The People's Songs Feed

And finally

2013-12-18T11:28:38+00:00

A year ago, almost to the day, I sat in a kitchen in a rented cottage in the Lake District and waited, eagerly but with a bottom note of trepidation, to the first in a series that had occupied my time (and several other people’s) for the best part of the preceding year. Late in 2011, Bob Shennan, the controller of Radio 2, asked me to write and present a history of pop. With what some might call chutzpah and others might term cheek, I asked if I could do something quite different; a social history of Britain since the second world war told through pop singles and, crucially, the voices, memories and opinions of the people who bought, lived with, loved (or maybe even loathed) them. No experts, no critics. A People’s pop history which came to be called The People’s Songs.

King's Arms Salford

In the autumn of 2012, myself and producers Ian Callaghan and Lorna Skingley sat down in the Kings Arms in Salford (above - now run by Paul Heaton) and drew up a long list of the kinds of songs and topics we wanted to include. I was adamant that this shouldn’t be the same canonical list of revered classics that gets trotted out in every broadsheet and magazine listathon. I wanted this to be a series that would place equal value on Y Viva Espana (the British go on holiday to Spain) or My Boy Lollipop (the sound of the commonwealth coming to Britain post Windrush) or Goth or Northern Soul or Heavy Metal as any of the critically sanctioned sacred cows.

As soon as we began to tell people of our intentions, we struck a chord. Just short of 200 people were interviewed, from nuclear submarine commanders to Greenham Common protestors and the result is, I think, a brilliant mosaic of music, analysis, reportage and testimonies spanning 50 hours and as many years of British Life.

In that kitchen in North Cumbria, a year ago I heard the first show go out – Vera Lynn, We’ll Meet Again and the Second World War – and felt both elated and a little drained. I thought that we had done a brilliant job. But I also knew we had 49 more to go and the thought was as daunting as it was challenging and exhilarating.

And now we have. The People’s Songs is over. And I am as proud of it as it is possible to be, and grateful to everyone who made it happen.

One More Time!

2013-12-04T14:29:22+00:00

Over the last year we’ve been on an amazing journey through the recent history of Britain, told via the popular music of the last 50 years and the memories of real people who have shared their experiences with our production team and Radio 2 listeners. And you may have noticed that on our ‘listen again’ page we currently have every single one of the 45 plus episodes of The People’s Songs available to hear again in their entirety.

If not, why not head over there and take a listen to any shows that you’ve missed? The subjects covered, the musical genres spanned and, of course, the reminiscences shared have been remarkable and make for some superb listening!

However, please take note that the message on that page which says that there is over a year left to listen to all the episodes is incorrect. The mistake is the result of a technical problem which has made it impossible to change this message though we hoped to have been able to resolve it some time ago. The only alternative would have been to curtail the availability of the programmes which we thought would be very disappointing.

In fact, the series will be available only until a week after the very last show (Episode 50: Merry Xmas Everybody – The People’s Choice) is broadcast: December 11^th. So after Wednesday December 18^th the series will no longer be available online.

We’re sorry that the ‘listen again’ page is misleading, but hope that you’ll use the next couple of weeks to listen to any shows that you’ve missed over the year or simply listen again to your favourites. We couldn’t have done it without you…

It's (nearly) Christmas!

2013-11-19T17:02:40+00:00

Slade at Xmas

Are you hanging up your stocking on the wall?

Well, no… not yet (we hope), but all the signs are here: the adverts with fake snow (when did it EVER snow on Xmas day, unless you live in the Highlands?); the shop windows and high streets stuffed with festive ornaments; and it can only be a matter of time before one of our presenters cranks up the Yuletide hits.

But here at The People’s Songs, as we approach our final month on the air, are preparing for episode number 50, which, as you know, will be about Christmas! And, as the entire series has been about you, the listener, we still welcome your memories and your thoughts on how December 25^th was enhanced, enlivened or just plain ruined by pop music.

From the family ritual of watching the Top Of The Pops Xmas Special (always a disappointment as it nearly always consisted of number ones from the preceding year: never a guarantee of quality) to the endless soundtrack of cheesy yet heartwarming hits, from Slade, Wizzard, Wham! or Shaking Stevens to the jazzy jive of Chris Rea’s ‘Driving Home For Christmas’ or Greg Lake’s prog-tinged ‘I Believe In Father Christmas’. In fact, if you think about it, just about every genre or act that has featured in the series has eventually succumbed to the idea of a ‘Xmas hit’.

