![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomusI stumbled on Matt McGinn -- communist, atheist, republican, and perhaps Scotland's most interesting satirical songwriter -- via a google image search. The starting point was this article by Ben Goldacre, which cites a staggering statistic: that life-expectancy in Calton, Glasgow's poorest area, is 28 years less than in Lenzie, a middle-class area just eight miles away. To get a feel for what these areas are like, I ran a google image search on "Lenzie Glasgow" and was soon inspecting this detached, comfortable villa:
The search on "Calton Glasgow" brought up images of high rise blocks, graveyards, tenement buildings... and this picture of Matt McGinn -- "McGinn of the Calton", as the tribute website calls him:
True to the Goldacre stats for Calton, McGinn died young -- a year short of his 50th birthday, in 1977, of smoke inhalation. I listened to a McGinn song called We'll Have a Mayday, a sort of socialist anthem, rousing and defiant. Then I turned to YouTube. The more videos of McGinn's songs I heard, the odder it became that I'd never heard his name before -- here was a Scottish Brassens, or Mani Matter, or Woody Guthrie (with, it's true, some worrying tinges of Rolf Harris and The Proclaimers).
It really does seem to have been a sort of deliberate conspiracy to keep McGinn off TV and radio and out of the newspapers in the 1960s and 1970s, when he was writing and performing his thousand or so songs. A Glasgow Herald editor more or less admits as much in this little documentary (ignore the Billy Connolly bit, please): "There are very few film clips of Matt McGinn singing, for the simple reason that television wasn't interested in him -- he was too dangerous."
[Error: unknown template video]
Amazingly, the clip of McGinn singing here during a work-in at the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders Yard is the only existing film of the singer in performance. It's a completely scandalous dereliction of cultural duty on the part of the Scottish media of the time -- and completely attributable to the "communist, atheist, republican" stuff. (McGinn did, though, appear on Scottish TV as an actor from time to time.)
McGinn owed everything, even his Oxbridge education, to the unions. It was a trade union scholarship that allowed him to study economics and political science at Ruskin College, Oxford in his early thirties. Here's a song of gratitude: If It Wisnae For The Union:
[Error: unknown template video]
Becoming an Oxford graduate didn't give McGinn any grand ideas -- a couple of years later he was organising an adventure playground in the Gorbals. A song he wrote called The Foreman O'Rourke won a folk song contest, and McGinn was championed by Pete Seeger, who got McGinn into a concert at the Carnegie Hall (where he met Bob Dylan). "His performances in clubs and concert halls were hugely popular, often leaving the audience in tears of laughter," the short Wikipedia entry ends; "He passionately believed in the overthrow of capitalism and supported many union disputes and always sided with the oppresed and down-trodden." Hence, presumably, the radio silence and lack of film footage.
I don't know what Billy Connolly (now there's a man vastly over-exposed by the media!) means when he claims that McGinn couldn't sing in tune or in time -- listening to his songs, I was struck by his really great sense of rhythm, and the pitch is fine. Here's a catchy number called Get Up, Get Out:
[Error: unknown template video]
McGinn was also a hell of a lot funnier than Connolly; here's I Was Born 10,000 Years Ago, which had me chuckling, anyway:
[Error: unknown template video]
And here's the Benny Hill-ish Sugary Cake And Candy Man:
[Error: unknown template video]
I could almost imagine Joe Howe reworking Our Wee Wean into something like The Cooper o' Fife:
[Error: unknown template video]
Which means, too, that I could totally imagine a Momus album of Matt McGinn cover versions in which we take this material into strange new areas. Because the core of it -- the words and rhythms and sentiments -- is really solid and interesting. The songs are unsentimental, documenting working class life. Here's a tribute to the shipbuilders of the Clyde, Ballad of the Q4:
[Error: unknown template video]
And here's one about workers' tea breaks, The Can O' Tea:
[Error: unknown template video]
There are extraordinary topical-satirical barbs against Christianity (Ban The Beatles) and against conservative counter-revolutionary entertainers (Frankie Vaughan). There are ditties about Gay Liberation and birth control, but sometimes McGinn can be compelling just singing about a red yoyo with a wee yellow stripe:
[Error: unknown template video]
Here's a great formalist joke, a ballad that rings the changes on the sound of words ending in "arra":
[Error: unknown template video]
I suppose we should end with McGinn's completely outrageous and bizarre rendition of the Jewish traditional song Hava Nagila as Have A Banana:
[Error: unknown template video]
Eight miles away in Lenzie they might live to 80, but it was Calton that produced Matt McGinn. It took a nation of millions to hide him from me... until today.
