16.1.22 Thunder struck

 Something from the queue. Just to start us off. Another lunch time kick off messing with the concept of lunch, currently waiting with hope and anticipation of the possibility of a Scouse pie.

I don’t ask for much in life really, do I? Simple pleasures and all that. 

Scouse pie. Sound. Bought, ate, enjoyed. Only one question: how come Liverpool FC’s Scouse pies are made by a firm in Accrington?

I think, this time last week, I was talking about tradition and ritual. I may have been, I haven’t  checked and I forget what I’ve written the second word hit publish.

Hold on, the teams are out, back in a bit…

Right. Half time. 1-0 up which is better than the middle of the week where we could have played for the rest of time and still not had a shot on target.

Half time is a good time to do this as it’s what I’m going to talk about.

George (Voice Of Anfield for like ever) is just finishing his advertising bit and starting the first song. Bad Moon Rising. Fair enough. Can’t complain.

There are songs that will always be played. In the way that there will be songs that will always be sung by The cried there will be songs that will always be played over the tannoy.

And these are the moments where traditions start. You don't notice that they're traditions at first. You can't, they can't be traditions at first. It takes time, that's how it works.

(Aside: There was an interruption in that last paragraph. Just before the 's' in 'traditions in the first sentence. Fred called me from three rows behind and slightly to the side. He's ninety now, lost his wife during lockdown. Been going the game since the forties, served in the army. Used to sit by my dad in the old main stand. There was a little community around those seats; a man in his seventies who now sits further down and to the right, a couple who you could always talk football with and whose adult children both work in TV news - a thoroughly lovely family - a guy a little younger than me who I didn't realise until bumping into him on the train is a drummer; the only people sitting near to me now are the couple, and they're not there at the moment. The new Main Stand changed some things, covid others.

So I'm writing this at home at 5.25 (pm), the game ending at 3.50 - we won 3-0 in the end, perfectly decent result and performance.)

The traditions we're talking about in music then:

New songs come and go, artists appear, others make their way, there'll always be a local contingent; but I want to talk about there in particular.

There's an orchestral version of Led Zep's Kashmir, a song I liked long before I actually liked Zep: it introduces the second half, indicates that the teams are about to re-emerge. It feels right.

Thundercrack by AC/DC (wish this keyboard could do the electricity bolt in the middle of that, it doesn't). That's always just before the start of the game. I don't get it. I don't know when it suddenly appeared and I don't know why. I don't dislike it per se, I just don't get it. I don't get AC/DC, in the same way that I don't get Foo Fighters. I'm sure they're fine but they don't appeal to me. Music for other people.

Then there's Dirty Water by The Standells. Now this one annoys me, this is a moment where tradition is foisted on you. Dirty Water by The Standells is a blinding tune (not as good as Pushing Too Hard like, but there you go). I bow to nobody in my love for The Standells but this is now the tune that's played in the ground to signify that we've won a game. And it's nothing to do with us. Nothing to do with the city or the team.

And you could argue that neither are Thundercrack or Kashmir but, trust me, Zep and DC are both extremely 'scouse' bands. It'd take some explaining to justify that claim but... honest to god, they just are. Accept it, we'll all be happy.

Dirty Water is a song about Boston. It's about a river in Boston. And it's played when the Boston Red Sox win. So, it would appear, our Boston based owners have decided that we also now play it when we win. It's an invented tradition. And a very tiny thing to be wound up by, especially when you genuinely love the song that being wound up by. But it isn't organic, it isn't real. And god knows we've got loads of local acts who could sit in that place, loads of local acts we could use to celebrate.

Two ironies in all of this:

1. We won 3-0 and I didn't even notice the song playing at the end

2. The Standells aren't actually from Boston.