Big Audio Dynamite mixed up guitars, hip-hop, film samples, house, reggae and more besides, a band consisting of the descendant of Russian Jewish emigres, the sons of Jamaican immigrants and a couple of East Enders. Mick's song Beyond The Pale, co-written with Joe Strummer, is a celebration of roots and lineage, migration, the cross pollination of people, immigrants and cultures, a warning about racism and Saint George. It's funny (funny peculiar) that what Isis and the English far right want are the same thing- people living in closed communities, surrounded solely by 'their own kind'.
Beyond The Pale
5 comments:
Superb song and an excellent analysis.
Me and my best mate from school are both first generation here from immigrants. Well half of me at least - my mum was Welsh, but my dad's from Mauritius, my mate's parents are Jamaican and they all arrived in the UK in the 60s. This song, out of almost all of Strummer/Jones' stuff, rings so true for me, the London thing, the mix up of cultures, this was and still is an anthem for us.
Easily one of the top ten Strummer/Jones things.
We've got to keep standing up for multiculturalism. Now more than ever. Our supposed 'island story' (thanks Mr Gove) is the story of immigration. There is no such thing as pure British- we are all mixed.
Excellent song! You're right - Britain's has his history of immigration much longer as we in Germany. And it doesn't matter how long the history was. We are all mixed and the mixture will go on. We are all the same.
Yeah, any 'indigenous' people are long gone in the wind. My family alone has members from every continent in it. Did you see a programme not so long ago where they got a bunch of people who considered themselves English through and through and DNA tested them? Imagine a bunch of UKIP types finding out they're Anglo-Asian, or Russian Jewish or in the case of one guy, quite recently African. Was priceless, and underlines that nobody can really lay claim to being 'pure' whatever that means.
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