The search on "Calton Glasgow" brought up images of high rise blocks, graveyards, tenement buildings... and this picture of Matt McGinn -- "McGinn of the Calton", as the tribute website calls him:
True to the Goldacre stats for Calton, McGinn died young -- a year short of his 50th birthday, in 1977, of smoke inhalation. I listened to a McGinn song called We'll Have a Mayday, a sort of socialist anthem, rousing and defiant. Then I turned to YouTube. The more videos of McGinn's songs I heard, the odder it became that I'd never heard his name before -- here was a Scottish Brassens, or Mani Matter, or Woody Guthrie (with, it's true, some worrying tinges of Rolf Harris and The Proclaimers).
It really does seem to have been a sort of deliberate conspiracy to keep McGinn off TV and radio and out of the newspapers in the 1960s and 1970s, when he was writing and performing his thousand or so songs. A Glasgow Herald editor more or less admits as much in this little documentary (ignore the Billy Connolly bit, please): "There are very few film clips of Matt McGinn singing, for the simple reason that television wasn't interested in him -- he was too dangerous."
[Error: unknown template video]
Amazingly, the clip of McGinn singing here during a work-in at the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders Yard is the only existing film of the singer in performance. It's a completely scandalous dereliction of cultural duty on the part of the Scottish media of the time -- and completely attributable to the "communist, atheist, republican" stuff. (McGinn did, though, appear on Scottish TV as an actor from time to time.)
McGinn owed everything, even his Oxbridge education, to the unions. It was a trade union scholarship that allowed him to study economics and political science at Ruskin College, Oxford in his early thirties. Here's a song of gratitude: If It Wisnae For The Union:
[Error: unknown template video]
Becoming an Oxford graduate didn't give McGinn any grand ideas -- a couple of years later he was organising an adventure playground in the Gorbals. A song he wrote called The Foreman O'Rourke won a folk song contest, and McGinn was championed by Pete Seeger, who got McGinn into a concert at the Carnegie Hall (where he met Bob Dylan). "His performances in clubs and concert halls were hugely popular, often leaving the audience in tears of laughter," the short Wikipedia entry ends; "He passionately believed in the overthrow of capitalism and supported many union disputes and always sided with the oppresed and down-trodden." Hence, presumably, the radio silence and lack of film footage.
I don't know what Billy Connolly (now there's a man vastly over-exposed by the media!) means when he claims that McGinn couldn't sing in tune or in time -- listening to his songs, I was struck by his really great sense of rhythm, and the pitch is fine. Here's a catchy number called Get Up, Get Out:
[Error: unknown template video]
McGinn was also a hell of a lot funnier than Connolly; here's I Was Born 10,000 Years Ago, which had me chuckling, anyway:
[Error: unknown template video]
And here's the Benny Hill-ish Sugary Cake And Candy Man:
[Error: unknown template video]
I could almost imagine Joe Howe reworking Our Wee Wean into something like The Cooper o' Fife:
[Error: unknown template video]
Which means, too, that I could totally imagine a Momus album of Matt McGinn cover versions in which we take this material into strange new areas. Because the core of it -- the words and rhythms and sentiments -- is really solid and interesting. The songs are unsentimental, documenting working class life. Here's a tribute to the shipbuilders of the Clyde, Ballad of the Q4:
[Error: unknown template video]
And here's one about workers' tea breaks, The Can O' Tea:
[Error: unknown template video]
There are extraordinary topical-satirical barbs against Christianity (Ban The Beatles) and against conservative counter-revolutionary entertainers (Frankie Vaughan). There are ditties about Gay Liberation and birth control, but sometimes McGinn can be compelling just singing about a red yoyo with a wee yellow stripe:
[Error: unknown template video]
Here's a great formalist joke, a ballad that rings the changes on the sound of words ending in "arra":
[Error: unknown template video]
I suppose we should end with McGinn's completely outrageous and bizarre rendition of the Jewish traditional song Hava Nagila as Have A Banana:
[Error: unknown template video]
Eight miles away in Lenzie they might live to 80, but it was Calton that produced Matt McGinn. It took a nation of millions to hide him from me... until today.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-14 03:14 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-14 03:17 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-14 03:26 am (UTC)First chapter
< lj - cut> The rest </ lj - cut>
(without spaces, naturally). Et voila !
