A Date Which Will Live In Infamy

On Sunday, December 7th, 1941, an event occurred that arguably tipped the balance on the future of Europe. At 7:58 local time, 177 Japanese planes approached the island of Hawaii, and bombed the American naval base of Pearl Harbour.

On this date I feel it is suitable to write a short piece on Pearl Harbour.

The slower torpedo naval bombers led the way, remedying their speed by their element of surprise, and attacked the USA's capital ships. In total 414 planes as well as well as 2 battleships and 9 destroyers would be used in the attack on the moored American fleet. 4 of 8 American battleships were sunk, and the rest damaged. 2,400 Americans died, including 68 civilians. Naval strategy in the USA was forced to move away from battleship primacy, and began to focus on carrier primacy. The face of the second world war was changed.

The USA would go on to help the Allies chase the 3rd Reich all the way back to Berlin, and would eventually defeat Japan too. But Pearl Harbour represents how significant the USA is, both in spirit and power, and to international politics. The attack on Pearl Harbour drew the Americans into the European Theatre too, and would open up the Western Front on D-Day with an allied force landing in Normandy. Their influence in WW2 solidified them as a superpower for decades to come, but it originated from a tactical loss, which was ultimately overcome.

At Pearl Harbour, the American's captured their first prisoner of war of the conflict. Kazuo Sakamaki had been part of a two man crew in a midget submarine as part of the attack on Pearl Harbour. His submarine had become stuck on Waimanalo Beach, and attempted to set off an explosive charge, which failed. He swam to the bottom of the submarine to check the explosives, but fell unconscious. He woke up on hospital, under American guard.

Later, Sakamaki made a request to commit suicide, but was refused. By the end of the war he returned to Japan, as a pacifist.

This is just one story of the many thousands of soldiers and sailors involved in the attack on Pearl Harbour. It was bloody and ironically, in the long term it established the USA as a superpower, as cut above the rest. But on the infamous date, Pearl Harbour should be remembered as what it was - a horror of war, which will hopefully never happen again.

Butterflies and Hurricanes

One of the most personally challenging concepts I have come across is that of cause and effect, and to what extent you can reasonably apply it. From a purely scientific perspective, for example - X reacts with Y to form Z, which reacts with A but quickly decomposes into B. That is a series of logical and analytical causes and effects.

But when we consider events that are linked, but in a somewhat more abstract way and over a longer period of time, a dilemma arises.

I struggle with this when it comes to historical events - how far does one event cause another, and can one event be responsible for another event far into the future. An example for historical events leading to another can be seen in 20th and early 21st century major world events. So we can start with Gavrilo Princip shooting Franz Ferdinand, > World War One > Versailles  > World War Two > Cold War > 9/11 and the War on Terror. Is it right to blame Princip for the War on Terror? Can we attribute the events of the Cold War to the Treaty of Versailles?

It is a troubling dilemma. If we are willing to accept that one event is contingent on the one before it, then we create this infinite chain of contingent events, which can't be right, surely? An alternative interpretation of the problem however, is to address the 'causes' of each event. All these events were not solely caused by the cause noted, and in some cases it is arguable the event would have happened anyway had the cause not occurred.

Firstly, lets look at Princip shooting dead the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, widely attributed as the event that triggered the first world war, but we have to look at the wider context. The first world war can best be described as various different wars occurring for different reasons that occurred in common areas. Yes, Austria-Hungary went to war with Serbia as Princip's actions gave a justification, but it also meant war with Russia. The Germans wanted to fight Russia before they had become too strong to defeat - as well as being Austria-Hungary's ally. France went to war with Germany because they were allied with Russia, and Britain entered the war because of the German trespass of Belgium. This complex series of alliances and motives for war shows that Europe was primed and ready for conflict, and Princip's shot was, merely, a trigger for this conflict that was destined to happen anyway, as soon as another justification was found.

We can also look at why the Cold War began - to some extent caused by the Yalta conference and division of Europe, but primarily due to the two largest powers in the world emerging with deeply opposing ideology - capitalist liberal democracy in the west, and totalitarian communism in the east. So if we follow this idea of cause and effect, we can apply the failure of Operation Barbarossa, and the failure for a decisive Axis victory in the west and Africa. And what caused this?

This thought process it abrasively logical. The issue is that it ultimately reaches a point where a minute action - one soldier's death - apparently caused the Cold War. For this reason, it is troubling to look at history as a series of causes and effects.

Something will always be affected by something else, no matter how small - the snowflake is responsible for the avalanche.

So, we need to look at individual events and the events surrounding it. Yes, it must be recognised that all of history is interconnected, but as far as understanding why an event occurred, the only productive measure to take is to look at what surrounds an event, and work from its context - not from a cause and effect basis.

Life in a Glasshouse

After the first world war, the Ottoman Empire finally ceased to exist. A strong Arab revolt began to swell in the middle east and former Ottoman territories. When it came to sit down and carve the region up, however, the independence movements fell flat. In fact, very few territories in the middle east had independence. Syria, Lebanon and some south-eastern Turkish areas went to the French, and Britain had control of Mesopotamia (Iraq), and Palestine & Trans-Jordan, which would eventually become Israel and Jordan.

But when you look at a map of the middle east after its division, and compare it to the map of Europe from the same time, something appears remarkably different.

The borders are almost entirely straight in the middle east. And this isn't just a middle eastern thing. It's an empire thing.

The borders of some nations in Africa are similarly straight. Look at the borders of Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Namibia and Angola. 

These are borders which were drawn solely in the interest of the empires they used to belong to, not the inhabitants of the regions. Back in the 19th Century, when Goldie travelled down the River Niger signing deals with local tribe leaders, he didn't consider the effect it would have when they were all made into one big country under British rule. Just look at what happened in the territory formerly known as Rhodesia and Nyasaland. The different parts of the nation had vastly different needs and extremely different economies. Rhodesia had a signigicant and growing European population, but Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) and Nyasaland (now Malawi) had extremely small populations of Europeans, which was a cause for racial tension until the state's dissolution.

The carving up of the middle east after the first world war can generally be considered as one of the worst long term plans emerging from the war, along with the League of Nations. The region was partitioned with little regard to the people's culture and how they live their lives, and largely in the economic interests of the Empire. The Kurdish still today live in a position of purgatory. The division of Israel and Palestine caused horrible conflict in the region and still does today within the nation, with no solution appearing to be sustainable.

Today, the region is still destabilised. You can make an argument that it was caused by the Iraq War, which itself was caused by 9/11. The issue is that you can go as far back as you like looking for a root cause, but that itself is a flawed approach. Today, culture wars still exist in the region, be it Turkey's current war on secularism, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as well as the Syrian Civil War. It's difficult to see a way out. As Dan Carlin puts it, the world seems to be in self destruct mode, and has been for the last century.

But from this it's important to remember that people are different. The Culture War in America is one of conservative values vs liberal values. When we look at that nation's current political state, there is certainly a worrying picture. More people than ever are voting out of distaste than desire. The public are largely choosing, in their minds, the lesser of two evils. Donald Trump's potential reference to an assassination of Hillary Clinton was a worrying moment. Not only for security concerns and expressions of violence. It showed a very basic intolerance. An intolerance of democracy and an intolerance of another culture. Interestingly, liberals are the ones who have grappled with democracy far more than conservatives, as can be seen in the UK's exit from the European Union. Economists, business leaders, and leading civil servants have all warned against brexit, but the people chose to leave, So what does that mean for the liberal? If it does more harm than good, are they justified in actions that fly in the face of democracy? But then how can these champions of freedom claim their people are free?

It is a troubling dilemma. And it may be wishful thinking, but we need to remember that we are more similar than we may seem at first. The most important part of a good and free world is tolerance. Tolerance of ignorance and of malevolence. Tolerance of ingenuity and brilliance. Once tolerance is out of the window, everything that is just follows. It is wishful thinking that we can simply tolerate others, because some of us can't. Then what? Do we tolerate the intolerant? The world around us is clearly fragile, and this is a question that will stop waiting for us to answer it soon.

