Win Nick’s PC Voucher [Extended]

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Thank Florence it’s Friday.

We received a suggestion earlier from regular reader Scottser for the theme of this week’s music jamboree.

He mused:

“In the current climate, a theme of anti-Establishment would make a pretty cool Friday tunes competition.”

So there you have it: simply post your favourite anti-Establishment song and the reason why you like it below to be in with a chance of bagging yourself a €20 Currys PC World voucher redeemable in any Currys store.

Here’s mine.

The winner will be chosen by my anarchist flatmate.

Please include video links if possible.

Lines close at 11am on Saturday!

Nick says: Good luck!

Currys PC World

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135 thoughts on “Win Nick’s PC Voucher [Extended]

  1. Specific Gravity

    For the times we are in, indeed. There can be only one:

    Alternative Ulster – SLF
    https://youtu.be/632QWw2Pz6g

    Is this the kind of place you want to live?
    Is this where you want to be?
    Is this the only life we’re gonna have?
    What we need
    Is an Alternative Ulster

    1. Otis Blue

      “Margaret, it’s time for your injection
      Should I fetch a priest and gun?
      Her trip is now beginning
      She dies unloved
      She’ll never be forgotten
      She made sure of that
      Selling back to people
      What they’d already got…”

      The Kitchens of Distinction – Margaret’s Injection

      https://youtu.be/y7iBbv7PCQc

        1. Otis Blue

          Dr John Cooper Clarke sifts through squalor and poverty and pins the blame on the Tory Government of the day. Joy Division/U2/Buzzcocks/Blue in Heaven producer, the late Martin Hannett plays bass guitar on the original release.

          “Keith Joseph smiles and a baby dies, in a box on Beasley Street”.

          https://youtu.be/3mzrnVbsaXk

  2. Redundant Proofreaders Society

    Armagideon Time – The Clash

    A lot of people won’t get no supper tonight
    A lot of people won’t get no justice tonight
    The battle is gettin’ hotter
    In this iration
    Armagideon time

  3. Donald McCarthy

    Might I propose the Doomerati Symphony performing live their unrepeatable anthem “Everything is Fucked and You Fuckers Deserve it”. Gentle yet beguiling, a fitting anthem for his lateness the duke of queen.

  4. Niall

    Steve Earle’s “When the people find out” is great.

    To pay the debt, you made em fools
    That’s what you get, they trusted you
    When they run to the temple and find
    That the treasure’s gone
    Do you think it’s gonna be a cross
    They’re gonna nail you on

    https://youtu.be/lfhPrz-AS48

  5. CapernosityandFunction

    The The – Heartland

    https://youtu.be/fPSO8pdAX6c

    This songs describes the accelerated industrial and social decline of post-war Britain in the 1980s. I remember the News at Ten on ITV used to track the UK unemployment figures on a daily and weekly basis showing numbers over 3 million.

    Matt Johnson was able to capture the physical and moral decay and the false promises of the Thatcher era in incredible lines like this:

    “Past the Saturday morning cinema that’s crumbling to the ground
    and the piss-stinking shopping centre on the new side of town”

    The deceptions of privatisation and deregulation were shot down with these words:

    “Here comes another winter waiting for Utopia
    Waiting for Hell to freeze over”

    The loss of Britain’s prestige and standing on the world stage was summed up as the song closes:

    “This is the 51st state of the USA”

    I don’t think there is a song that better captures any country at a place in time. As a song to reinforce teenage angst, Heartland was, and is, perfect.

      1. CapernosityandFunction

        I was pretty happy with my choice. Whoops should have checked that link first! Still think it deserves to win. Can we go halves on the voucher? :-)

  6. Penfold

    Bob Marley “Get up Stand Up”

    Can a song about fighting against oppression be classified as anti-establishment?
    (Bob’s solo version seems more powerful than than with The Wailers)

  7. Otis Blue

    We need to leave some space for a multi-instrumental, post-rock, anarchist collective. This is the soundtrack a looming apocalypse.

