It’s the country that’s changin’
All the people
Cause the people are leavin’.
So sang Euro-disco purveyors Boney M on their 1977 top ten hit ‘Belfast’. Let’s ignore the fact that the songwriters seem to have mistaken Belfast for some kind of Monaco style nation state and concentrate on the fanciful image of the bold and the beautiful regulars of Studio 54 in Manhattan dancing, (and possibly engaging in the other nefarious activities whilst in the aforementioned Gomorrah), with gay abandon to what is, essentially a hi-nrg troubles ballad.
Let’s gloss over the possibility that celebrity, (back when the word meant something, dammit), punter Truman Capote may well have leaned over to fellow hedonist Alice Cooper at one point to say "Yes, all the children are leaving. It’s a shame isn’t it Alice? And is that a real snake?".
Let’s instead concentrate on the slew of voyeuristic music written by ‘outsiders’ looking into the morass of the Northern Irish political situation and co-opting a bit of gravitas. We’ll ignore the Northern Irish bands – Stiff Little Finger’s howl at having to spend your best years in a culturally stagnant war zone, the Divine Comedy’s why-can’t-we-all-just-get-along platitudes and Therapy?‘s literate racket – mostly the ‘natives’ manage to avoid the more embarrassing pitfalls of the troubles protest. And yes I am aware of Katie (nee Ketevan) Melua’s awful ‘Cats and Penguins’ (oh if only these two different species could bond over their shared love of fish!), she only lived in Belfast between the ages of 8 and 14, when presumably her parents wised up.
No, lets cut the bull and tear straight into Simple Minds. Yeo! Jim Kerr’s ‘Stadium rock for people that think U2 are a bit edgy’ outfit (oh why didn’t they stick with the original moniker ‘Johnny and the Self Abusers’?) gained a worldwide smash hit with the execrable ‘Belfast Child’ in 1989, blatantly adding 80’s power sheen to folk staple ‘She Moved Through the Fair’.
As I write, synthesized Uilleann pipes emerge from my laptop’s speakers conjuring up ‘fiddle-de-de’ images of copper-locked maidens walking over a be-misted Cave Hill, wondering when, oh when the Belfast Child will sing again. I have some news for you, pal. Belfast Children don’t sing. They sit at the back of the bus playing tinny trance music through the speakers of their mobile phones.
Bono managed to dodge a bullet (literally – the Edge’s lyrics were self censored out of sense of self preservation) on ‘Sunday bloody Sunday’ with his proclamation ‘This is not a Rebel song’ However ‘This is a Rebel Song’ by slap headed pope hater Sinead O’Connor actually is a Rebel song, dealing of the protagonists love for a ‘hard’ rebel "while crazies are killing our children". We look over the sea though to our neighbours however for the real criminals and cry out ‘hasn’t Ulster suffered enough?’
In parts of the Amazon Rainforest the ‘Sting’ is the word for ‘smug tantric white man’ in the native Kayapo tongue. Not content with trying to save women from a life of whoredom he decided to turn his attention to the Northern Ireland issue. Considering this was the man who wrote ‘what might save us, me and you/is if the Russians love their children too’. Well I’ve got news for you Sting, if that is your real name, and I know it’s not. The Russians don’t love their children too. At birth they are taken from the family and inducted into soviet kill-bot factories and installed with a hatred of cook firing simpletons. And let’s not forget ‘Invisible Sun’ – "I don’t want to spend the rest of my days/ Keeping out of trouble like the soldiers say". To my (admittedly biased) ears it sounds like Sting wants to get into trouble, possibly joyriding and drug dealing the sort of behaviour that attracts what is euphemistically called ‘community response’ and these spoil sport squaddies are merely getting in the way of his delinquent fun.
It’s not just the more MOR bands that deem fit to condemn the situation in Northern Ireland. Dave Mustaine of Megadeth wrote the song ‘Holy Wars…Punishment Due’ after a personal demonstration of 300 years of concentrated hatred occurred at the Antrim Forum in 1988. While off his head on "some pot and vodka and probably a little blow" he decided to stick his Metallica hating oar in and followed Macca’s example by proclaiming ‘Give Ireland Back to the Irish’. And provoking a major riot, necessitating the band to be removed from the site in an armoured minibus. And to be fair he does hold his chastened hands up on 1990 thrash metal classic album ‘Rust in Piece’ – "Fools like me, who cross the sea and come to foreign lands/Ask the sheep, for their beliefs do you kill on God’s command?". Cheers Dave, we’re all sheep now. Thanks a bunch.
Let’s give credit when credit is due when it’s got right, it’s very right. Orbital’s mid-tempo old school classic ‘Belfast’ was written after the Hartnol brothers played a gig in the Ulster Hall and were impressed by the ecstasy fuelled love displayed as opposed to the media images of petrol bombs and rioting. "You point the finger as you carry the flag/ I don’t pay attention."- here’s the honesty here – I for one would sooner have our rock stars not paying attention to the situation than making cack-handed proclamations of an issue I, as a born and bred Ulsterman don’t claim to fully understand. And for the record the vehicles used by the security forces, the Saracen, the Land Rover Tangi and the Shortland are all armoured cars. Not tanks.