War Plan Red

In the early 1930s, world tensions had remained calm. Escalation did not seem to be a prospect, and the horrors of another world war were not being considered until a few years later. America was trying to clamber its way out of total collapse, with the Great Depression sending the economy spiralling down. A war was not on the American political menu. Undisturbed isolation was on Frank Roosevelt's mind.

Despite this, the USA's Department of War and Department of Navy made efforts to draw up hypothetical plans for war. War Plan Black was a plan for war with Germany that came to fruition in the young years of the 20th century, it was used in the First World War after being revised in 1916. War Plan Orange was for war with Japan, which failed to compensate for the destruction of the docked American battleship fleet alongside various screen ships.

War Plan Red, however, was a plan for war with the United Kingdom and its colonies.

Today, this seems insane. Why would the United States go to war with one of its closest allies? Their supporter in all things military? Brothers in democracy and pioneers of liberty!

Well we have to remember that these were hypothetical plans for war, and in fact was even waived after the Second World War broke out. Despite this, its fascinating to think what could have been. If, in the fallout of the Great Depression, America had turned to someone other than the democratic FDR, and sided with the ever growing fascist movement.

In the plan, detailed plans for attack on Canada are laid out. A poison gas strike on Halifax, a quick occupation of the east coast to prevent British reinforcement, and critical seizure of the heart of Canadian railways in Winnipeg. In fact, nearly the entire plan involves an invasion of Canada. The USA acknowledged that the British would have a key advantage in its naval supremacy, but maintained the British would be defeated by a naval, and then land based, blockade, starving the islands out.

Britain didn't have an official plan for war with America. They just had some vague idea that they would be extremely vulnerable to the American navy if they didn't destroy it first, and eventually just hold out for a stalemate.

The plan interestingly rejects any notion of returning any gained territory. Provinces of Canada seized by the USA would become one of the united states. Alongside this, they envisioned no advances outside of the western hemisphere, with the ground war being focused almost entirely on the Canadian front.

In 1974, War Plan Red was declassified by the Nixon, which certainly caused a tightening of the throat and a few audible gulps around the Canadian House of Commons. The tension subsided once they'd checked the NATO rule book though, and all was well in the world again.

But imagine what could have been. It isn't hard to do. Canada would have been no more. And no Britain too.

American Epic

Through the 1960s, the concept of the western swept through cinema. The now legendary Sergio Leone directed the now legendary Dollars trilogy, as well as Once Upon A Time In The West. These became the classic American Epics. Tales from the wild west portrayed in the untouchable style of Leone and sound tracked by the brilliant Ennio Morricone. The American Epic has since lived on, most notably and most recently in the 3 hour slog that is The Revenant.

These are not only films, they are incredible stories that have its environment at the core. Post-colonial America is a fascinating setting, because of the sheer space unlike anything seen before in Europe. After the acquisition of Louisiana, the mid-west of America became a vast expanse nothingness. This wilderness and sheer lawlessness is what inspired the great westerns of the 60s. Bandits rode, sheriffs chased, and now and then someone would get caught. A great portrayal of the emptiness of America at the time is the opening scene in Once Upon A Time In The West.

Despite these epic stories across vast expanses, it was only a decade before, in the 50s when Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams were writing the very opposites of an American Epic. They wrote plays that on nowhere near the incredible story of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, but instead immensely introspective concentrated. Perhaps the most famous American play by Miller, Death Of A Salesman is written like a close reading of The American Dream. A tragic tale of a single man  and his family. No crazy action scenes or drawn out chases. The brilliance of Death Of A Salesman is that Miller says so much without addressing the reader directly once. All of Miller's ideas are conveyed through the dialogue of Willy Loman and those who surround. This style of dialogue driven art has been waning since the classics of the 50s were written.

The Revenant, The Hateful Eight and The Magnificent Seven are all films released this year, perhaps signifying a revival of the American Epic. But the American Classics. Quiet, tragic tales driven by dialogue and often saying more than all the characters combined sit gathering dust. Maybe that's for the better. The climate the America is in is perhaps not ready for another shake to the American Dream, or a wake up call with regards to masculinity. And perhaps these classics will only accumulate worth as they got older, with a certain prestige and vintage growing around the stories.

American Epics and American classics each have incredible value and are wonderful works within their own rite, and today, they are where they belong. At least for now.

Atom Heart Mother

In the course of human events, some of the most monumental developments occur in the collapse of an empire. The schism of The Church, the failure of the 1812 campaign, and the fall of the Qing dynasty all come to mind. In 1979, the Soviet Union was on its way to collapse, between the defining reigns of Nikita Khrushchev and Mikhail Gorbachev, laid the troublesome reign of Leonid Brezhnev. Although no single event can be attributed to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the invasion of Afghanistan goes down as a tributary. 25 years on from the coup that ended a nation, we look back at one of the most disastrous modern military campaign, alongside Vietnam, and the 2003 Iraq war.

On an otherwise normal day Kabul, Soviet soldiers dressed in Afghan uniforms flooded into the country, seizing government buildings and media outlets. Tensions were high in the build up to the invasion, after a kidnapped US ambassador was killed in a Soviet operation to rescue him, as well as various Islamist and communist insurgencies rising in the country. Brezhnev's soldiers quickly occupied urban centres, and sought to neutralise potential rebellion. But the occupation had the opposite of the intended effect. Brezhnev intended the occupation to pacify the population of Afghanistan, but it instead inspired an immense feeling of patriotism and nationalism. By 1980, nearly half the Afghan armed forces had defected or deserted, to fight in resistance groups.

The Soviet camp pushed for the invasion in order to prevent an Islamist regime emerging, especially notable is the emergence of the Taliban during the Soviet occupation, but Moscow also had economic interests, with them cancelling 90% of Afghanistan's debt.

The faliure of the invasion, however, lies in the 10 years after the initial occupation.

Retrospectively, the invasion is referred to as the bear trap, and the USSR's Vietnam. This is becuase of the incredible disregard of the Soviet authorities of the Afghan people. Thousands of civilians died during the invasion to Soviet hands, much like the Vietnamese against America. The hearts and minds of the Afghans had been lost before Brezhnev even sent a soldier over the border, with a growing divide between communist revolutionaries, and supporters of the status quo.

When the Soviets finally left, they had left two nations in shambles. One was war torn, and the other was rotting from the inside out. In just 18 months, the USSR would no longer exist. The manpower and production lost in Afghanistan was negligible to the Soviet Union, but what was painstakingly obvious through the entire campaign, was that the USSR was no longer a superpower. It's own internal struggles had crumbled the nation that stopped the biggest war machine in history.

In Afghanistan was a much starker picture. This was the first major powers intervention in the middle east since the second world war, and although it can be argued that the establishment of Israel was the tipping point for stability in the region, the rise of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in the post-Soviet world was a direct consequence of the botched occupation and withdrawal in 1989.

The Genius of The Chain

Track 7 of Fleetwood Mac's hit 1977 album is and tense, fragile song that feels like it's waiting to implode. The Chain has achieved more widespread fame in the United Kingdom after its bass driven outro was used as the Formula 1 theme music on the BBC. I consider The Chain Fleetwood Mac's best song, rivalled only by Gold Dust Woman, and what makes it so brilliant is more simple than how its fleeting guitar fills may make it seem.

Rumours was an album birthed in anger and sorrow. Fleetwood Mac was not the happiest of bands at the time of its conception. The bassist John McVie and keyboardist Christie McVie has seperated after 6  years of marriage. Guitarist Lindsey Buckingham and vocalist Stevie Nicks had an on-off relationship, leading them to fight often. Fleetwood himself was struggling, after discovering his wife had an affair with his best friend. With all these emotions in the cauldron, The Chain is what emerged.

"If you don't love me now, you will never love me again, I can still hear you saying you will never break the chain." Goes the song's chorus. The Chain was a lyrical metaphor for the chain that held the band together, and they promise to one another that even with all these issues betweem them, they won't let that split them up. Fading vocals at the end proclaim "Chain, keep us together." showing that they may not have total confidence in their own ability to hold the band together.

