The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #131326   Message #3118287
Posted By: GUEST,Alan
21-Mar-11 - 11:26 AM
Thread Name: Lyr/Chord ADD: The Bullingdon Circus (Robb Johnson
Subject: RE: Chord Req: Bullingdon Circus by Robb Johnson
Is this the worst political protest song ever?

Apart from inchoate class envy and diffuse maunderings, what is it all about? Johnson would have to be quite a bit sharper and articulate than he is to make a success of the central circus metaphor.
Pay up and shut up
Cos here come the clowns
or
And they backhandle pratfalls, see those clowns grin,
Building more turnstiles, raking it in,
Pretty poor stuff.

And what's the significance of
Two shillings and sixpence
But For you half a crown
or
And there aren't any animals being abused
We give them all flags it keeps them amused
???
Just random rhyming words that have no relevance to the main thrust of the song.

Sing Rule Britannia
And God save the pound
What??? Is this an oblique critique at our failure to join the euro? It's all so weak!

But surely the most laughable lines of all are
No high wire or flying trapeze
The highlight's a bunfight with lashings of sleaze

Lashings of sleaze? I think there was more sleaze in the New Labour project than in all other British governments since the war. It would be difficult for the Bullingdon boys to rack up a tenth of the sleaze that Blair, Brown and Mandelson managed over the last 13 years.

I'm sorry Johnson, F grade this time. I suggest you study the lyrics of songwriters who can write proper protest songs such as Bob Dylan or Steve Knightly., and don't waste our time any further until you've taken their lessons on board.