    “The car’s on fire and there’s no driver at the wheel
    And the sewers are all muddied with a thousand lonely suicides
    And a dark wind blows
    The government is corrupt
    And we’re on so many drugs
    With the radio on and the curtains drawn
    We’re trapped in the belly of this horrible machine
    And the machine is bleeding to death
    The sun has fallen down
    And the billboards are all leering
    And the flags are all dead at the top of their poles…”

    Godspeed You! Black Emperor – The Dead Flag Blues

    https://youtu.be/9thvHDskYvA

  8. CapernosityandFunction

    After my The The faux pas I propose another song:

    Radiohead – Burn the Witch

    https://youtu.be/yI2oS2hoL0k

    I love the creeping menace, claustrophobia and paranoia of this track paints a world like Gilead or 1984. The State watching for all forms of dissent; burrowing into peoples’ words and deeds.

    “Loose lips around tables
    Abandon all reason”

    I love the way the video hijacks the innocence of Trumpton/Camberwick Green/Chigley and fuses it with the horror of the Wicker Man. The crazed yokels of ye olde England burning the Man come down from that London.

  9. Liam

    The Clash “Guns of Brixton” (many other anti-establishment Clash tunes are available)

    When they kick at your front door
    How you gonna come?
    With your hands on your head
    Or on the trigger of your gun

    When the law break in
    How you gonna go?
    Shot down on the pavement
    Or waiting on death row

    https://youtu.be/Tkm7ZXebfSo

    1. Specific Gravity

      One of his finest. There is a case to be made for it being the English national anthem.

    2. Otis Blue

      Not forgetting Greetings to the New Brunette, his ode to Labour/SDP MP Shirley Williams. With Johnny Marr on guitar and Kirsty McColl on backing vocals, it features the epic line

      “How can you lie there and think of England
      When you don’t even know who’s in the team…”

      https://youtu.be/jfKcG3gn3F8

  10. Prisoner No. 6

    Roy Harper – How Does it Feel
    Roy – how does it feel to be a voter gets the kick in there first … then religion and everything else ..
    50 years old and it still kicks … used recently in The Handmaid’s Tale

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2arCRtfReIo

    “And how does it feel to be the master’s right hand nose?
    How does it feel to be lieutenant?
    And how does it feel to be stood on someone’s toes?
    With a leech bleeding you for rent
    When you say you want a bit more rank
    You wanna be a big wheel
    You can feel magnified if you hide in your pride
    It’s not real”

    And if that’s whetted your appetite … try McGoohan’s Blues … all 18 minutes and one hell of an ending …
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKjwXI1tb6Q

  11. Harry

    The great anti-conscription anti war song (in this case Vietnam)
    Country Joe & the Fish
    I Feel Like I’m Fixing to Die Rag
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRl6-bHlz-4
    “And it’s one, two, three
    What are we fighting for?
    Don’t ask me, I don’t give a damn
    Next stop is Vietnam;
    And it’s five, six, seven
    Open up the pearly gates
    Well there ain’t no time to wonder why
    Whoopee! we’re all gonna die”

  12. Harry

    John Lennon – Imagine
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkgkThdzX-8

    Possibly the most misunderstood hard-line political protest song ever, rather than being a hippy dippy plea for peace as many think, Imagine is Lennon’s most hard-line militant opus.

    He was interviewed and hanging out with Tariq Ali, a leading figure of the British Left intelligentsia and was interviewed by him for Red Mole, the Marxist magazine.
    The song itself suggests how political change can be created and begin with a radical thought
    If you “imagine” a new world, you can help to achieve it

  13. Harry

    Tom Robinson – Glad to be Gay
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLc-bh_DrKw
    Excellent defiant lyrics scoring points with each line

    Hard to believe, but homosexual activity was only decriminalised in Ireland in 1993
    Gay culture was a target for abuse, job loss and violence and even police victimisation.
    Robinson’s song was direct, confrontational and heartfelt. Unplayable by the BBC and RTE for years.

  14. eamonn

    The Kinks
    Well Respected Man .” Adores the girl next door ‘cos he’s dying to get at her”
    https://youtu.be/Ye28yt64Yjo

    Possibly Paul Weller had this in mind when he wrote Mr. Clean – “miss page 3 but the times is right for you,smart blue suit and you went to cambridge too””
    Either way, I reckon the well respected man could be an establishment everyman ?
    Mr. Clean might be seen in the same light ?