But the song's beauty emerges in the dueling vocals of Nicks and Buckingham, with beautiful sweeping harmonies. No two singers in the world could harmonise as brilliantly and interweave seamlessly like those two. They grew to hate each other, but often times during The Chain, their voices become one. Despite all the angst and tension within the band, they came together perfectly, in vocals, and instrumentally, to form a piece of music that ultimately would hold them together for many years to come.

                

Back In The U.S.S.R (Dictatorship vs Ochlocracy)

With recent events becoming clearer in Turkey, now appears to be a good time to discuss methods of government outside the standard western concpet of liberal representative democracy. Where I live, every 5 years we all get together and as a population, choose who will form our next govenment. Alternatives to this system exist. But two notably rare forms of government are those of the omnipresent dictatorship, and mob rule.

What these two styles of govenment have in common is that they are never official. When these systems take hold no-one stands up to say this is now a dictatorship. All that is realised is that power has shifted. Despite this, the two can be compared as methods of government. Which is better? But in truth, it's extremely difficult to compare the two. Mob rule has only genuinely taken hold iin fleeting moments of history. Most notably the witch trials. As for an omnipresent dictatorship, Stalin's USSR and Hitler's Germany quickly spring to mind.

The failed coup attempt in Turkey appears more and more like a power grab from Erdogan, but almost one that the people support. Shocking images of supporters confronting army personel on the streets showed almost a support of dictatorship and a power grab. A support of the end of secularism, an islamist regime. Since the faliure of the coup, 2,000 judges [1], 60,000 officials [2] and 45,000 civil servants [3] including soldiers and ministerial workers have been purged from the Turkish state. Consolidating power has certainly been on Erdogan's agenda for a while. It is some weird hybrid of mob rule demanding dictatorship. This can be likened to Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party being elected into power, and subsequent consolidation of power after the Reichstag fire.

Despite this, we can look at both forms of government and assess their merits. Mob rule is a difficult thing to characterise, but is often driven by hysteria. Most witch-hunts occurred within the contruct of a monarchy. However one distinctive witch hunt occurred in almost pure isolation, with very little authority. The events that occurred in Salem, Massacheusets from 1692-1693 were a unique exploration of mob rule and hysteria. This is due to the complete isolation that this new colony had felt. They were exiled puritans, cut off from any of other way of life for over half a century. This reached a boiling point in the witch trials, which saw the only recorded execution in the USA by pressing [4], of Giles Corey.

In some ways, the repressiveness of puritan society in Salem was a direct tributary to a hysteria breaking out, and mob rule taking hold, where one action is holy, and its opposite is of Lucifer. This, alongside most dictatorship shows how each regime is driven by ideoogy and idealism of a utopia, where an action is directly hindering the promised land for everyone else. We have never seen a dictatorship that isn't ideologically driven, except perhaps, in George Orwell's 1984. A faceless, totalitarian regime, not driven by utopia, but by a ruthless instilling of order. Which is ultimately what a dictatorship boils down to. Authority and absolute order. Mob rule, by its definition, is one of free will, and the people doing what they wish, as a collective. Not an anarchy exactly, but extreme in its sense of freedom.

Establishing this, we can assess the strengths of each. Order is certainly desirable in a society. It is comfortable, knowing you have a place in society, but also establishes a hierarchy, where people can be suppressed effectively. Mob rule is oddly similar in its appeasement of the people. In fact, its entire structure is based on participation, and citizens feel more comfortable the more they buy into the system of accusation and participation in witch hunts. This creates a positive feedback loop, where citizens become more and more loyal to government and government becomes even harder to topple. With this, mob rule is far more effective at suppressing opposition, as someone needs to go against those they stand shoulder to shoulder with, not those they see up above commanding them. It would be less of an uprising, and more of a betrayal. Heresy. Witchcraft.

As far consolidation of power goes. The mob rule, once it properly gets going, is extremely effective in establishing order, despite its unorderly appearance. Even more so than an authoritative dictatorship.


1. http://www.mystatesman.com/news/ap/top-news/turkish-president-says-hes-in-control-coup-falteri/nrzBT/

2. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/08/02/world/europe/turkey-purge-erdogan-scale.html

3. http://www.cnnturk.com/turkiye/iste-darbe-sorusturmasinda-kamuda-aciga-alinanlarin-kurum-kurum-listesi

4. Goss, K David, The Salem Witch Trials: A Reference Guide, P32, 2007.

Every Album Tells A Story: The Suburbs

The Suburbs by Arcade Fire remains one of my favourite albums because of the loyalty is pledges to its concept - suburban youth, and the transition into adulthood. The album is compelling and philosophical, but creates a sonic space where the every instrument evokes nostalgia and the feel of the suburbs, and crucially, its corruption. Today, I'll be telling the story of the album - each individual song tells its own story about suburban life.

We begin with a confrontation of reality. The protagonist tells us that his life in the suburbs was meant to be fulfilling, a great opportunity for a better life. The suburbs are a place where your family can live in a house of their own, with a garden, and play on the streets without fear. But our protagonist looks back and truly believes it all meant nothing at all. Much like the children who want to be hard, when their most beloved moments come when they completely let their guard down, when they run and scream through the yard, our protagonist feels like the kid pretending to be grown up and mature - but all he wants to do is live, at least he feels this deep down. All the while, as he grows older, he moves past the feeling, even though he doesn't want to.

Life in the suburbs can be particularly difficult when it comes to maintaining genuine friendships. Here, another person begins to tell a story, about his friends from art school. The protagonist made great friends in art school, and they were socialist hippies. They wanted to take down the corporations and knew all the wicked ways of the blood sucking businessmen. Soon, the protagonist tells us that people bow down to the 'emperor' because it's better than not conforming, but not him, he would never give up his values. But like everyone, he does. His old friends come to his door, but he knows he isn't one of them anymore. He has a family to support, he has a life and responsibilities, and yet he hates himself for it. He's resulted in a mass of contradictions, he doesn't know if he likes the suburban life he had learned to hate in art school, but it's the only way, right? It was for his family.

Another protagonist takes the helm of the story. This man is a father, who begins to question whether he is really living, whether he is really going anywhere. He'll have kids and then what? He's standing in line waiting to be called up for his moment, but in the suburbs, and in all life, you don't just get called up, and he acknowledges this. He knows he's one of the chosen few to be in such a privileged position. He could do anything, but his responsibilities weigh him down. He wastes it. Again, we change perspectives to an older gentleman, commenting on modern youth, particularly those most sheltered from the real world in the suburbs. This person has had some horrible experiences with them. They want to own him, but they don't really know what that means. Memories of slavery and the civil war are long gone now in America. This man still has the second world war fresh in his mind.

The tension of the suburbs is expressed by another storyteller. A young girl tells us that she can only be herself when she's by herself. There's a certain expectation of her in the suburbs. To be adult, proper and mature. But she's just a child, the contradiction feels like a strait jacket on her, trapped. The narrative shifts again, with one man reflecting and noticing that the city is not what it used to be. In the suburbs he doesn't feel a spark or any energy. His childhood is lost, the spark of a wide eyes kid, lost. There's an immense pressure to assimilate to the standardised life of going to work, going home, and dying.

One man and one woman take us through the next two songs. The firs is a story of ruin. They feel like they've ruined their kids bringing them up in an environment where only one lifestyle is generally accepted. And they know when they walk around the neighbourhood, everyone else feels the same way. The houses hide an ocean of distress and hurt behind them - no family is perfect, but in the suburbs they all appear to be, which only makes everyone feel worse. Then they look around. The world has been ruined on the outside too. In the aftermath of the recession, the suburbs barely feel the impact. Their skin has grown thick and their eyes turn blindly.

The 8th person explains the division that he has lived through. In suburbia, friends never really seem genuine. He tells of a personal tragedy, one that we all think only has happened to us. But in truth it happens to everyone, we all grow up. It's a universal tragedy. And we all leave friends behind. But in a reversal, the protagonist rouses the kids. Shouting the flaws and faliures of our system. Sure we have this suburban culture of purity and righteousness, but the kids...they're not being kids. They're just stood with their arms folded - prim and proper.