So don your Santa hats, and send us your festive memories… You know how to get in touch. After all, Iiiiiit’s Chriiiiiiistmaaaaassss!

Here it is!

2013-09-02T10:17:11+00:00

So here it is, the final people’s song…and if that isn’t enough of a clue then the subject of that show as chosen by you – or quite a few of you anyway - follows very soon. First though, a word on the process

From the very earliest days of The People’s Songs planning, and in particular a lively evening of brainstorming and beer in the King’s Arms, Salford, we decided that the final song, the track that would be at the heart of the fiftieth episode should be chosen by a listener. We thought that the scope of the narrative that we’d planned was broad and all-encompassing, from war to peace, school to work, from the Falklands to Ulster, and the silliness of the 'Ying Tong Song' to the exuberance of 'She Loves You' and 'You Should be Dancing' to the portentous solemnity of 'A Whiter Shade Of Pale' and the gravity of 'Shipbuilding'. But it was possible we’d overlooked something, either a great song or a significant event or important issue. And seeing as that final show would be around Christmas time, when specials were abounding, we felt that a different kind of show would be a good ‘season finale’ as our American cousins would say

So we asked for your People’s Song and you duly obliged, with suggestions that ranged from anarcho-punk to disability rights, from brass bands to backpacking and gap years, prison culture to the British love of beer. Many of you suggested the death of Princess Diana and the subsequent shift in the very nature of Britishness from a country that showed the world a stiff upper lip to a nation that seems to revel in public outpourings of emotion… or at least sentiment. And of course Elton John’s 'Candle In The Wind' was the perfect song. But on reflection, we felt that those issues had been touched on in other shows, not least the 'Things Can Only Get Better' episode about the Blair landslide and the seismic events of 1997, which had included the death of the People’s Princess.

In the end, we went with the most popular suggestion. Slade’s 'Merry Xmas Everybody' and Christmas itself, not just because it would make for a topical festive show but because Christmas looms large not just over our pop music – the Xmas number one is still the one chart-topper of the year that seems to excite public interest – but also because it gave us a chance to talk about related issues; the British love of a celebration and a party, family, work and the commercialization of leisure.

So Noddy and Xmas it is. What remains now is for you to share with us your thoughts and memories, of that song itself of course, and the bleak, candle-lit Britain of 1973 it was released into, but of the importance of Xmas itself, perhaps how it has become a pan-religious celebration of ‘Britishness’ even to those not of the Christian faith.

Whatever, it’s up to you. Get in touch, and we hope to hear your voice on The People’s Songs this December.

I'm with the banned

2013-08-05T14:48:06+00:00

There's an outtake from this week's show that raises an interesting point; especially in this age of ubiquitous music, available in every guise you care to think of at the touch of a button. here's Martin to explain:

Contributor Martin remembers when, if a record was banned, you had to buy it to hear it!

It's a fascinating thought: that back in the early '70s if your record was banned, the only way the curious could hear it would be to actually go to a shop and BUY it!

History has proven time again and again that there's very rarely such thing as bad publicity. A band which appeared earlier in the series, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, certainly reaped the benefits of Mike Read taking against their debut single, 'Relax': sending it to number one. And, let's face it, no one in their right mind would have gone overboard about Judge Dread's notorious reggae-themed 'Big' singles, with their smutty nursery rhymes if they hadn't been banned by the Beeb. I can still remember my schoolfriends reciting the 'Judge''s lyrics in the playground, undoubtedly learned from big brother's copies at home, played while your mum and dad were out.

But this week’s show, focussing on the political importance of Paul McCartney and Wings’ ‘Give Ireland Back to the Irish’ is an especially fascinating example of the BBC’s censorious nature. For a start, how many people do you know who have actually heard it?

In fact, the first time I heard the single was on the juke box in the People’s Songs gallery at the O2 centre as we were setting up the exhibit: this, despite the fact that I’m old enough to remember it being in the charts when it was released. In other words, when someone banned your record in 1972 there was a very good chance that a large part of your audience wouldn’t EVER hear it. I’ve always been a Macca fan, but because I had no disposable income at the age of 12, I had to wait 40 years to hear it!