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-14 03:34 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-14 03:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-14 03:43 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-14 04:08 am (UTC)I also later sang the more radical Jeely Piece Song ("A the weans in Castlemilk hae formed a piece brigade [!] / we're gonnae march on George's square demandin civil rights / like nae mair buildins oer piece-flingin heights!").
Thanks for the background on McGinn.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-14 04:22 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-14 04:34 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-14 09:32 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-14 09:39 am (UTC)McGinn
Date: 2009-01-14 10:38 am (UTC)Oh ye cannae spend a dollar when ye're deid
No ye cannae spend a dollar when ye're deid
Singing, Ding Dong Dollar, everybody holler
Ye cannae spend a dollar when ye're deid
On another note, thought you'd like this Czech art installation that lampoons European national stereotypes - it is causing a bit of a stushie in Brussels:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7827738.stm
Re: McGinn
Date: 2009-01-14 11:02 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-14 11:37 am (UTC)At the very beginning of that documentary, Murray Ritchie, the then assistant editor of the Glasgow Herald said that a lot these folk singers held antipathy for the media and regarded them as puppets of the Capitalist system... you can't have it both ways.
"Here's a song of gratitude: If It Wisnae For The Union"
I personally believe that a really important component to making Socialism work within a society is for people to understand the altruistic nature underpinning it all.
I think a major problem in British society is that the notion of altruism seems to have been completely disattached from the ideas behind Socialism. By that, I mean that when people talk about socialism, they talk about it in terms of entitlement, what people are entitled too. This breeds ingratitude in the people who receive and breeds resentment in the people who give, and people fail to make the connection between Socialism and its charitable, caring ideology. We should be encouraging sacrifices for altruistic reasons and the recipients should be grateful that sacrifices have been made -- this would breed the right mentality for Socialism to flourish and work.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-14 12:42 pm (UTC)It began at a school that turned boys into gentlemen
Then turned them on to debauchery
I was forced to my knees in front of these gentlemen
If I refused they would torture me
I also don't think it was as unusual as you're suggesting. Lots of people in music went to fee-paying schools. Not just the 70s proggers like Genesis and Pink Floyd, but new wavers like Joe Strummer and Shane Macgowan. John Peel dominated indie music, and he was public school. People at Radio 1 (Nicky Campbell, Allan Robb) had gone to the same school as me. People on, or running, indie labels like 4AD, él and Creation were public school-educated, quite frequently. The girl who did the layouts at Rough Trade had been expelled from England's most exclusive girls' school. On Creation you had characters like Nikki Sudden and Guy Chadwick, who were much posher than me. And even Matt McGinn here went to Oxford University, whereas I just went to common old Aberdeen.
When it came to prejudice against public schoolboys, the worst people to deal with are other public schoolboys in denial. Great chunks of the UK media are run by ex-public school people who've become belated populists (of a certain type; people who make approximations of American popular culture and tabloid culture -- though, arguably, they do it with a secret Reithian agenda and always subtly fail to capture the essence of real popular culture). The last thing they would ever do is cover people like themselves. él Records, for instance, was anathema to John Peel, although he really went to public school and most of the él Records artists were only pretending they did.