Again we turn onto a new protagonist, telling a melancholic acoustic tale of how they wasted their hours. In a retrospective they speak of technology becoming far greater than anything in the past.

We reach the last protagonists, a boy and a girl. The boy tells us of the horror and depression of the suburbs. Never really identifying somewhere as a home. But the last girl. She delivers a message of hope. They heard her singing and they told her to stop - she sings. She is still there, as vibrant and beautiful as ever. She has beaten the metagame of the suburbs - seen through it all, and knows she will be greater than anything it has ever made.

The Galibier Raid

5 years ago today, the Tour de France witnessed an incredible feat of human endurance, as Andy Schleck rode alone for over fifty kilometers up the Col du Galibier, winning the stage. It was an audatious move, that set him into prime position for the yellow jersey.

He lost the tour in the end at the time trial. He was probably doping. His brother was caught for it. But I'll never forget that stage, that absolute steal of two minutes. 

Love and War

When it comes to terror, there is little to say that hasn’t already been said. The tragedy that unfolded last night in Nice was horrifying and the very epitome of terrifying. Yet, we go through the depressing cycle of grief, anger, futile action, and eventually, further terror.  It is also an extremely sensitive topic, especially for the people of France, which makes discussion of terror particularly difficult and measured.

The Supreme Court ruling in the USA that it was unfair to not allow people of the same sex to marry sparked the hashtag LoveWins to reach the top of twitter. But in the face of modern terrorism and its responses, how far is this true?

Right-wing nationalist movements have sprung up across Europe and North America, perhaps most significantly at the moment: The National Front in France. Marie Le Pen came 3^rd in the presidential elections of 2012 and led a huge number of departments in the 2015 election’s first round, before left wingers came out in their droves to support the opposition. The rise of Donald Trump alongside this, as well as UKIP, promotes a distinct anti-outsider rhetoric. Although this may appear to be a new phenomenon of right-wing extremism being cultivated by terrorism (flying in the face of #LoveWins) the matter of fact is that the ‘Others’, the ‘Bad guys’ have always existed in society.

The excellent lecture from Prof Rodney Barker puts this into better perspective, but it can be generally said that governmental demonisation of outsiders unifies the nation. Barker references Lincoln describing the unifying effect the Revolutionary War had, distracting them from the real cultural divisions between the north and south, which led to the civil war. Since the civil war, America has essentially always had an outsider to focus hatred on. The Jim Crow laws intensified the racism in America, increasingly with a colonial mindset as they approached the first world war. Then the red scare set in, which set up American foreign policy with an outsider for 90 years. Between the fall of the Berlin Wall and 9/11, there was a period of relative calm, despite the shocking events in Bosnia.

After September 11th and the subsequent invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, the political enemy had been set. Communism had fallen, and so the War on Terror began. George Bush's Axis of Evil speech was an incredible display of this mentality of the outsider. 

The key difference, though, with terrorism as opposed to any other outsider, is that it grows with the increasing governmental spotlight placed on it. The war in Iraq being a key inducer of terrorism as we know it today. However we cannot apply all of terrorism to governmental actions. Terrorism is an absolute horror, a true evil in the world. What unfolded in Nice was barely short of inhuman.

So how far can love get us in these situations. Surely the logic is to go and destroy whoever is performing and endorsing these sickening acts, but time and time again this approach has failed. We all feel anger and despair in these moments and we think why not go into Syria and turn those bastards to dust? Maybe that would be easier. Equally we have to consider how love factors into this. Terrorists do not feel compassion for those they see as infidels, so should people even entertain a compassionate approach to government? Maybe not. 

But we can all do our best to create an atmosphere of compassion within our own society. This may seem utopian and unachievable, but just being helpful and considerate can go a long way.  Despite this, I'm not sure that without a unifying hatred of an 'Other' society can be properly unified in order to be compassionate, and people within society will be demonised.

Don't listen to me though I'm not the expert! Ask our new Head of Foreign Policy, Boris Johnson.

A Momentary Lapse of Reason

The year is 1812. Napoleon Bonaparte is the Emperor of France, and he has Europe at his fingertips. He approaches his final prize: Moscow.

The rest is history. Napoleon wins the battle but loses the war, and his empire. He arrives in Moscow to a sea of flames. Prisoners set loose in the city with the population evacuated, he occupied the Russian capital waiting for a surrender he knew wasn't coming. With no food and the winter approaching, he was forced into a retreat. With starvation, and a relentless pursuit from the Russian military, Napoleon's Grand Armee was destroyed, leaving hundreds of thousands dead in Czar Alexander's grasslands. Three years later, Napoleon loses to the British and the Prussians at Waterloo and is condemned to be exiled to Saint Helena.

For 13 years, Napoleon had built an empire to encompass most of Europe up to the Russian and Ottoman empires. He was a force to be reckoned with, winning countless battles, imposing his own civil code and constitution upon millions. He developed the French army to focus on mobility and drilling them intensely. He made war economically beneficial to the country. He did everything right, until the aftermath of the Battle of Borodino.

Bonaparte began the war in June, giving him time to defeat Russia, before the winter. He took Moscow in September, but only began the evacuation in October, with a starving army. For weeks, Napoleon underwent the conscous decision to continue the occupation of a deserted, burning city, whilst the Czar watched his army starve from St. Petersburg.

Everyone has these moments. We all make mistakes that are uncharacteristic of ourselves, perhaps not as dramatic, monumental and politically paramount as Napoleon's decision to stay in Moscow for far longer than he should have. But they are still significant, within our own lives.

Why do we make decisions that are so uncharacteristic of us? "Why did I not go to the doctor when I found that bump on my penis? I'm usually a fairly sensible person." It seems absurd that we make silly decisions in hindsight.

Despite this, I think that we should consider that these decisions are not uncharacteristic at all. In fact, these things are the very furthest reaches, as Jon Ronson puts it: our "maddest edges". And like it or not, these form a part of our character. The fact that we make these mistakes are part of our character. Napoleon was egotisitcal and overestimated his own skill - that is why this mistake was made in Moscow, and why it was intevitable that he'd fall anyway. But we need to recognise that we shouldn't shun our mistakes, we must embrace them. Absolute denial that these mistakes are part of our character is part of the problem - they're not distinctively negative, they happen to everyone.

So next time you make a stupid mistake, instead of saying "Well I won't do that again!" Look back at what happened. Understand why it happened, and work on improving that part of your character.

Digital Footprint

Recenty, I was told that my digital footprint would likely have a pretty big effect on my emploability, future, etc. Now then, I feel I've done a fairly good job at minimising embarresment or idiocy on mt part, but I know there are things out there I'd rather not people see. I was told not to be too political from now on. Just to clarify, I'm not overtly trying to be partisan. I made a post called 'A biased commentary of PMQs' a while back. The title was a joke, the content was not particularly biased at all (or at least I tried to be), however we are all humans and we all have innate cognitive biases. So of course it was biased. Now enough of that b-word, it really tires the toungue.

Anyway, it was slightly worrying, that employers will judge me based on my digital footprint, and most likely this blog, which appears to be the first thing that shows on a google search of my name. So here it is, this is inside my head! Why airports are shit. It's strange really, to the younger generation, how employers will judge based on our digital footprints. My friends tend to say that they wouldn't let an embarresing moment on the internet cloud their judgment for who they'd employ. Of course, they're not employers. But it still remains an interesting piece of evidence for generational gaps.

Generations are a facinating idea. They're a great way of highlighting how society changes, but they can contribute to quite negative barriers. It was George Orwell that said "Every generation thinks it is more intelligent than the one before it, and wiser than the one after it" or something to that effect. But every generation has its geniuses and ideas. One particular idea I found facinating is the Strauss-Howe generational theory.