Of course - despite not only the BBC but stations such as Radio Luxembourg banning the record, and poor Alan Freeman on the chart rundown on Sunday night being forced to call it "a record by the group Wings" – ‘Give Ireland…’ still got to number 16. It was by an ex-Beatle, and not even Lord Reith could stop an ex-Beatle in those days. But it’s probably certain that the political sentiment of the single was considerably muted by the blanket censorship.

The biggest revelation for me, however, has been the simple fact that ‘Give Ireland Back to the Irish’ is one of Sir Paul’s weakest efforts by far: a real plodder that sounds as knocked off as it undoubtedly was. Typical: 40 years waiting for that…

The notion of banning records now seems quaint, especially when you look at the innocuous fare that made the list over the years. Yet the recent death of an ex-Prime Minister raised the spectre of the old nanny state once more. Maybe there’s still some kudos in getting on the wrong side of the corporation?

The People's Songs - The Book!

2013-06-24T11:41:47+00:00

The People's Songs book cover

For years, when people would ask me was there a book I really wanted to write, I would make some vague noise about my ‘slim volume of difficult modern verse’ or such, but really one non-fiction project simmered somewhere in the back of my consciousness: a readable one-volume history of British pop that would eschew the usual worthiness; that would be as much about the Bay City Rollers, Larry Parnes, Kylie, the Bee Gees and heavy metal as it would be about the sanctioned corpus of rock that gets handed down through those earnest retrospectives in the rock mags.

It would be little to do with Nick Drake and more to do with Nic Rhodes. It would celebrate in all its wild plurality the silly, beautiful, rich story of pop and the British people.

This external content is available at its source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBD5j0B9XlM

I didn't expect to get the chance to write that book though for many years to come. There were other books that would come first, like a sequel to Pies And Prejudice. But then Bob Shennan, the fine and noble controller of Radio 2 and 6 Music, asked me to write and present a landmark documentary series on the history of pop. Instantly and cheekily, I asked him could I focus and sharpen that idea into something closer to my heart; a history of post war Britain told through pop singles; pop singles in all their dizzy, daft, dazzling glory, and how the British pop charts reflected the times they existed in. Instantly I knew that this would be a very different pop history than the ones I'd read before, one about the times, their politics, their flavour and their people, rather than makes of guitar or recording dates. And I knew that there should be an accompanying book, THAT book I had always wanted to write: an authored narrative where I could stretch out and give my thought and theories about what pop means and why it means so much to us in this country.

After a long winter of late nights and burning the midnight oil, that book came out this week. It's my first hardback, you could stun an ox with it and I am very, very chuffed and proud. I hope you enjoy it.

The People’s Songs: The Story of Modern Britain in 50 Records by Stuart Maconie is published by Ebury Press - find more information on the Random House site.

Each show is also available to buy a week after its first broadcast on Radio 2. If an episode is available, you'll see a link labelled 'Buy Online' on its page. Click through to download an MP3 from the providers listed. Alternatively, you'll find a link to a list of all episodes which are available to buy on The People's Songs homepage.

You can transfer MP3 files to most mobile or portable devices and listen on the move, wherever and whenever suits you.

Please note - the MP3 downloads will not include all of the music that you hear in the full programme, because of rights restrictions. Some songs will be shortened or removed.

If you have any questions, feel free to get in touch at thepeoplessongs@bbc.co.uk

Technology and you

2013-05-21T10:13:04+00:00

It seems amazing that we’re fast approaching the halfway mark to this landmark series and with each passing week we continue to be amazed at how music marks collective experiences in our nation’s history as well as touching us in incredibly deep ways. And to allow you to journey further into these stories we’ve just added a set of profiles of the songs featured in the show, filled with facts, extra links and clips about the songs and the artists who recorded them.

Meanwhile, last week’s show focussed on the way British Electronica mirrored how our vision of the future had changed in two decades, from the optimistic strains of Joe Meek’s ‘Telstar’(1962) to the doomy repetition of Tubeway Army’s ‘Are ‘Friends’ Electric?’ (1979). Yet while the overall mood of Gary Numan’s dystopian song may be sombre, it had a profound effect on one eight-year old who left this rather wonderful (and passionate) Audioboo for us:

Listener Rob Puricelli talks about hearing Gary Numan at the age of eight.

