The relationship between music and politics
A project by Chandni Sembhi
Why musicians should get involved - With man & the echo
Not everyone has been happy with musicians getting involved in politics. For every Tweet from an artist talking about politics, there are 10 telling them to 'stay in their lane'. Man & The Echo, a self-proclaimed political band don't care for those people. The band is fronted by Gaz Roberts, a man who experienced first-hand how devastating a Conservative government can be for some people, which is the inspiration behind a lot of the band's songs.
Having seen them play live a fair few times, I know ‘Very Personally Yours’ may on a first listen appear to just be about a wedding, but it’s actually about how Tories ruin weddings. ‘All Right’ is about an unpleasant experience in a Conservative village, in a pub that ‘was pro fox hunting, they had Union Jack bunting, and the papers on the bar were only useful for one thing, they were all right’. ‘Care Routine’ is about the hard work at-home carers do, and their lack of funding. ‘Honeysucker’ is about the government literally sucking the joy out of everyone.
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I chatted to Gaz about the real importance of political music, and his views on it all.
Life's no good honey
Why they write about politics
Although recognising the importance of writing about current issues, and really wanting to write about Brexit, Gaz feels like he shouldn’t take up space in conversations he doesn’t have a place in, such as writing about issues from the perspective of a person of colour. He said “I’m talking from a position of privilege. I’m a white, straight man, so I don’t want to talk about refugees and stuff like that, because I don’t want to take up space in that thing as an artist, that’s not my place, but I support people who do that. You have to use your own perspective and see how that can be useful.”
Lyrical inspiration for the band comes mostly from Gaz' day job, working for a charity and dealing with people with disabilities, with new material focusing on Brexit, and how he feels that it's a very masculine, working class, aggressive thing.
Man & The Echo want to make people uncomfortable, and make them think, rather than just saying ‘this is a cause and you’re going to agree’. Speaking on their new material, he said, “We’ve got a new song called ‘Life on an island’ and it’s very much about working class conditions and middle-class people not understanding you and saying, “why don’t you give up work and go travelling?” and it’s because people can’t afford to do that.
"So, it’s sympathetic towards this character, and it’s talking about how actually the only freedom you then get is at the end of your life by the time your body doesn’t work anymore, your brain doesn’t work anymore, and you’re just a wreck but now you can rest and can be avant garde and independent and choose what to do with all your time. Then it turns into “so that’s why I’m voting Brexit”. So, you’ve been sympathising with this person, well now he’s fucking racist and awful, and he’s making it worse for other people and he’s voted for something that’s gonna kill you because his life killed him.”
The band have definitely got some powerful stuff in store, singing about what they know: unprivileged people who need help in the UK and what they deal with, social issues affecting people broadly, and what it's like for people living in a Conservative government.
i realised this place was all right
MUSICIANS involved in politics in genenral
On musicians getting involved in politics, he believes that people who say they keep out of politics are idiots. “You don’t have to have an opinion about anything, but to say things don’t matter is ridiculous." Although, he’s willing to admit that he doesn’t know something if he doesn’t, as in his eyes, that’s better than giving an ill-informed opinion. “I think certain musicians will just say what they think they’re supposed to say, or will express an opinion that’s ill informed. It’s fine to just not have an argument and say, “actually, I don’t know how I feel about that”. You can’t be on top of every issue across everything.”
But there’s also a balance to be struck between talking about political issues because it’s something you care about, and talking just to elevate your profile. Although Stormzy called Theresa May a paigon on multiple occasions, some criticised and said he just jumped on the bandwagon to gain publicity, rather than actually getting informed. “I think lots of musicians use the political issue they want to talk about to elevate themselves, and that’s slightly problematic. I think it’s fine if you’ve got the big profile to then use your big profile to talk about something, but there’s a balance. Sometimes it just comes across to me as opportunistic to say “there’s this issue that everyone’s talking about, I’ll do that too”, and then your profile is raised.”
“It’s a difficult balance to strike, but I really can’t stand it when people say they don’t have an opinion on something, or that politics doesn’t matter to them, because it doesn’t make sense. You just need to make sure you’re talking from the heart, and actually doing it because you care about that thing, and not just to raise your own profile.”
Some musicians however, may choose to not talk about politics as they don't want to face backlash from fans with a different mindset. The word 'Tory' is thrown around as an insult all over Twitter, so it isn't surprising that some Conservative artists don't talk about their views - although Conservative artists tend to not exist, anyway. Gaz said, "It’s a trend that most musicians have the same mind-set, which is a lefty mind-set, and they all agree the hell out of everything." Gaz thinks it’s mainly because that’s what it’s cool to be, adding that when he was younger, he too just decided to be left-wing as that’s what was cool at the time, not really knowing about any policies. He finished with, "although there are right-wing musicians, they just don’t talk about it because it isn’t popular."
They don't care about people slogging their guts out because they're not being paid enough
MUSIC AND POLITICS NOW
Gaz believes that there’s a positive relationship between music and politics now, with really good political music being made. “The really influential stuff actually leads opinion. Music now is having a real impact and you can tell from the voting numbers and just buy the conversations young people are having nowadays. Teenagers are hearing musicians talk about politics and actually getting involved because of it. Leading action. It’s not like ‘Imagine’ by John Lennon, where people talk about that and they go, “it’s all very well for John Lennon to say that, he’s rich.” But that was an opinion. The Beatles and stuff led opinion. People thought differently because of them. They thought “oh yeah, peace” as weird as that sounds.”