This is the theory that every 4 generations there is a cycle: High, Awakening, Unravelling, and, Crisis." Within each of these generations certain types of people are born due to the Turning they grow up in of the above 4. Respectively, these are: Prophets, Nomads, Heroes, and Artists. An example of this is: 1860-1882: Reconstruction and the Gilded Age (High). 1882-1900 Missionary Awakening (Awakening). 1900-1924 World War I (Unravelling). 1924-1945 The Great Depression and World War II. We, are cheerily in the Crisis era, apparently charecterised by the War on Terror and The Great Recession, preceded by the Unravelling of the rise of Postmodernism.

I do really doubt this theory. I mean one of the cited Highs is Superpower America, so does this only apply to America, when it relied on the Armada Crisis during the 1500s? Oh well, it does seem filled with cherrypicked events to fit a narrative, but that's alright, cause it's a pretty good story.  

Genetically Modified Superstars

So the other day, I saw a clip of Neil Young on Stephen Colbert's talk show, talking about GMOs and Monsanto. Colbert asked him why he was so anti-GMO becuase a study showed that there were negligible nutritional differences, according to data from Europe and the USA. He retorted by claiming that it 'must be a monsanto funded study' or something to that effect, and went on to vaguely beat around the bush saying that GMOs are bad because they're bad. I believe he was trying to make a point about crop diverstiy. You can see the full clip below.

Now, whether you're for or against GMOs I don't care. The point I want to make from this is the pain one feels when someone you look up to disappoints you, particularly when considering celebrities. You know, never meet your heroes type stuff. I'm going to see Neil Young tonight, and I love his music. Heart Of Gold, Fuckin' Up, Cortez the Killer to name a few. Even his newer stuff like the aptly named Monsanto Years. Neil has always been a hippy, a tree-hugger, and that's one of the things I really love about him. But sometimes, you see this person you idolise make their point so poorly in the face of no adversity, and you can't help but cringe. It's a deep pain, that this person who does somethings so brilliantly stuggles elsewhere, and we hate to see that, we hate to see our heroe's invincibility challenged.

I remember last year I met Ozzy Ardiles in an Argentine restaurant on Camden High Street. I don't know what I expected really. Had a nice chat and moved on, and there was something about him that wasn't invincible. He was far more down to earth than I had been expecting. In this case a hero's invincibility was challenged but not in a negative way, and far more deliberatly. He was an everyman. I left without my image of him depracated, but enhanced, because he was an everyman. This is a key difference, and something that should be utilised more often. Celebrities appearing more down to earth preserves their image far more than an air of invincibility around them, because that's only begging to be taken down.





So, I reckon I'll be posting more often now that my exams are all said and done. I'm sure I'll enjoy Neil all the same tonight.

Addressing the genericness of airports

When you find out which airport you'll be going to for your flight, no-one has ever reacted by going "Oh boy, I sure do love Heathrow Terminal 3." No. It just doesn't happen. No-one has ever said "You know I really enjoy Gatwick, especially around ten in the morning!". Come on. I recognise that some airports are larger, more extensive and offer more services than others. But all in all they are souless concourses for airlines to pretend as if they understand you, and empathise with your delayed flight. This is a real gripe I have, soulessness of airports.

When you walk into one, it's always the same old shite. The same old white, but speckled with black tiles sprawling out towards the check in. The same old duty free offers of Toblerone's that you'll never fit in your hand luggage, and overpriced perfumes that are 40% off high street value. The only thing that vaguely brings character to airports are the bloody signs. To be fair I do prefer black/yellow over blue/white. The latter feels just so formal. And the service just feels so souless too. Going to an airport is a routine. You check-in, let the machine work, and get on a plane. Everything an airline does is try to make you feel special. The oddly smiley air hostess, and the celebratory landing music (which is figuratively saying "Look, you're alive! Applaud me."  Fuck off Ryanair.

But in the end does it really matter? That's what they're meant to be in the end. Airports don't need character. I don't complain about a bus station not having character. I'm just a bit grumpy today. But exams will be over soon, so no worries. Airports: they're alright, I guess.

The Cauldron

Many people will know the story of Salem. Children coming down with fits and spasms led to a wave of accusations, ending with around 20 people hanged, and many more condemned, for being a witch. The Salem Witch Trials were a series of events that should not have happened, and highlight what happens when you boil down mutual paranoia, and absolute lack of authority and law. Despite witch trials being a thing of the past, and in 2001 the victims of the Salem Witch Trials were cleared of charges, this idea of justice remains prevalent in society today. Most notably in social media. We look to dehumanise and punish those who do wrong our ideas and beliefs.

Jon Ronson looks at this in the excellent So You've Been Publicly Shamed, in the incredible power of groupthink in the lawlessness and swathes of paranoia living within Twitter, Facebook and other social media. Before his book there was very little analysis or even consideration of the problems that arise from this mob mentality. But now there is more and more awareness of the 'witch-hunters', with people becoming more moderating of their own community. Remaining wary of the mob.

I'll take this opportunity to quickly plug the brilliant new Radiohead single Burn The Witch, which appears to make a critique of groupthink.

Despite this increased awareness and understanding of groupthink, very little has actually changed. Much with the awareness of the tragedy of the witch trials, we continued to pursue the mob mentality. By comparison  we still pursue witch-hunts, we desperately look for a victim to dehumanise and punish for their crimes - this time the people warning us against just that. Remember the scientist who landed in hot water, after his probe landed on an asteroid, because he was wearing an inappropriate shirt. He was forced into an apology by the ruthless pursuit of him online. But then something strange happened. The people who were defending him were attacked by his original 'hunters', but some of the original hunters were even attacked by the people defending the scientist. It all resulted in a mess of accustions, with every side condemnable. We might reach progress in society, but we will often fall back on what is instinctively human.

Every Album Tells A Story: Fisherman's Blues

The Waterboy's 4th album is one of my personal favourites, continuing Mike Scott's everlasting love of the water, following This Is The Sea, and their self-titled debut. Fisherman's Blues continues the 'big music' motifs Scott brought in 1983, but five years after their debut they bring an epic. An album that I view as an incredulous and extraordinary story.

We begin with a man telling us of his greatest desire: to leave everything behind, and find some job to be one with nature, being a brakeman on a train, or perhaps he could become a fisherman. He tells us that when he rides on the train, and when he becomes the fisherman (Which of course he will do! He promises!)  he'll be "loosened from bonds that hold him fast." Despite this apparent liberation, the protagonist tells us the day will be "fine and fateful". It will be a decisve day in his life, but he fully recognises it may not be the romantic picture he painted in his head. It could be the decisive day of his downfall: maybe psychologically, financially, or even death. Proclaiming this romantic image and claiming it is fateful is a recognisable image across drama. From Romeo and Juliett to A Streetcar Named Desire, desire and danger are heavily interconnected. The same is true for our protagonist. Despite not revealing his motives for leaving everything behind, and only his plans, he reveals an awful lot about his own character. A hopeless romantic. 

So now he tells us what's been up. It's a girl. A girl he's been pining over, and one whom he just doesn't quite understand. He loves being around this girl, but she lies, and curses, and he goes to another planet seeing her kiss, or when he kisses her himself. But he refuses. He tells her that they can't be lovers. They've broken up, and they're dirtying one another's name. They tear each other's world apart, the remnants are filled with "People scrambling, like dogs for a share." Despite this, the horrid world they've made for each other doesn't compare to how ruthless, how brutal they each had to be to do it to one another. Our protagonist is realising the real horror of what he's done, and he continues to his withdrawral. He gets on his unknown boat, and goes on his way to an unknown world. He's going somewhere, anywhere, away from here. All we know is his intention. He needs a spiritual journey, and a moment of clarity. "We're turning flesh and body into soul."

We cut ahead in time. And now the protagonist is being spoken to. Maybe by a comrade on his travels, or someone he's stopped to ask for directions. Either way the advice given to him here is unmistakable. In his pursuit of liberation from the horrors he left behind, he's told "It's nothing to do with anything that's real." and he just needs to "Believe in it and it's true." It becomes pretty generic advice from this stranger. Essentially saying to fake it till you make it, and that it gets better eventually ("You will live to see a sea of lights"). 'Just come an have fun' says our protagonist's acquaintance, and 'Get yourself along to the world party!" This somewhat meaningless, and often touted advice does nothing for our protagonist, and he moves on. 