It’s clear that what makes The People’s Songs so powerful for many of you is the way it captures music’s ability to be both binding and deeply personal. And just as with Rob’s Audioboo above there will now be a generation of young people who will remember where and (more importantly HOW they first heard a song.

This week our show’s all about the rise of the ‘I’ word in the way in which we listen to, consume and express our (dis)approval of music: yes, the internet. It uses the Arctic Monkeys as an early example of how music now longer needs the traditional models of big record company promotion, heavy radio airplay or even an appearance on Top of the Pops to reach a huge audience. More often than not the songs that gain commercial and audience approval will reach us via online channels, from fan sites to Youtube. Here’s Graham, a contributor from this week’s show talking about this change in the way artists grab our attention in a post-web age:

Contributor Graham remembers discovering music such as Lily Allen via Youtube

The big upside for us here at The People’s Songs is that these new frontiers in sharing and communicating also allow you, the listeners to share your experiences with us. Audioboo itself is only barely four years old while Youtube is only eight! History, it seems, is happening, even as we make the series…

'Some kind of superman'

2013-04-09T14:36:43+00:00

This week’s show - Part Of The Union – We All Stand Together – is focused around a song which throws up several paradoxes. Performed by The Strawbs, everyone remembers the song but not so much the band. They weren’t exactly one-hit wonders (they’d scored a number 12 single with ‘Lay Down’ earlier) but possibly suffered from their catholic tastes and genre-straddling output.

Beginning as The Strawberry Hill Boys (with Fairport Convention legend, Sandy Denny in their ranks) they managed to touch on rock, prog (Rick Wakeman was a member briefly), glam and folk throughout their long and varied career, which continues to this day. Not only that but ‘Part Of The Union’ - the jovial singalong which made the number two slot in the UK singles chart in the Winter of 1972 – wasn’t remotely representative of the album which spawned it (‘Bursting at the Seams’).

Based on a Woody Guthrie song (‘Union Maid’) written nearly 40 years beforehand, ‘Part of the Union’ obviously has a good lineage as a working man’s anthem. But what may confuse many who remember those days of strikes, picket lines and three-day weeks is that ‘Part of the Union’ was written (according to the Strawbs themselves) as a serious ode to the righteous power of the left. It’s confusing, because the song was often regarded as being somewhat tongue-in-cheek.

To illustrate, let’s take a look at some of the lyrics from the song:

Before the union did appear
My life was half as clear
Now I've got the power to the working hour
And every other day of the year

So though I'm a working man
I can ruin the government's plan
And though I'm not hard, the sight of my card
Makes me some kind of superman

As I wrote last week: I grew up in the West Midlands and was surrounded by daily reports of car factories on ‘work to rule’ and local news footage of rallies and speech-giving. My memories of that time resound with labour movement terminology that no 12-year old today would understand and a father who had no love for the ‘workshy lefties’ depicted every day on the BBC’s Midland’s Today.

Yes, my dad was no unionist, but he DID love that record by the Strawbs. To him those lyrics depicted sarcasm and satire. Coupled with a painfully catchy chorus, it proved to be a hit with him (and just about everyone else I knew at the time). And this is undoubtedly why ‘Part of the Union’ is the perfect tune to encapsulate those grim grey days. By appealing to both sides of the divide, it somehow pulls off the trick of being a political record that became a theme tune for opposite camps.

Of course to a kid, the strikes meant little (apart from the grumbles over the evening news from the parents) but one of the major results of the strife – the weekly power cuts – was certainly memorable. In fact it was great fun! Torches! Candles! Etc. It even proved grist for a young mind doing his English homework. I recently found a school poem I wrote which was written at the time. It’s title? ‘Black-Out.’

And, as this clip from contributor Catherine demonstrates, it was strangely enough a time that drew families together, albeit in pitch darkness.

Contributor Catherine remembers the three day week and the power cuts that went with it.

This week’s show, drawn as ever from eye witness accounts, paints a picture of a nation riven by troubles, and seems all the more remarkable when you consider how such things would affect our 21st century digital world.