This has caused me to reflect on various things, including
collective memory and what can be done with it.
People can decide to remember and mourn; people can hold a grudge,
telling and retelling a story, exaggerating here or there, to keep the grudge
fresh, as watering one does a houseplant.
Eventually enough space and distance from the original event makes even
the most devoted militant give in, unless…
…something new happens.
Glencoe was about Protestants vs. Catholics; it was also about something
even more primal than that – the betrayal of hospitality, an offence the
ancient Greeks and Romans would have found hideous and just about the worst
thing possible.
So for Middle of the Road to take this – and knowingly make
it into a hit record when the Troubles are sadly well underway – is one of two
things. It’s either them trying to take
this event and somehow neutralize it (the way little kids who sing “Ring Around
A Rosie” or “London Bridge” have no clue as to what they are singing about; it
just sounds good) or they are perhaps – since it was a Scottish event and
they’re a Scottish band – trying to gaily point out that going around killing
someone else because their faith is different* was and is something that didn’t
really work then and sure isn’t working now.
Unlike the Schoolhouse
Rock series of pop songs** (albeit cheery ones like “No More Kings” or
“The Shot Heard ‘Round The World”) where history is celebrated and passed on to
the next generation in a fun and educational way, this song isn’t supposed to
be anything but a fun pop song. Whether
little kids picked up anything here I don’t know, and that is the litmus test I
suppose – do the kids know? Should
they? Do lyrics matter that much, at any age, 7 to 70? Are there two audiences –
ones that just want a tune to hum and like and those who like to delve further
and get to the bottom of a song, memorize the lyrics and try to figure them
out?
To be blunt, yes.
There will always be those happy enough to dogpaddle along in a song’s
waters, and those who are going to get their snorkelling gear to see what’s really going on (if anything). Middle of the Road are sneaky here, getting
this song for kids heard by adults – or so they think. But what if the adults don’t have much more
of a clue than the kids? Then the
satisfaction is the group’s (for getting one over) and a different satisfaction
is the public’s (for simply enjoying the song enough to buy it).
Of course, there’s a reason the song is called what it is
called. Both Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum
are, well, dumbasses, plain and simple.
Their fighting is stupid and yet they cannot stop fighting, mainly
because they are almost – but not quite – the same. (That ol’ narcissism again.) Middle of the Road are saying what The
Cranberries – two decades later, in a far more stentorian way – will simply
say: these guys are idiots. They were dumb in the 17th century
and dumb in the 20th and we are going to reduce them to Carroll’s
sniping duo as in the end they are about as interesting and effective as
them. (In my mind these two figures
merge with a 70s toy called the Weeble, which famously wobbled but never fell
down; seemingly charming figures but actually kind of scary, not unlike the larger
figures like them – were they clowns? – I came across elsewhere that could be
pushed around but never fell over.)
Middle of the Road assume that we know the story, know that
the tartans and claymores and piping and plots are all grand history, but –
again – does this story have any meaning beyond some kind of anti-IRA
slant***? (Note the camouflage chic in
the band’s clothing – I guess this means they are serious about all of this,
right?)
This may seem to be a lot of important questions asked of a
song that wasn’t even written by those performing it; it can’t hold that much
weight. To serious folk musicians or
progressive rock types the idea that this is as serious a “statement” as
anything they are doing would seem laughable.
But in the 70s the growing issue was one of the audience’s reactions to
songs, on whether the public in general “got” what was being said. And that issue, I feel, starts right here,
with an ugly historical event being used to make a point about current
events. How much can be said? How much will the audience understand? Does anyone really care what time it is (as
Chicago immortally asked)? Slowly but
surely we will find out.
Next up: the season
of the witch begins.
*And, considering they’re both Christian faiths, not all that different (Freud’s “narcissism of
small differences” applies here).
**It is interesting that there is no real UK equivalent to
these songs, unless the basics of grammar, math, government and energy (not
forgetting environmentalism and new math – this is the 70s, after all) were covered already in shows for 7-12
year-olds elsewhere.
***In truth it’s more of an anti-war song, but I’m guessing
the UK public’s sympathies were more with their troops than the IRA. I could be wrong here, though.