We return to our protagonist's romantic fantasy, apparently fulfilled. He finally has his sweet thing with him. Someone to love as they stroll though misty gardens and jump the hedges. It is a lighter more uplifiting tone of music too, but he appears to have left behind this romantic fantasy, He says he's done wondering and ready to dig in, never going to 'read between the lines' again. In the process of finding what he wants, he loses his drive to go on these journeys. Suddenly we see a shift in perspectives. He has reached his goal, but is all that he wanted the journey?

Now our protagonist tells us of his past. Now he's reconciled with all his past lovers. We learn that with all his loves, he thought of they would be forever, but it ended after a while. Now the lover he is with now, he's sure he's with his soul mate. They will marry one day, and live their lives together until death does them part. But it is clear he still wishes for his romantic image of getting away from everything - to be the fisherman again. He tells us these epic but concise stories of his past loves about the adventures he once had. "It started in Fife, it ended in tears" and "I fell for her one summer, on the road..." The song even ends on a more melancholic tone. He knows he loves his partner, and he gives her a bang on the ear with it, but it is clear he yearns for his journeys of old. He still values the journey, but will himself go again? As he did before, leaving a lover for the journey.

In seeking of reassurance, our protagonist goes out in search of an old friend. This is a friend who doesn't have the best reputation. "I don't care what he did with his women, I don't care what he did when he drank." This is a man our protagonist trusts. A rough cut man, but who helps him when he needs, and clearly has given him advice before. For the first time though, our protagonist can't find him. He's nowhere to be seen, and now our protagnist must make a decision on his own conscience.

One night, lying in bed, he asks a troubling question. "When will we be married?" Going so far as to say that she's got her eye on another man. Our protagonist is deeply troubled. He's primed to destroy this relationship. Another. In this apparently futile pursuit of nature and the great outdoors, our protagonist is ready to leave his life behind again. Eventually, his toxic nature towards his partner has taken a toll, and he just doesn't understand. Suddenly the story has filled with a dramatic irony. Our protagonist hasn't realised how destructive he was being to his relationship. Now, he doesn't understand why "You ain't calling me to join ye" and he'll do everything to "make you stay", but he'll "cry when ye go away."

With his soul mate gone again, our protagonist reaches a position of introspection. He tells the child, the young person to come away to the water. "The world's more full of weeping than you'll ever understand". The moment of clarity he set out for at the beginning appears to have finally come. "The world is full of troubles and is anxious in its sleep." He realises what he truly is, making the comparison to wandering water. Much like Mike Scott, our protagonist clearly has a love of the sea and the ocean. He needs to be stolen away by the sea once and for all. To stop hurting himself, to stop hurting others, he needs to be stolen away, to the sea, in solitude. He may not like it, but he convinces himself it is the only way. Although the first track may be the title track, this song is the true Fisherman's Blues.

Finally, we end in a distinctively ambigous moment. Singing This Land Is Our Land. It is either a jubilation of finally being at peace, or depressing melancholic moment on bitter resentment, towards himself, and his lovers for forcing him to leave the land.

Death Sentence

The one greatest limit to human productivity in all of history has been Man's mortality. The matter of fact is that if we can crack the code of immortality, we can crack the code of the problems that come with it. All of a sudden, man-hours are at levels unheard of. 151,000 people die each day. 55 million a year. That's a huge amount of production that can be harnessed by society even further. Solving crippling illnesses suddenly becomes a very quickly approaching reality. It goes even further than this though. Out of nowhere, defunct systems across all walks of life find solutions. Such a huge amount of more people working an producing more can progress the human race in a way that has never been seen before. With this productivity, even the problems that come with overpopulation can be solved.

Except we aren't immortal, we die, and we don't have insane amounts of production per person. But we do face a problem paramount to any other - overpopulation. The sense of impending doom this century has been startling. Global warming has displayed the very real possibility that humans will one day no longer roam this planet as its self-proclaimed owners. The Limits To Growth is book that details the use of a computer to predict the effects the concept of infinite growth has on a finite system. It's credibility is highly questionable, but it is undeniable that a stable equilibrium cannot be achieved if we continue life in the same way that we are living it. 

Billenium is a brilliant short story by James Ballard addressing overpopulation, and follows two protagonists in a world with increasingly less and less space. The population of this world is somewhere near 20 billion, and the atmosphere is one of dystopia. When we look at overpopulation under a dystopian light, it becomes an incredibly frightening reality. When we look at dystopia, they tend to be evil or at least morally questionable things that can be stopped - totalitarian governments, mind-control or eugenics. We don't think of natural, unstoppable things like overpopulation. It's funny that we dont see that in truth, the greatest danger is not the outsiders, or the extremes. It's what we have accepted to be the norm, We accept population growth, but unchecked, it could bring about the end of civilisation itself.  

limits to growth

The Great Outdoors

Today, I vaguely remembered a show that was on BBC Four some years ago. All I remembered was that it was about rambling, and the neighbour from Friday Night Dinner was in it. After some googling, I found out that this show was called The Great Outdoors. It's a gentle, British comedy that focuses on Bob (Mark Heap) and his walking club including his friend Tom, daughter Hazel, and challenger to his leadership - Christine (Ruth Jones). I watched all three 30 minute episodes today, and at the end, it left me feeling sad, desperate and lonely. It was a horrific sinking feeling that I just didn't understand.

Now I know what I want.

Bankrupt On Conviction

A problem that arises in many situations of grief, angst and hardship is one of withdrawral and resistance. It may not be a withdrawral from interaction in the literal sense, but a withdrawral from interaction in any meaningful sense. Many people will be hurt, but go about their day as if nothing happened, but in their interaction something is importantly and noticeably different. Their interaction would be isolated, as if their colour is lost in some void of meaning, and all that comes out is the autonomous. monotonous spiel that they would deal out at a networking event. This type of withdrawral isn't viceral, and usually passes with time. Despite this, the people experiencing it are often determined that it will not end, and those on the recieving end are frightened of the same prospect.

Withdrawral is a concept that should also be applied to self-esteem and confidence. Sometimes, people will withdraw from confidence, and be accepting of whatever comes their way. They don't see the need to resist, or confide in themselves, and go about their day. Their social interactions will stay the same. But they'll be far more accepting, of everything. No partisan. No beliefs. They may think so, but in truth they know they have none. No convtictions. With this comes acceptance of insults, aggression, compliments and ideas. It is a withdrawral from conviction. For better or for worse. Strife has plagued the people for all existence, but a self-imposed withdrawral from conviction is a vicious cycle of low self-esteem and worthlessness. Not fighting back - and not doing so because they;'re accepting of the fight. Withdrawral from conviction is not as obvious as complete social withdrawral, and not as overt to the observer as withdrawral from meaningful interaction. Withdrawral from conviction plagues people for their lives, as their environment will seemingly shape around them to only further enforce this withdrawral. Withdrawral from conviction is like a piece of dritwood floating down a river, evrery now and then being pummeled as the current drives it into the bed.

Favourite 50 White Stripes Songs: Numbers 5-1

5. Icky Thump - Icky Thump

The first single from their last album: Icky Thump. Upon first listen it seems nonsensical. An apparently random series of mashes on the synth Jack pulled out of his ass, under lyrics that have been taken from a hat. Surely the only interesting thing is the trademark White TM riff. But no. Soon you begin to appreciate the bit where it sounds like you spilled something on your keyboard, and that bit where Jack smacks his forehead on the synth. It's a glorious conglomeration of the White Stripes that is progressive for them. Yet it is punctuated by that dirty, rusty riff that forms the core of the song, as well as the in your face lyrics. The change of pace into the, chorus, lets say, gives Meg a moment to posture, and crash into a wrath of cymbal-snare hell. Everything appears to be in its right place in this song. It's a rap. Lending from Beck and The Goodies, Jack goes on to exclaim about anti-immigration views that "you can't be a pimp and a prostitute too!" This cements itself in my top 5. 

