This was the first of Cor's songs I heard. I heard his music when living with his mother Muriel in Barnes, London in the late 1980s. The Cardew family were and I am sure still are a super interesting, very cool family. I was so lucky to spend time with various Cardew family members especially Mariel.
The whole family was fascinating. I had the great privilege of spending time with his mother and other members of his family. It was Mariel ( Cor's mother) with whom I first heard his music.
*We've been crying now for much to long* *Now we're gonna dance to a different song* *Gonna scream and shout to my dying breath* *Gonna smash it up 'til there's nothing left*
It's really hard to write a good rock song, especially as a classical musician. It can be done, but it takes as much work as learning classical music. That being said, many of the composers from the classical period could do both. Offenbach, anyone?
Please... I knew Cornelius. First rate. The kind of guy you meet at a dinner party and never, ever forget! High quality. Come on! You know what I mean. And he must have been a threat to the big powers for his friends believe he was killed by the British Secret Service in 1981. On the "icy road of retrogression." Never Forget you! His murder was never solved. God Bless.
How was he "a threat to the big powers"? Safe to say British intelligence was more concerned about CPGB members, anti-nuclear activists, Libyan personnel, supporters of the African National Congress, Irish Republicans, and numerous other groups. It isn't like these songs he wrote for the RCPB-ML were popular.
"Right, we need a revolution! I'm giving up avantgarde hoity-toity composition and am going to make the people's music! Should be easy right? What with my background in the rarified world of high culture" Typical hubris. As if it's easy for a classical composer to simply become David Bowie. The proof is in the pudding mate, and this is utter shite. And I say this as a rabid pinko myself.
Who said it was easy? And should he have not bothered because of his background? If you think it's shit you think it's shit, but I don't like your reasoning!
This music is everything wrong with the authoritarian left, thinking culture can be simply imposed top-down. He should've stuck with the avante-garde, as that music had greater impact on the psyche than this watered-down vocal music. 10x more likely to indoctrinate a normie vs. this pity party appealing to only the most statist and traditionalistic members of the left who additionally happen to align with the music's stylistic influences.
