIST OF LINDISFARNE ARTICLES
TO READ AT ALAN’S ALBUM ARCHIVES:
'Nicely Out Of Tune' (L)
(1970) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-37-lindisfarne-nicely-out-of.html
'Fog On The Tyne' (L) (1971) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/news-views-and-music-issue-88.html
'Dingly Dell' (L) (1972) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/news-views-and-music-issue-146.html
'Roll ON Ruby' (L) (1973) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/lindisfarne-roll-on-ruby-1973.html
'Fog On The Tyne' (L) (1971) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/news-views-and-music-issue-88.html
'Dingly Dell' (L) (1972) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/news-views-and-music-issue-146.html
'Roll ON Ruby' (L) (1973) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/lindisfarne-roll-on-ruby-1973.html
'It's Jack The Lad' (JTL)
(1973) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-61-jack-lad-its-jack-lad-1973.html
'Happy Daze' (L) (1974) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/12/news-views-and-music-issue-50.html
'Pipedream' (AH) (1974) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/06/news-views-and-music-issue-63-alan-hull.html
'Happy Daze' (L) (1974) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/12/news-views-and-music-issue-50.html
'Pipedream' (AH) (1974) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/06/news-views-and-music-issue-63-alan-hull.html
'The Squire' (AH) (1975) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/alan-hull-squire-1975.html
'The Old Straight Track' (JTL) (1975) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/news-views-and-music-issue-109-jack-lad.html
'The Old Straight Track' (JTL) (1975) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/news-views-and-music-issue-109-jack-lad.html
'Rough Diamonds' (JTL)
(1975) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/jack-lad-rough-diamonds-1975.html
‘Jackpot’ (JTL) (1976) https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/jack-lad-jackpot-1976.html
'Magic In The Air' (L) (1978) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/12/news-views-and-music-issue-15.html
'Magic In The Air' (L) (1978) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/12/news-views-and-music-issue-15.html
'Back and Fourth' (L)
(1978) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/lindisfarne-back-and-fourth-1978.html
‘The News’(L) (1979) http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/lindisfarne-news-1979.html
'Sleepless Nights' (L) (1982) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-83-lindisfarne-sleepless-nights.html
‘The News’(L) (1979) http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/lindisfarne-news-1979.html
'Sleepless Nights' (L) (1982) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-83-lindisfarne-sleepless-nights.html
'Dance Your Life Away' (L)
(1986) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2017/01/lindisfarne-dance-your-life-away-1986.html
‘Amigos’ (1989)
https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/lindisfarne-amigos-1989.html
'Elvis Lives On The Moon' (L) (1993) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/lindisfarne-elvis-lives-on-moon-1993.html
'Here Comes The
Neighbourhood' (1998) http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/lindisfarne-here-comes-neighbourhood.html
'Promenade' (2002) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/lindisfarne-promenade-2002.html
Si Cowe Obituary and
Tribute (2015) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/simon-si-cowe-lindisfarne-guitarist.html
Surviving TV Clips http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/surviving-lindisfarne-tv-clips-1971-1996.html
Live/Solo/Compilation
Albums Part One 1970-1987 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/lindisfarne-sololiveraritiescompilation.html
Live/Solo/Compilation
Albums Part Two 1988-2015 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/lindisfarne-sololiveraritiescompilation_29.html
Essay: Keepin’ The Rage On Behalf Of The Working Classes https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03/lindisfarne-essay-keepin-rage-on-behalf.html
Essay: Keepin’ The Rage On Behalf Of The Working Classes https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03/lindisfarne-essay-keepin-rage-on-behalf.html
