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…

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.

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

The Lure Of Metal

2013-06-07T09:22:02+00:00

Saxon's Wheels of Steel logo

Winter 1982: I saw my first gig. It was Saxon at the Brighton Centre and it was a life-changing event. Saxon were my favourite band at the time, which meant I had a couple of their LPs and a patch on the back of my body-warmer (and for those who care such details, it was the Wheels Of Steel cover with the eagle astride a motorbike wheel: a thrilling artistic conceit to a 12 year-old lad). I love those albums, I loved the songs about freedom and motorbikes and hordes of denim and leather-clad hedonists... And then, to be among that crowd (from the safety of the balcony) was mind-blowing. The lights, the screaming guitars and the sheer volume (which was like being repeatedly kicked in the chest by a small horse) was frightening and thrilling. Life wouldn't be the same again.

One of the contributors to the Paranoid episode pointed out, quite astutely, that this was music you're supposed to feel guilty or embarrassed about liking. Somehow you're supposed to grow out of it in a way that's not expected of, say, country or jazz or even rap, which can be every bit as clichéd or ridiculous. But we know metal's ridiculous: it revels in this fact and only a Manowar fan would think otherwise. But there is no music that has the visceral rush of Heavy Metal: the feeling that you've been picked up bodily by a huge, precision-tooled industrial machine and transported elsewhere at immense speed. The musicianship is astounding. And, yes, lyrically it can be trite or hoary. But it can also be smart, witty, polemical, probing or even existential. And then there are also songs about naked Amazonians riding dragons into war against robot assassins from Mars. It has it all, really.

And yes, I did move on in my late teens and discovered many other thrilling musical worlds, from bluegrass to trance. But as this series constantly proves, music can act as a time machine to transport you back to another time and place, all in under three minutes. And that's the power of pop music, even the really noisy stuff.

Do you have a favourite desert island Heavy Metal track? Which riff can unfailingly get you headbanging? Why not send us your selection in an email to thepeoplessongs@bbc.co.uk, or in a comment on this blog and we’ll add it to our definitive Spotify playlist!

The Golden Age?

2013-05-28T10:25:50+00:00

Delia Derbyshire

When that bright spark Thomas Alva Edison invented the phonograph in 1877, the last use in he had in mind for it was music. He thought it would be used for speeches and such and to replace the business letter. That’s the way technology works; the business heads who promoted the mobile phone actually sniggered at the SMS messaging function, wondering what possible appeal that could have. Until teenagers picked up on it and the culture of texting was born

Little did Edison know that the phonograph would have no effect on secretarial work but would actually usher in an entirely new art form. And in truth, the story of pop music is as much about technology as it is about Terpsichore (She’s the Greek muse of music and dancing, you’re going to have to keep up, you know). Of course, before Edison’s invention, music only existed in the now, in the moment it was actually being performed and each performance was idiosyncratic and unique. Technology took that moment and sealed it in perpetuity (or however long a CD or cassette lasts or one’s memory lasts).

Technology brings out the grump in some. Whether it’s Neil Young’s refusal to countenance the release of some of his albums on CD or when he’s whinging about iTunes spelling the death of the album. But there has never been a golden age of pure music. Pop culture has always been shaped by technology. The rock album – whose death is so bemoaned by traditionalists – is actually a newcomer. Before The Beatles' Please Please Me, the EP and single was the dominant rock artefact. I have no problem with that becoming the case again.

The Arctic Monkeys are as northern as mushy peas and as traditional a rock band as you could wish for. But they made their name through the lightning fast connections and bush telegraph of the internet. Music thrives because of technology. Pining for the golden age of the CD is a little ridiculous and after all, an acoustic guitar is a machine too, whatever Neil Young thinks.

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.

Concrete Jungle

2013-04-02T15:12:42+00:00

The above title is taken from a song written by Jerry Dammers, founder of The Specials. It's taken from their first album and it describes perfectly how the end of the ‘70s felt to a young person growing up in the West Midlands. I should know: I was there.

In fact, this week’s episode of The People’s Songs - Ghost Town - Post-Industrial Decline - represents a truly personal experience for this particular listener. I grew up in the ‘concrete jungle’ of Coventry, went to the same school as Dammers and (my one and only claim to fame) my punk band at the time was supported at our last gig by none other than The Automatics. Previously known as The Coventry Automatics, they were a band that were soon to change their name to… guess what? Yes, The Specials.

They blew us offstage.

My teenage years, spent in Coventry, ended when I finally left for London in 1979, just as the unthinkable happened – my hometown for a short while became the centre of the musical universe due to one thing – the 2 Tone label, home of The Specials. Great timing, although perhaps on reflection it was in the cards that night at The General Wolfe pub when my second rate group (saddled with the terrible name of Urban Blight) were shown the door by Dammers and his ska band.

