PLEASE BE AWARE that there is some explicit language in the video – so if you are easily offended, just stick with reading her profound lyrics!
James writes:
Described as the protest song the world has been waiting for (NME, 30th November 2015), I first came across it during Kate Tempest’s performance at Glastonbury 2017. Watching her perform to a crowd of alleged snowflakes, those of a different generation like me were challenged by this 21st century prophet and her generation both to lament and to counter cultural action within our western context of individualism, materialism, ecological endgame and (increasingly right wing) political polemic.
Here are few of my favourite lyrics from this prophetic poet:
Still we are clamouring victory.
Europe is lost, America lost, London is lost,
All that is meaningless rules,
And we have learned nothing from history.
To sleep, to dream,
to keep the dream
in reach
To each
a dream,
Don’t weep,
don’t scream,
Just keep it in,
Keep sleeping in
What am I gonna do to wake up?
I feel the cost of it pushing my body
Like I push my hands into pockets
And softly I walk and I see it, it’s all we deserve
The wrongs of our past have resurfaced
Despite all we did to vanquish the traces
My very language is tainted
With all that we stole to replace it with this,
I am quiet,
Feeling the onset of riot.
But riots are tiny though,
Systems are huge,
The traffic keeps moving, proving there’s nothing to do.
It’s big business baby and its smile is hideous.
Top down violence, structural viciousness.
Your kids are doped up on medical sedatives.
But don’t worry bout that. Worry bout terrorists.
The water levels rising! The water levels rising!
The animals, the polarbears, the elephants are dying!
Stop crying. Start buying.
But what about the oil spill?
Shh. No one likes a party pooping spoil sport.
Massacres massacres massacres/new shoes
Ghettoised children murdered in broad daylight by those employed to protect them.
Live porn streamed to your pre-teens bedrooms.
Glass ceiling, no headroom. Half a generation live beneath the breadline.
Oh but it’s happy hour on the high street,
Friday night at last lads, my treat!
All went fine till that kid got glassed in the last bar,
Place went nuts, you can ask our Lou,
It was madness, the road ran red, pure claret.
And about them immigrants? I cant stand them.
Mostly, I mind my own business.
But they’re only coming over here to get rich.
It’s a sickness.
England! England!
Patriotism!
And you wonder why kids want to die for religion?
It’s the BoredOfItAll generation
The product of product placement and manipulation,
Shoot em up, brutal, duty of care,
Come on, new shoes.
Beautiful hair.
Construct a self and psychosis
And meanwhile the people are dead in their droves
But nobody noticed,
Well actually, some of them noticed,
You could tell by the emoji they posted.
Lyrics (c) 2016 Kate Calvert.
Since this song was released other prophets, such as Greta Thunberg have taken this message, to quote Bring Me The Horizon’s Antivist, ‘off of our screens and onto the streets’. Every time I listen to this track though, I find myself asking, ‘what have I done today to join in with a generation passionate about people and planet? How have I been part of making God’s world a little bit more just? Where are the glimmers of kin-dom that the prophets Tempest and Thunberg point us towards?’
How about you?
You can find out more about Kate at https://www.katetempest.co.uk/
The Friday Fix 