  15. The Tec Dr

    It has to be God Save the Queen by The Sex Pistols. It was released around the time of the Queens Silver Jubilee and it only got to number 2 in the charts because it was seen as not fitting the situation. Rod Stewart was declared as number one instead.

    https://youtu.be/yqrAPOZxgzU

  16. H

    I really loved the Boomtown Rats back in the day and they were definitely anti-establishment.

    I remember being told off by my childhood crush for requesting this song at a disco because it criticised Ireland!

    I can still hear it going around my head when I read the antics of Leo and co.

    Banana Republic – Boomtown Rats
    https://youtu.be/OfMwWLnpgGw

    1. Harry

      A great track, I remember seeing them with the girlfriend before they had their breakthrough in the then Moran’s Hotel, I think it’s O’Shea’s now at the corner of Talbot St?
      The DJ Smiley Bolger played a few warm up tracks and then the basement venue went mental when the Rat’s came on…happy days :)

  17. Andy Pipkin

    The brilliant,
    The Beat with Stand Down Margaret,

    I said i see no joy
    I see only sorry
    I see no chance of your bright new tomorrow
    so stand down Margaret
    stand down please

    https://youtu.be/zFaFVhyjb5Y

    No explanation needed as too who their talking about?

    Enjoy!

  18. Andy Pipkin

    From The Jam’s third album, All Mod Cons, the tense and atmospheric ‘Down In The Tube Station At Midnight’ concerned the rise of right-wing violence in the UK. Arguably the band’s first truly classic!
    And the bass?

    https://youtu.be/hf4EFDGP4yg

    Enjoy!

  19. Kingfisher

    Long-haired preachers come out every night
    Try to tell you what’s wrong and what’s right
    But when asked about something to eat
    They will answer in voices so sweet
    You will eat, you will eat, by and by
    In that glorious land in the sky, way up high
    Work and pray, live on hay
    You’ll get pie in the sky when you die, that’s a lie

    The Preacher and the Slave by Joe Hill

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca_MEJmuzMM

  20. f_lawless

    Some no nonsense hardcore punk from 1982!

    Discharge – Protest and Survive
    https://youtu.be/Btdn-Nup1dI

    “A savage mutilation of the human race
    Is set on course
    Protest and survive. Protest and survive
    It’s up to us to change the course
    Protest and survive. Protest and survive”

  21. Stephen Moran

    Too many to mention “Eve of Destruction” Barry Maguire, “Tramp the Dirt Down” Declan Pat McManus, “Fortunate Son” CCR but for me there is one song that transcends time & still has the power to shock.. “Strange Fruit” by Billie Holiday from 1939..A damning indictment of racism in the American South it’s harrowing lyrics.
    “Southern trees bear a strange fruit.” This, you think, isn’t your usual lovey-dovey lounge jazz stuff. “Blood on the leaves and blood at the root.” What is this? “Black bodies swinging in the Southern breeze.” Lynching? It’s a song about lynching?
    Possibly the most shocking song of all time, because its true. The first true protest song & still the greatest
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DGY9HvChXk

  22. Otis Blue

    An album virtually without peer, Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On is a glorious song cycle whose narrative is told from the point of view of a Vietnam veteran returning to the States to witness hatred, suffering, and injustice. Gaye’s introspective lyrics explore themes of drug abuse, poverty, and the Vietnam War. You could pick any track but, for me, Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler) is the one.

    https://youtu.be/57Ykv1D0qEE

    1. CapernosityandFunction

      Inner City Blues is a magnificent choice. Damn, I’m jealous I didn’t pick that.

  23. fluffybiscuits

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrW6zP161QI

    E Depois do Adeus

    The Carnation Revolution of Portugal in 1974

    The coup had two secret signals. First, Paulo de Carvalho’s “E Depois do Adeus” (Portugal’s entry in the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest) was aired on Emissores Associados de Lisboa at 10:55 p.m. on 24 April. This alerted rebel captains and soldiers to begin the coup. The second signal came at 12:20 a.m. on 25 April, when Rádio Renascença broadcast “Grândola, Vila Morena” (a song by Zeca Afonso, an influential political folk musician and singer who was banned from Portuguese radio at the time). The MFA gave the signals to take over strategic points of power in the country.