Adam McNaughtan
Date: 2009-01-14 01:42 pm (UTC)Re: Matt McGinn
Date: 2009-01-14 02:21 pm (UTC)Well, I don't know. I see myself as basically working in that same songwriting tradition, satirical, whimsical, nursery-rhymish, topical, folky protest songs. I Was A Maoist Intellectual isn't a million miles away from McGinn. And McGinn avoids the maudlin and vague and "timeless" and "spiritual" stuff that characterises so much British rock-pop -- you know, I'm closer to McGinn than to Coldplay or Oasis or Radiohead, that's for sure. "Truth is concrete".
It's great to hear more details about McGinn. I rather imagined a death like that when I saw the words "smoke inhalation". Alcohol -- along with bad diet and poor healthcare -- is of course the main reason Calton people die 28 years before Lenzie people. As for why they drink, we have to go back to yesterday's entry on the importance of context in understanding depression: sometimes depression is a correct and realistic response to social conditions, exactly the kind McGinn describes. Nevertheless, it's interesting how cheerful his work sounds compared to privileged middle class mopes like Radiohead. A Schweikian humour -- I was going to say "saves him", but it didn't.
I'll have to ask my parents about McGinn -- I suspect they knew him, but saw him as something they wanted to leave behind. They both came from West Scotland lower middle class backgrounds and gravitated to the genteel world of Edinburgh lawyers and academics. They were Liberal Party activists in the 60s, not socialists. They wouldn't have played McGinn at Hogmanay, no way. They like Rabbie Burns, though.
The folks who knew Matt are getting few and far between, especially with the NHS refusing to provide any geriatric care, but a few who knew the man and loved and respected him are still around.
He's crying out to be the subject of a major Scottish documentary, isn't he? Unfortunately, it will feature Billy Effen Connolly, by government decree.
Re: Matt McGinn
Date: 2009-01-14 02:25 pm (UTC)Re: Adam McNaughtan
Date: 2009-01-14 02:29 pm (UTC)Re: Adam McNaughtan
Date: 2009-01-14 02:45 pm (UTC)Burrr!
Date: 2009-01-14 02:58 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-14 03:06 pm (UTC)There were never that many working class successes in rock music.
Thank god for Pop Idol and CCTV.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-14 03:37 pm (UTC)Re: Matt McGinn
Date: 2009-01-14 04:14 pm (UTC)Watch more
<object id="player235" codeBase="http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,0,0" height="385" width="480" padding="0" classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" VIEWASTEXT><param name="FlashVars" value="&banner=true&assetId=video:asset:pmms:1857575&playerId=player235&autoplay=true&topCapColor=#eaeaea"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="Movie" value="http://o.aolcdn.com/mediaplayer/players/fxpm/fpm.swf"><param name="src" value="http://o.aolcdn.com/mediaplayer/players/fxpm/fpm.swf"><param name="wmode" value="transparent" ><param name="AllowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed src="http://o.aolcdn.com/mediaplayer/players/fxpm/fpm.swf" FlashVars="&banner=true&assetId=video:asset:pmms:1857575&playerId=player235&serverBase=http://videoapi.aol.com&autoplay=true&displayChrome=true" quality="high" width="480" height="385" name="player235" allowScriptAccess="always" wmode="transparent" allowFullScreen="true" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"></embed></object><H1 style="font:bold 0.8em arial;padding:0;margin:5px;">Watch more <a href="http://video.aol.com/show/gilligans-island" target="_top" title="Gilligan"s Island videos">Gilligan"s Island videos</a> on <a href="http://video.aol.com/" target="_top" title="AOL Video">AOL Video</a></H1>
Re: Matt McGinn
Date: 2009-01-14 04:25 pm (UTC)There where times of cross cultural socioeconomic comedy.
I'm not so much into polarized institutions which I understand is one of Japan's strengths to make a convivial atmosphere for all.
What are the mortality rates in Asian countries compared to the McGinn's world?