|

Rough Musick

Stuart Butler

Saturday, July 17th, 2021

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 Ye Prologue:
There’s an old radical tradition
Of beating pots and pans in the street,
Making a public din
(Rather than a private dinner),
Ringing bells, banging pans, blowing horns,
With domestic utensils used in public,
Expressing disapprobation
Through community pandemonium,
And a cacophony of disharmony.
It’s ROUGH MUSICK,
A symbolic and cacophonous
Criticism of the ruling class.

2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 A symbolic representation of disapproval,
Marking a transgression of agreed social norms
By the great and good;
A community PANDAEMONIUM
To indicate disapproval of rulers,
With a pantomimic declamation of their crimes,
The wrong-doer often shown in effigy,
Sometimes riding the SKIMMINGTON,
As in The Mayor of Casterbridge,
Or the 1825 Stroud weavers’ riots,
As the world is turned upside down.

3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 But today,
We show our disapproval in a different way,
But in a continuity with the past:
We are turning the world upside down.
But we are silent rather than loud.
We take a knee,
Silent but proud.
We may be kneeling,
But we will stand
In unity
With Marcus Rashford, Jordan Sancho, Bukayo Saka.

4 Leave a comment on verse 4 0 The prologue was our history,
This was our story,
History from below,
Liberty and freedom and the right to protest
For the excluded.
But this is a new story,
With Marcus Rashford, Jordan Sancho, Bukayo Saka
Leading the way to a new victory,
For it will be our so-called leaders
And their racist supporters
Who will pay the penalty;
As we rise to our feet
In a new team:
Indefatigable and undefeatable:
On to victory!

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/rough-musick/