    Fairly peaceful

  24. Otis Blue

    “All that rugby puts hairs on your chest
    What chance have you got against a tie and a crest?
    Hello-hooray, what a nice day, for the Eton rifles, Eton rifles…”

    Weller skewers Bojo’s alma mater

    The Jam – Eton Rifles

    https://youtu.be/C7kUDkK70qQ

  25. It Was All A Dream

    Surely it has to be Rage Against the Machine, summed up in 9 words:

    Fock you I won’t do what you tell me.

  26. Clampers Outside

    DMX died of cardiac arrest yesterday…

    This track isn’t what you’d call anti-establishment. His back catalogue of angry gangsta rap covers that.
    So for the day that’s in it, this track, A Minute For Your Son, is more like a prayer…
    https://youtu.be/RdOG7HXLeWY

    RIP that fella

  27. True Story

    I came here expecting 95% 1970s Reggae.
    I’ve never been so disappointed before in my life.

    Reminds me of the time I thought I was getting a bike off Santy and he brought me a jigsaw.

    1. Yes me friend

      …me gud frend…
      I not post some because they can haz be Moderatored.
      I haz try many timez.
      (True Story)

  28. Johnny

    For all the white trash,low intelligence,maga clowns,the circus has left town with your “Fortunate Son”.
    The dumbest revolution in history,proud boys haha, proud big girls more like,all signing for their supper now.

    https://youtu.be/6yu1oqauaMI

  29. Yes me friend

    Where are the Beastie Boys?
    What happened to NWA?
    Killing Joke?
    Cabaret Voltaire?
    Sham 69?
    The WuTang?
    Tom Robinson?
    Jilted John?

    And Billy Bragg.

    1. Johnny

      …the 90’s then the ‘00 then…a lot happened.
      With exception Wu- one album – nothing.

    1. Donald McCarthy

      I’d like to dedicate my second entry to our much missed prodigal, if indeed it be memes. The title track of the difficult second album by Doomerati Symphony, its release was almost stopped by record company suits who felt the title was a tad long. (Decide for yourselves) “So anti-establishment means wonky woke cretins warbling about guitarry machine guns while getting paid, getting laid, getting high and getting rich? Idiots believing the safety valve whistle on the steam engine is there to protect bystanders. Like yourselves, the whistle serves the engine. And so the singing men who will become boring old farts play for dancing men who will become middle managers and all will wallow in dishonest nostalgia about how they changed the planet from a living thing to a dead thing. Except they won’t.”

  30. Kingfisher

    The song of the Resistance in Italy under the Fascists, Bella Ciao – revived in the pandemic

    In English:
    And if I die as a Partisan
    goodbye my beautiful, goodbye my beautiful, goodbye my beautiful, goodbye
    and if I die as a partisan
    you must bury me…

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLGY_htXtPI

    And from the French Revolution, Edith Piaf sings Ça Ira
    Lyrics in translation:
    It’ill be grand! It’il be grand! It’il be grand!
    The aristocrats to the lantern [a place in Paris where aristocrats were dragged to be hanged in 1789]
    It’il be grand! It’il be grand! It’il be grand!
    We’ll hang the aristocrats!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzu01gO3pi4

    1. Papi

      Oops, I should have seen yours first. Bloody good choice by the way. Ahem
      Great minds and all that.

  31. Papi

    I really love how nobody gives a fiddler’s about the “lines must close at 5.15” malarkey.
    Now that’s anti establishment!
    Fight the power!

    1. :-Joe

      Eh.. In a word and in the spirit of what’s important from an anti-establishmet perspective…

      ” DAVOS “…
      -i.e. they(we1) are their house band and perpetually on-call at a moments notice…

      -Mic-drop, etc..

      :-J

      1. benblack

        They certainly gave this country – and me – a boost in national and personal confidence when we both needed the shot in the arm that U2’s worldwide popularity provided.

        You would have had to lived or grown up in this country during the 80’s to comprehend and appreciate what that band did for this country and its people.

