"What does it mean to me to be English"

Well it means little to me. It gives me a team to support (unless as withe the Football world cup, the media ram it down my throat) in sport but, it means I might know what box to tick on a form, etc but little else. I'm not particulary proud over our history with our neighbouring countries or with our empire building...

I'm not sure whether living in Wales a lot of my life has helped me consider myself largely "unrooted" or not. I have on occasions thought it has but the more I think about it, it probably made little difference.

Ulimately I'm me, in some ways pretty much a loner, and this me is not really a creature that has a great need for any form of "group identity".

There are issues in the "roots" song that mean something to me, but really they aren't specifically English issues anyway. I've known loosing a session in Wales to a Reggae night, another as it became a pub trying to cash in on trade moving towards a late night disco, the "American pie" type requests are familiar, you can play tunes such as Ty Coch Caerdydd to have people think they must be Irish because the dance tradition, at least in the Llanduno area is not as well known as say singing Calon Lan, etc.

Largely much is just an effect of commercialism and our consumer driven world, something no nation is immune to.

Fortunately, I know where to find what I want to find with music.