4. Seven Nation Army - Elephant

The riff of the century! The song that immortalised the White Stripes. From the football stadiums to the Egyptian revolution this simple, mind-bogglingly brilliant riff has reached every part of society. Up there with the legendary Another One Bites The Dust and Whole Lotta Love, but Seven Nation Army seems to go further. Maybe it't because of the digital age, but everyone knows the riff - whether they've heard the song or not! It's a truly remarkable thing. And the glorious irony of the subject matter - Jack telling people not to gossip (perhaps about his and his sister's divorce certificate) becomes their most famous song. It builds and it releases. It gives a fantastic little solo. What more could you ask for?

3. Catch Hell Blues - Icky Thump

Whenever the slide comes out, I know I'll love it when it's coming from Jack White. What greater brilliance is there than throwing your hand along a fretboard and hearing a beautiful smooth transition of tones. Catch Hell Blues though is in a league of its own. We start with White musing to himself, (probably about Jimmy Page or something) as if he's being caught off guard. Then we start to get into the song. He plays it muted at first, and leaves a tremble in his voice, drawing us to his guitar being released, and suddenly the song is full. Meg opens up her hand and crashes down before pulling all back. Short, stacked chops of the guitar play, building upwards. Then the whammy gets stamped, and Jack calls for us to catch him. Nothing short of excellence. This is one of the most brilliant songs to sing a long to aswell, belting out the 'oooh' is one of the most satisfying things you can do.

2. Ball and Biscuit - Elephant 

Surely there's enough twelve bar blues in the world? Well then that means Ball and Biscuit is a song of defiance. What a fantastic song too. It starts with a simple little riff, it ends with that same riff too, as if nothing had happened in between. Jack's charming voice tells us to have a ball and a biscuit with him. Drugs, sex, whatever that may be, he says it in such a way that we just can't resist. We join him into a brilliant solo, lined with whammys and ear-bleeding notes, yet it's all within his fingertips. His solos in Ball and Biscuit are a controlled frenzy. They second half of the last solo just takes me to another planet. It's a surprise every time I hear it, how perfect it is. He knows exactly what sound he's going to make before he makes it, he knows exactly what we want to hear before we hear it. It's a modern marvel that keeps on giving. Just don't try singing along.

1. Death Letter - De Stijl

I did say I love a bit of slide guitar. To me, this is the ultimate White Stripes song. The center-piece of De Stijl: Death Letter. Firstly, what a badass name. I mean holy shit first time I heard it I thought it's gonna be mental. But it was far less metal than I expected. Instead it was a moment of clarity. The slide flows so effortlessy in the song, in perfect complement to each word Jack says. And the sentiment of it! It's a wonderful tragic message that will resonate with me forever. "The gal you love is dead" and "Hugging the pillow where she used to lay" are lines delivered in such a brilliant way by Jack that I forget it's a cover sometimes. The solos are like greyhounds chasing a rabbit. But they catch the rabbit, tear it to pieces and find there's nothing left, ending in Jack's melancholic puddle of self-pity. And it sounds fucking brilliant. 

Well, it's been fun guys. I'll probably do some more of these, maybe The Raconteurs as well as other, non Jack White associated acts. For now though, thanks for reading. 

Favorite 50 White Stripes Songs: Numbers 10-6

10. Fell In Love With A Girl - White Blood Cells

The song that broke the White Stripes into the mainsteam - Fell In Love With A Girl. A 2 minute battering ram of a song, which epitomises garage rock at its finest. Jack tells a story of a girl, who seems to be in love with the world, and he's conflicted over whether or not to pursue an inevitably toxic relationship with her. Jack tends to play a slower version of the song live, but it retains all the badassery of the 2001 version. I remember at first listen of this song, I had no clue what he was saying. All I knew was it was nothing like 'Bobby said it's fine'. But once you get the lyrics ingrained into your mental fibre, it's one of the most easily obvious sing along songs from the White Stripes - that hook!

9. Hotel Yorba - White Blood Cells

The sister single to Fell In Love With A Girl - Hotel Yorba. One of the most wonderfully simple and catchy songs the White Stripes have released. It was one of the first songs I learned! I'll never forget perfectly frank G - C - D progression. Naturally, the Stripes got themselves banned from the actual Hotel Yorba because of this song, but this didn't stop it becoming one of their most successful. Another great sing along songs, what made me recognise the lasting power it has was seeing Jack and Meg play it on a bus (I believe in Under Nova Scotian Lights although I'm not sure). Short sweet and fucking fantastic.

8. The Hardest Button To Button - Elephant

'Watch where you're drumming, kid!'. One of the most brilliant music videos I've ever seen is for this, The Hardest Button To Button. I was first attracted to the song purely for the name. It looks bizzare at first, then you realise, you button buttons. Like, you button up a shirt's buttons. Crazy right? Maybe not. Well Jack definetly spotted this, saying his antagoniser is an irritation - the hardest button to button. Now that that's out of the way - what a great song eh? Doesn't need a mental solo or a signature Meg White drum break - it's brilliant in itself. The lyrics are fantastic too - "I had opinions that didn't/ A brain like pancake batter". Try singing along with the intro too, makes the experience so much better. This was probably the first White Stripes song I heard, although I might not have known it at the time, due to its feature in  the greatest show of my childhood (bar Robot Wars).

7. 300 M.P.H. Torrential Outpour Blues - Icky Thump

Jack tried to explain this brilliant tune away as trying to bring all different types of blues together into one. But it's so much more than this. This song is an odyssey. It tells a beautiful and tragic tale, every now and then bursting out of its shell as Jack stamps on his fuzz pedal. It's self-reflective. Almost telling the story of the White Stripes in an incredible way. From getting hard on himself for taking the easy route, to pouring out all his emotions in this, their last album. They may not have known it at the time, but 300 M.P.H. is the Stripes's epitaph.

6. Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground - White Blood Cells

What a song. Dead Leaves showcases the very best of the White Stripes. Opening with a heavy, simple riff, getting louder, and parting to reveal a sweet love song. After the intro is done, Jack delivers his finest lyrics in a fantastic manner. The flow of the lyrics combined with the sentiment is overwhelming - 'If I could just hear your pretty voice, I don't think I need to see at all/Every breath that is in your lungs is a tiny little gift to me.' It's a brilliant all-rounder song, and is particularly made special when mixed broken with other songs. See Dead Leaves/Screwdriver at Glastonbury.

Remembering Nepal

I haven't heard a thing today about it being a year since the earthquake in Nepal. I don't know why I expected it, I suppose there are more important things going on right now than an arbitrary anniversary. I vaguely remember the events of finding out about the earthquake, watching the body count rise, and I wrote something about it.

The international response was incredible, although the Indian media got some criticism, they government gave Nepal one billion dollars in relief aid - that's just insane and incredibly generous. Dharahara crumbled from the force of the quake. Seeing these monuments collapse under the tremors of the planet is a stark reminder of how extremely powerless we are in the face of nature.

It is important to remember history right? So we aren't doomed to repeat its mistakes. A year on and Nepal are still rebuilding. There was an episode of Top Gear, around a year after Hurricane Katrina and they saw that parts of New Orleans was still in ruins. That fateful day the levee broke saw torrents of water filling the streets, but nonetheless we moved on and rebuilt. It takes more than a year to heal from wounds wrought by mother nature. This was short, but is important to remember such an event.

Favourite 50 White Stripes Songs: Numbers 15-11

It's heating up!

15. Blue Orchid - Get Behind Me Satan

One of the most nasty tones to ever come from Jack's airliner, blue orchid is a dirty messy riff based tune, that is mirrored by the frontman's incredibly tender and almost shrill vocals. When first listening to Get Behind Me, opening with Blue Orchid is a stroke of genius. It's not the catchiest song on the record (I'm looking at you, My Doorbell) but maintains the White Stripes style everyone thought they had defined on Elephant. Then they launch you into The Nurse, quite the departure from the hard rock of the first track. Bonus points: a possessed ass music video.