        To say we were proud of them is an understatement.

        1. :-Joe

          A late reply, but just had to say…

          If you think we1 a.k.a the davos house band are somehow or have ever been in any way representative of an “anti-establishment” narrative then you’re clearly new to the idea or a just bit confused… Perhaps a die-hard fan maybe?..
          – You would already be more aware of this obvious fact if you had grown up in the 70’s or 60’s..

          I like some of their songs but they are just another cynical commercial pop outfit, rarely ever the proper rock band bono’s pretensious ego is built around and ultimately a bunch of hypocrites, elitists, tax-cheats etc. etc.

          Literally, the music career blueprint of pro-establishment, economic success..

          :-J

    1. Papi

      *clicks fingers softly in wraparound black shades, in a haze of blue smoke.

      That is very cool though.

  32. Yes me friend

    Calm down.
    Anti-establishment is not the same as revolution.

    It’s a chicken/egg solution to a pelican crossing.

    10% of those poultried said yes, but they were chickens.
    The other 990%+ didn’t understand the question and said yes anyway.

    And the turkeys are waiting for Christmas.

  33. scottser

    The egg came first – chickens have only been around for ten thousand year or so.

    Anyhoo, here’s Billy Bragg with ‘ideology’

    https://youtu.be/GG_filOc5rk

    When one voice rules the nation
    Just because they’re top of the pile
    Doesn’t mean their vision is the clearest
    The voices of the people
    Are falling on deaf ears
    Our politicians all become careerists

    They must declare their interests
    But not their company cars
    Is there more to a seat in parliament
    Than sitting on your arse?
    And the best of all this bad bunch
    Is shouting to be heard
    Above the sound of ideologies clashing

    Outside the patient millions
    Who put them into power
    Expect a little more back for their taxes
    Like school books, beds in hospitals
    And peace in our bloody time
    All they get is old men grinding axes

    Who’ve built their private fortunes
    On the things they can rely
    The courts, the secret handshake
    The Stock Exchange and the old school tie
    For God and Queen and Country
    All things they justify
    Above the sound of ideologies clashing

    God bless the civil service
    The nations saving grace
    While we expect democracy
    They’re laughing in our face
    And although our cries get louder
    The laughter gets louder still
    Above the sound of ideologies clashing

    Above the sound of ideologies
    Above the sound of ideologies
    Above the sound of ideologies clashing

    No truer words ever spoken.

  34. Harry

    An enjoyable rap ditty merrily sung by the sinisterly fringed TPM, who succinctly express their discontent with the establishment by rapping ‘F**k Fine Gael and F**k Fianna Fáil too”
    on the well penned song:-
    TPM Don’t Have Your Money
    https://youtu.be/wESDtNmTW-8

    “I take €100 out of the tax pool
    but that’s all the harm I’m going to do to you
    The other prick gets up at 6am
    drives his beamer to Dublin
    to the KBC bank he walks in
    starts committing crimes with a ballpoint pen.”

  35. Unreal

    I like Scottsers last suggestion there, Billy Bragg is very underrated really

    Anyway here you go man you will surely appreciate this, consider this an education all the rest of you slaves and lickspittles who mourn Philip (not Cork)Battenberg Cake

    https://youtu.be/tw6ZKHqR0xE

    Come all of you workers who toil night and day
    By hand and by brain to earn your pay
    Who for centuries long past for no more than your bread
    Have bled for your countries and counted your dead In the factories and mills, in the shipyards and mines
    We’ve often been told to keep up with the times
    For our skills are not needed, they’ve streamlined the job
    And with sliderule and stopwatch our pride they have robbed But when the sky darkens and the prospect is war
    Who’s given a gun and then pushed to the fore
    And expected to die for the land of our birth
    When we’ve never owned one handful of earth? We’re the first ones to starve the first ones to die
    The first ones in line for that pie-in-the-sky
    And always the last when the cream is shared out
    For the worker is working when the fat cat’s about All of these things the worker has done
    From tilling the fields to carrying the gun
    We’ve been yoked to the plough since time first began
    And always expected to carry the can

    Workers song
    Dick Gaughan

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