I remember thinking at the time: “Hold on, this is SKINHEAD music, what’s going on?” Coventry wasn’t just the heart of a car industry that had been decimated by union wrangles and a faltering economy but it was a truly multi-ethnic city that had been riven with racism and inner city violence. A Saturday night out in the precinct could easily end in bloodshed in those days.

Here’s contributor Angie’s take on how the city was at that time:

Contributor Angie talks about how Coventry was exactly as it was described in Ghost Town

But it was obvious, even that night, that the adoption of a musical form that combined both the black and white aspects of life in a post-industrial town was a stroke of genius. Punk had been a primarily white music, played by middle class boys pretending to be angry, but finally acknowledging the grimness of the times via true social realism (and danceability) sealed Dammers and Co.’s place in history.

2 Tone (whose stable included Camden’s Madness as well as another Coventry act: The Selecter) gave a voice to the next generation who had grown up in a world where the chances of getting a job were getting smaller by the day and who were ripe for recruitment by far right organisations such as The National Front.

Here’s Colin talking about that particular aspect:

Contributor Colin talks about the political statement behind The Specials' number one

But matching an essentially ‘good-time’ genre like ska – reggae’s precursor – and welding it to socially responsible lyric writing meant that 2 Tone came to represent something far more positive. From the post-industrial ruins of provincial Britain came something that truly reflected our times.

The real message behind a record like 'Ghost Town' was that we were all together in this mess and that maybe it was a better idea to blame the causes and not just fight amongst ourselves. It may have been the most depressing number one of all time, but it was followed by a new era of political engagement for young people including the Anti-Nazi League and even a resurgence of CND.

And it made me forever proud to have come from a town like Coventry.

Remembering The Chartbusters

2013-02-13T14:05:13+00:00

As the series unfolds it becomes clear that often it’s the tangential journeys down memory lane that add to the experience of listening to the show. It seems only fitting that in the month that celebrates The Golden Age Of The Album that we take a short detour beyond the singles format and look at how albums also played a huge part in the cultural landscape of Britain.

You may have seen last Friday's TV show on BBC Four: When Albums Ruled The World and, like me, have been overwhelmed by the memory, not only of the music that was such a huge part of our lives, but also by the Proustian rush of seeing old album sleeves along with descriptions of taking those slices of vinyl out of their sleeves.

During the show the story of Marvin Gaye’s classic album, What’s Going On showed how, until the early ‘70s, Tamla Motown label boss Berry Gordy’s insisted that the 45 rpm single was the medium to get the music of Detroit to the people. Received wisdom meant that rock was deemed the premier genre to be experienced via the album format.

And if you heard last week's episode which looked at the experience of young black people in '60s and '70s Britain, you'll have heard The Supremes' wonderful ‘Nathan Jones’ along with a contributor remembering how a night down the roller rink involved every kind of music the including reggae and soul but definitely ‘no rock’. So how does this tie up with a celebration of the album?

Well, straight afterwards we heard how the legendary Motown Chartbusters album series allowed school kids to experience soul by taping their friends’ copies. These compilation albums collected together for the first time the hundreds of hits enjoyed by the label.

Volume 3 with its 'hologram' cover was mentioned and, as the lady says in the show, it was the first compilation album to ever reach the top of the UK album charts (in 1969), which shows how massively important these albums were in the UK at the time. The following two volumes also topped the charts, and Volume 6 is the one with ‘Nathan Jones’ on it (there were 12 volumes in total).

And, because we like a nice circular blog post, you may be interested to know (or be reminded) that the cover of Volume 6 was designed by none other than Roger Dean. This is the man who is interviewed during When Albums Ruled The World and whose fantastical paintings usually graced the covers of progressive rock bands like Yes and Asia. Admittedly the strange spaceship/insect on the cover seems a long way from the urban grit of Detroit’s soul factory, but it's a canny demonstration of how albums played a huge part in the musical history of modern Britain.

It'll be a while before this series comes to look more closely at the very English genre of progressive rock (not until episode 46 in November). More in keeping with the Tamla sound is tonight's show featuring the late great Amy Winehouse. Stuart will be looking at the dark side of celebrity culture that blights the path to stardom in the 21^st century.

Stuart Maconie looks ahead to episode 7 of The People's Songs, 'The Price of Modern Fame'.

I hope you can join us tonight at 10pm.

MORE FROM THE BBC'S ALBUMS SEASON:

Vote for your favourite from Radio 2's Top Albums list
Listen to Radio 2's re-recording of The Beatles' Please Please Me at Abbey Road
See more of the best bits from the BBC's Golden Age of the Album