{"id":1729,"date":"2008-09-08T13:32:55","date_gmt":"2008-09-08T13:32:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/?p=1729"},"modified":"2022-08-26T08:28:22","modified_gmt":"2022-08-26T08:28:22","slug":"without-our-stories-or-our-songs-how-will-we-know-where-we-come-from","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/2008\/09\/without-our-stories-or-our-songs-how-will-we-know-where-we-come-from\/","title":{"rendered":"Without our stories or our songs \/ How will we know where we come from?"},"content":{"rendered":"
I’m not a natural folk music fan but a year or so ago, late one night on Radio 2 as I drove from somewhere to somewhere, I caught some lyrics that spoke to me.<\/p>\n

… And a minister said his vision of hell
\nIs three folk singers in a pub near Wells [*]
\nWell, I’ve got a vision of urban sprawl
\nThere’s pubs where no-one ever sings at all
\nAnd everyone stares at a great big screen
\nOverpaid soccer stars, prancing teens [**]
\nAustralian soap, American rap
\nEstuary English, baseball caps
\nAnd we learn to be ashamed before we walk
\nOf the way we look, and the way we talk
\nWithout our stories or our songs
\nHow will we know where we come from?
\nI’ve lost St. George in the Union Jack
\nIt’s my flag too and I want it back<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(* Have to admit I may be with the minister on this one, but I accept the spirit of the song.)
\n(** Why do you blush and shuffle your feet, Ladygrove in Didcot? Boundary House in Abingdon? I may be looking at you but I\u2019m thinking of plenty others.)<\/p>\n

And I thought no more about it, until today’s dose of the\u00a0Life and Opinions of Andrew Rilstone<\/a>\u00a0actually included the video from whence it came. I can now reveal \u2013 because I’ve found out myself \u2013 that the lyrics, and the title of this post, are from “Roots” by Show of Hands.\u00a0Here are the lyrics<\/a>; here’s the video.<\/p>\n

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I’m not a natural folk music fan but a year or so ago, late one night on Radio 2 as I drove from somewhere to somewhere, I caught some lyrics that spoke to me. … And a minister said his … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,85],"tags":[20,402],"class_list":["post-1729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bens-life","category-music","tag-life","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1729"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4125,"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1729\/revisions\/4125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}