The problem with protest songs? Too much flippin’ protest. It’s all very well telling the poor to take courage and the rich to take care, but that rings a bit hollow after you’ve just spent the last six verses pointing out how very bloody badly standing up to The Powers That Be generally works out for The Little People.
This election hasn’t left me angry, it’s left me with the exact same feeling that comes with England’s inevitable quarter-final tournament exit. You know the one. I knew the odds were against the right result, I knew that defeat was more-or-less completely inevitable but the big prize was so close and there were just enough positive signs that I’d allowed the first glimmerings of optimism to overcome the wisdom of experience.
It’s not the despair. I can take the despair. It’s the hope I can’t stand.
Shouting and screaming and stamping my little feet feels wildly inappropriate. I’m more in the mood for embracing the powerlessness that my face has just been rubbed in, and sulkily pointing out that I didn’t break this country – it was this way when I found it.