14. It's True That We Love One Another - Elephant

 

Perhaps not an obvious album closer, especially to an album that is enshrined in riffs and fuzz pedals, but this acoustic number with Holly Golightly is one of the sweeter White Stripes songs that we've seen. The three singers play off one another with the charm that only they could bring. Prior to the release of Elephant, a divorce certificate from Meg and Jack had emerged. Their music was influenced by this being revealed - see Seven Nation Army - and it's even evident here, with the snarky 'I love you like a little brother' from Holly.

13. Black Math - Elephant

The glory of Black Math should not be understated. The lyrics are brilliant - describing a somewhat obscure feeling we've all had: "Maybe I'll learn to understand...Is it the fingers or the brain that you're teaching a lesson?". I know I have. Nothing compares to just throwing numbers into a formula because you know it works rather than why it works. And oh how can you forget the middle section - good grief. The distortion gets kicked up then Jack like a madman comes in 'Ah ah ah ah ah...'. Of course we can't forget the solo either - everything you'd expect with the near ear piercing whammy thrown in.

12. We're Going To Be Friends - White Blood Cells

The sheer relatability of this song is it's beauty - learning what a noun is and getting ready for class way back in primary school (Elementary for you yanks). It's sweet, not something you might have expected from the White Stripes, but this ended up being one of their most famous songs. I never even did show and tell. Great fucking drumming too.

11. My Doorbell 

It's great to hear the Stripes firing on all their poppy cylinders, and wow what a tune they came up with here. Simple and elegant. You'd expect to hear it in every advert for 8 months, get an upscale music video and have it at the end of a serious movie for some comic relief. It's an upbeat song that should really be used more on election campaign trails. Very motivational. This one comes on just after The Nurse, almost as a reassurance to the listener that they're not that unaccessible now! I promise! Even then My Doorbell represents a poppy side of the stripes that fits right in between a Marimba tune and an abstract chord progression. 

Every Album Tells A Story: In Rainbows

In Rainbows is Radiohead's 7th album, critically acclaimed and one of favorites of all time. The luscious guitar and bass work often makes the album sound like something you would find in a rainbow, with stand-out tracks like Reckoner, 15 Step and Nude.

Today, I'm going to tell the story of In Rainbows.

We begin with a man questioning how he ended up where he was, condemning his past actions and hating himself for his past faliures. He's pissed off. 'How come I end up where I started?' he exclaims, annoyed at himself for not being able to progress past what he feels is where 'He went wrong.' After he settles back where he started, he tells us it's as soft as our pillow. It's his comfort zone, and eventually it comes to us all - settling in to procrastination as everything he truly wants that is fulfilling flashes by, Our protagonist starts to realise that he doesn't truly enjoy this state. It used to be alright, but what happened. Then he takes fifteen steps and takes a sheer drop - desperately trying to break out of his vicious cycle. Unfortunately, he ends up where he started, but this time, he won't take his eyes off the ball.

Now the music speeds up. The protagonist is more frantic, feverish and on edge than ever. He doesn't undertand what he's done wrong, Ultimately he doesn't know what he's talking about - he doesn't really understand the root of his problems. He moves back home, to his parents in search of his past life - where he was fulfilled - but quickly finds nothing but a pale imitation of what made him so satisfied. He was only contributing to his vicious cycle of regression. In his return to talking to himself, the narrator tells us that the light has gone out for him. He's lost the spark. The 21st century, this new era, has brought him to his knees, he claims, and he claims he saw it coming. He's reaching critical mass, as the song concludes.

The pressure has been relieved, and the narrator is in a state of absolute ethereality. He is nowhere, free but locked within his own mind. He tells himself to not get any big ideas. They're not going to happen - no matter how he tries to fill his life. He will always regress into procrastination and worthlessness. Our hero turns his thoughts to the sea, and realises 'why should I stay here?' He'd be fucking mental to not follow what he's found in the deep blue expanse of the ocean. Even though everyone has left around him - everyone has progressed, everyone gets their chance, and this is our protagonists' chance. His old self will be eaten away by the creatures of the sea. He realises that he'll escape.

Our protagonist realises his faliures, he only values himself with regards to other people, with what he is to everyone else. He's the days people ignore, he's the insect trying to get out of the night, and does't inherently value himself. With this understanding, he wakes up again but something is noticeably different this time. He feel something different in his food, in his life, something is tingling. What he feels is something he ought to? It was a feeling of purpose and great realisation, but our protagonist remains unsettled as to whether he should really be feeling this. With this he's brain dead - what he's doing is satisfying and different to what was once bringing him down - but somthing about it is unshakabley wrong. He thought he had it in him to live his new life, but maybe he was wrong. He almost feels like a facade, like he could melt at any point.

Our protagonist confronts his mortality. Here he has his moment of reckoning. Again stuck within his own mind, he finds the reckoner tell him that he isn't to blame for his faliures, in fact no is, it's just who we are. With this he becomes lifted, finally the pressure of our protagonist's life is lifted. Fulfilment isn't a goal or something to reach anymore - it is a state of being. He is as fleeting and floating as the ripples on a shore - like a rainbow - unbound. He goes with the reckoner in his mind, and follows him, he is finally unbound.

He reaches out to his friend - to finally tell them he just wants to be their lover, that they can leave behind everything they've built and have something wonderful of their own. Our unbound protagonist has her realise that true freedom, to leave the house of cards behind. The infrastructure of their lives will collapse and they will move past it, in the beauty of falling from the table. Falling from this platform we form that we place our lives, the protagonist breaks free.

The story climaxes with the best lain plans of the protagonist falling into place perfectly. Our protagonist feels fulfilment and catharsis. He has overcome the demons of his past and starts to recognise how far he lost himself in his past thoughts. The near-insanity that came with his crippling mental state has been realeased - let out. He looks back all the time to his cross-roads, where he finally he started the overcoming of his issues, remembers the deep hole he was lost within. All his plans were like a jigsaw falling into place.

At the end of his life, in reflection and thinking back over his life. This time of transition he wants to be remembered, to be put on his videotape. To display his mental fibre, or to set an example - whichever state we are in, we can always break free. No matter what happens next he won't be afraid of death. His time in this story is the most perfect thing he's ever seen, and he's just fine with that.

Top 50 White Stripes Songs: Numbers 20-16

20. The Denial Twist - Get Behind Me Satan

One of my favourite songs off the White Stripes' 5th album also has a pretty cool video featuring Conan. The song itself is pretty catchy and works so well when in conjunction with Passive Manipulation. It even offers some pretty sound relationship advice -'Take a mountain turn it into a mole.'

19. Little Acorns - Elephant

Coming off the tail end of the brash The Hardest Button To Button means the spoken word intro of Little Acorns is pretty disjointing when we first hear it - but it's spoken so well and clearly that people can actualy uinderstand it - and even gives them a whole lot of motivation. The near-constant riff is the centre of this song which seems to do so much with so little. Be like the squirrel! Brilliant lyrics.

18. I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself - Elephant

I hadn't even realised it was a cover until the time of writing this! What a hell of a cover as well. It starts as a seemingly more quiet folky song, but White can't resist his power chords. One of Jack's most brilliant skills is flaunted here as well - being able to make his higher notes and falsettos sound absolutely badass with his shrill voice. It may sound sqeually sometimes, but would it be the White Stripes without imperfections?

17. Truth Doesn't Make A Noise - De Stijl

A true hidden gem in the White Stripes discography with one of the most brilliant and simplistic motifs I've heard - truth doesn't make a noise. There's something sonically pleasing about the phrase - aesthetically too, and the song isn't a step behind. It maintains the country influences found on De Stijl and Jack goes into his wonderful storytelling mode again. "Her stare is louder than your voice, because truth doesn't make a noise." By the time you've figured out where  the truth is in this scenario you realise that in the end it doesn't matter, just another great track.

16. Hello Operator - De Stijl

The big number off De Stijl - I can't resist but belt out HELLO OPERATOR at the start of the song. The strange old clicking solo from Meg is a hell of a break from the action - but Jack welcomes us back with a harmonica?! Now that's a treat I wasn't expecting. Hello Operator again has succinct lyrics that are so incredibly repeatable that the song can be considered a classic from the White Stripes. Brilliant opener at some shows too.