I like to presume those around me hadn't intended to be part of it either, because many – okay, half a dozen – were vocally and decidedly against Jez's presence and loudly called for him to wrap it up as soon as he could.
One chap – he was indeed a chap, all white haired upper-middle-class blustering superiority – near me was heard to loudly declare that Jeremy did not belong at the festival because it "wasn't the place" and anyway, "music isn't political." In the interests of fairness, a young white woman nearby and, I believe unrelated to him, agreed with a fierce shake of her head.
Had I not been crushed by bodies, craning my neck up for air and feet barely even touching the ground, my response would not have been the silent gnashing and gritting of teeth he got. I was not willing to be the start of a mood turning nasty.
Make no mistake: the crowd was so tightly packed that we were one hard push or mood-switch away from a lot of casualties and potential fatalities. That is how busy it was.
But, I cannot remain silent forever. Let me now answer these questions.
"Glastonbury isn't the place!"
Yes, it is. Glastonbury has always been political! It began because some folks in 1970/1 believed other festivals were getting too commercial! Many festival goers have, for some years, objected to the increasing gentrification of the festival as a whole (ticket prices, the price of food and drink once you're in... the fence), and the lack of attention and love given to the Leftfield, Green Fields and hippies, in favour of stalls selling overpriced tat, and small meals that start at £7 a pop.
Glastonbury has always been political. CND has had a presence since 1981, and there's a huge SCRAP TRIDENT sculpture on site. WaterAid, and Greenpeace are prominently supported at, and by, the festival. Perhaps they do not appear to be so because most any decent human being would agree with their aims. Heck, there's even a tower dedicated to that notoriously apolitical fellow Tony Benn.
I saw Benn speak at the Leftfield in 2007. I remember only a few of the finer points of his speech without prompting because it was in other ways a very difficult (horrendous) experience due to mud and rain etc. I do remember how enthused I was, how fiery and thoughtful his speech.
Tony Benn. Scrap Trident. An entire field dedicated to Greenpeace; another dedicated to 'Green Futures'. I learn from someone signing up donors to Greenpeace that Eavis is their largest individual donor. The festival also supports WaterAid because in the year 2017, not all humans have decent access to drinkable water. Dunno about you, but that strikes me as one of the most fundamental political issues of our existence.
If you want "no politics" I might recommend the V Festival. Bye, then.
Okay, now to the main point: "music isn't political."
Yes, it is. The End.
Okay, more. Yes, it is, fuck you. The End.
Seriously: music is, always has been and ever should be a political art. It may not always seem so, but it truly is.
Beethoven dedicated his sublime Third Symphony to Napoleon – is that not political? Traditional folk songs, written by and four and from the point of you of the common person: super political.
The Beatles' success was a profoundly political thing. First off, the very visible successful working class* lads from the darkest, remotest regions, with their Scouse accents and long hair, shook much of the then-establishment. Pop music changed - or perhaps more accurately, helped change - the social fabric of western civilisation in the 1960s. It heralded the end (or the beginning of the end) of the Age of Cap Doffing Deference, certainly here in the UK, and ushered in a more young person-orientated popular culture.
Heck, the Prime Minister Harold Wilson nearly tripped over himself to be seen with, and ergo endorsed by, the boys!
Even the attitudes towards the Rolling Stones were political in their way: a bunch of untidy, unruly boys playing black music and behaving badly? All those drug raids - and the legal status of drugs is a political issue - that sought to make an example of them, these are political as much as they are anything else.
Bed-in, protest-marching John Lennon. The Clash. Bob Marley. The Specials AKA. The Sex Pistols, in their way. Even Thumbs-Up McCartney did his naive bit with 'Give Ireland Back to the Irish'. This is very much an 'including, not limited to' list.
I think this festival-going chap may have been saying two things:
One. It's a political thing because I disagree.
Two. I don't want Music to do anything then gently entertain and divert.
I've been trying to think of music, at least in the popular sense, that somehow escapes politics and I'm struggling. even the most inoffensive, parent-friendly pop is itself political in its very blandness - created to make money and to keep the capitalist status quo (not the band) going.
I have been told that I look into pop culture too deeply. This might be fair but it doesn't therefore follow that one should take everything at face value. By way of example, "Ghost Town" by the Specials skirts the line between overt and subtle.
The mere existence within the music industry of women, people of colour, LGBT+ and anyone who isn't a white dude... the ways in which they are 'allowed' to move/act/be within music is political and has both reflected and influenced the wider world.
I've rarely been happier than the moment I had the opportunity to thank Patti Smith for making it easier for women to exist in music in their own right... I wanted her to know that it was important to me, to so many of us, that she was valued for that.
I haven't even touched on the appropriation of black American culture and music by white people. And I'll be honest with you, I'm not going to do so right now because smarter, more experienced people already have. But white rock cannot exist without black rhythm and blues, and that's a political issue.
Pat fucking Boone and Elvis over Chuck and Little Richard. Eminem over black Detroit musicians. Erykah's hair, Solange's hair, Esperanza's hair - forced to be political (indeed, the forcing itself is political) before even getting to the (sublime) music.
I closed Glastonbury by heading over to meet my friends to see the grime collective Boy Better Know headline at the Other Stage. They were awesome, and for someone seething over the 'music isn't political' snark, it was a nice reminder that actually dude, it is.
Really, I'm trying to find something that is truly outside the notions of politics and there really isn't anything because... our lives and how we choose or are required to live them, is indeed political.
It's not a surprise that music education is often the first thing to get cut when cuts are demanded. This too, is political:
- We care less about our children's creative and critical thinking skills than about teaching them to be automatons who can pass exams.
- We're happy to profit from the outstanding contribution of UK music to the economy, but we won't enable or support it.
- Poor children don't deserve the nice things.
So, music becomes the realm of those who can afford the lessons and the instruments and the time to dedicate to it. It becomes the realm of those who already have connections. And then... it stultifies and sours into the same old same old, all the damned time.
This is before we even touch on the tribal nature of fans: Skinheads, New Romantics and Blitz Kids, 2-Tone, Metalheads, hippies, mods (original), mods (revival), Riot Grrls, straight edge and hardcore punks, Teds and rockers, emos and goths, Rave, hip hop, teenyboppers,... I could actually go on for days. Those groups formed common identities apart from the norm, or the other groups.They marked themselves as 'other' often because they were already outsiders in a society that does not favour or value difference. They have their distinct languages, uniforms, conventions and were all at one time or another feared or detested by the mainstream of their time.
Choosing your group and being proud: a deeply political act. That's why those groups have unnerved The Powers That Be. Heck, the government of the time so deeply feared rave culture that they essentially enacted legislation just to stop it!
How we value the work of composers and musicians: political.
How we value and talk about music aimed at girls compared to music for boys: political.
The price of tickets: political.
Access: political.
How women are treated at gigs: political.
How labels choose who they do and don't sign, who they consider viable: political.
Music is, always was and ever should be, a political art. Why? Because music is part of our own selves. Those who make it put something of themselves and their lived experience into the work. Those who consume the work approach it with their own souls and lived experience. You cannot separate that. No art exists in a vacuum. Music is political.
A Glastonbury security guard I spoke to about an hour after Corbyn's speech expressed surprise: "But it wasn't even about politics. It was about helping people and being kind."
Being a decent human being and choosing to be part of a society that cares about all its members, even and especially the least among us?
This truly is a political act.
