This came about because of a meeting with a group of songwriters in Chester. They meet regularly and set each other challenges to write songs on a given topic or in a specific way. On this occasion the subject was "a place I like". I think it says something about me that, when given a subject as pleasantly innocuous as "a place I like" it turned into a scathing assessment of the country and the Conservative party. There is clearly something wrong with me.
The thought process went something like this: I'd been for a bike ride in the sunshine down towards the river. This was in the Summer of 2020, in the brief gap between COVID lockdowns, you may remember that the Spring of lockdown and much of the Summer was very sunny and warm. Like many people the stress of COVID and lockdowns got to me and the best way I had of alleviating that stress at the time was to get outside and do some exercise. Inevitably though you come home, look at your phone, see the news and it all comes back again. We were in the fetid depths of a rampantly corrupt Tory government doing everything they could to treat COVID as a money-making exercise for their friends instead of as a public health catastrophe. They would gaslight the nation on a daily basis, lying to our faces under the guise of their latest three-word-slogan bunch of nonsense whilst refusing to provide school dinners to deprived children facing the worst summer of their lives, fast-tracking countless billions of expenditure on worthless PPE and projects and, as it transpired later, being shit-faced at law-breaking parties the whole time.
It's hard to be proud of a country where this happens. This is my home, but whilst it remains corrupted by Tory scum I have no sense of belonging here.
You can listen to Is This My Home? below and read the super-cheerful lyrics.
- Is This My Home? Bransby 4:25
Is This My Home?
Waking from forgotten dreams
I took my bike from where it leans
And cycled to a place that’s warm
Not far from where I was born
The trees were heavy as I rode
I cycled with a heavy load
Of worries from the day before
The stress and strain my muscles tore
But the sun began to ease
My thoughts were taken on the breeze
And though my motion was alone
The trusty movements took me
Home to a place I belong
Home if I’m right or I’m wrong
Home to the place where she lives
Home where there’s love and there’s someone who always forgives
I took my phone, and tapped the screen
I liked the posts and swiped the memes
I saw another lie writ large
And lack of shame from those in charge
I tried to hide from it all
I tried so hard to recall
How it feels when I come
Home where the world stays outside
Home where it’s safe and I hide
Hide from events and the truth
Hold back the tide of today with four walls and a roof
As I sat to watch the news
I felt it tighten like a noose
The grip of what we have become
Corrupted by this Tory scum
The bigots and the racists won
Their hatred has eclipsed the sun
It doesn’t shine here anymore
Where cruelty reigns from shore to shore
And I just do not recognise
Where I was raised with open eyes
And where there is a house I own
Where all this stands is this my home?
Where we whitewash the past
Where our mental empire’s built to last
Home where we vilify the poor
And leave hungry children wanting more
Home where our myths win the vote
Home where we live in the comfort of lies that we wrote