But you’ve written songs in recent memory like “7 + 3 Is The Striker’s Name” or “Wake Up The Nation” that felt like they were angry about the state of things.
Yeah, they were angry. But I don’t hear that same anger anywhere else. Is it just because we live in a different political time? The same shit goes on, it hasn’t really changed too much. It’s just the face of it has changed. It’s a more corporate image these days. It’s hard to tell the difference between them. They’re all Etonians, same schools, blah blah blah. The same old people control everything. It’s not going to change, is it? It’s the boys club, what we call the establishment. Money people, the royals. Does that ever change? I don’t think so. But a lot of things have changed since Thatcher. Obviously, on the strength and pride of the working classes have changed, shifted anyway. People being able to buy their council houses, splitting up communities, we’re still reeling from those effects, aren’t we, thirty years later? A few years back, they were saying that the state of our society was down to the free love people of the Sixties and all that stuff. But it’s just fucking nonsense. I would say most of it you can trace back to the late Seventies and Thatcherism. Her policies have defined things since then, really. You couldn’t really ignore her, could you? You were either for her or against her. But can you say that with Cameron, or Tony Blair? It would be difficult, wouldn’t it? I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the two, to be honest with you, policy wise or as people. The same with Miliband. They’re not strong enough characters. Even though I try and stay in touch with what’s going on, up to a point, I don’t know if people think they’ve got a voice any more. Who speaks for the normal everyday people? I’m not talking about pop groups, I mean politically. There’s no one out there representing the majority of the people. The unions were pretty much dismantled by Thatcher, so who speaks for those people now?
How did you react to the deaths of Bob Crow and Tony Benn?
Tony Benn. Let us not forget Tony Benn shut down the pirate radio stations and foisted upon us Radio One.
In what ways do you think you’ve improved as a songwriter and musician?
I’m a better singer. I’m a better player, I think. I’m more focused on my playing. Not in a muso way, but I’m trying to improve. As a songwriter? I don’t know. I think I’ve been fairly consistent with my tunes. I’m not saying they’ve all been great, but they’re been consistent. I think I’ve still got something to say, not about politics but I think I’ve got something to say in song. As a personal thing, as a vocalist, I think I’ve improved. My voice is stronger, I’ve still got my range.
You’ve got 40 years of music behind you. Is the best yet to come?
I’d like to think it is. When I listen to the compilation, I still think the latter stuff is better. But then, I don’t know if that’s just because I always like what I’m doing at the time, you know, than if it’s genuinely better. I prefer the sound of the new stuff to the stuff that was made at the other end of the album. I’d like to think it could get better, yeah. I don’t know if it’s possible or not. I’d like to think so. It gets harder to put new stuff on people, because we’re all getting older. The older people get, they generally stick to what they know or what they’re familiar with, don’t they? It’s pretty true in life, isn’t it, whether it’s routine or music or TV. I would like to get the rest of my generation to not be like that, to embrace the new, to not be afraid of the new. It’s a symptom of old age when you start saying, “It’s not as good as it used to be.” Sometimes that is true, but our parents said that, and their parents before them said that, so I don’t know how much truth is in that. I think it’s just a perspective really, and feeling safe and comfortable with something you are familiar with. But if I can in any way change or shape that, that people were more receptive to things, that would be quite an achievement, wouldn’t you say? I’m not scared of the new. For all of my love of the Sixties, be it clothes or music, I still wouldn’t want to be living in any other time but now. If I had a time machine, maybe I might go back to 1964 and go to the Flamingo and see Stevie Wonder or something, but I wouldn’t want to stay there. I like the modern. There’s so many dark forces trying to drag us back into the dark ages, globally I mean as well. We’ve got so many fantastic opportunities now with technology and modernism, you know, and it’s such a fucking shame we can’t embrace that and make it work for the world and serve the world. You could do. You could easily do it. It’s only greed that will stop it. The invisible 10 percent or whatever who control the planet, the establishment or whoever they may be. Maybe it’s because I’m a Mod but I like the modern world. I like it just as it is, really. Economics and all that stuff aside, culturally we’re a much better nation, aren’t we? I think we definitely are. My missus and I were doing some shopping in Westfield yesterday, and there was every type of person you could think of, all colours, all races. But I still had this overwhelming feeling that this is England, this is our country. In a great way, as well. Even though the shopping centre is a tiny, tiny microcosm of our society, that’s the way forward, that’s the future, I think. That probably wouldn’t have happened 30 years ago, 40 years ago. So I try and look for those things that I think are the positives in life. We’re multicultural, generally we’re not as racist or as xenophobic as we used to be, or homophobic. We’ve got to fight against all that, really. And on that note, I could be a politician.