Gonna write a classic, gonna write it in an attic
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Over at The Hearing Aid (a well recommended local music blog) we find a link to a band called The Will To Rally (who I think I heard a bit of last week at the Rainbow, but I was well gone by then). They have a song there called ‘I Heart Birmingham’ in which I can’t rightly tell whether they’re being sarcastic in the chorus or the verses.
This song reminded me about something I’ve long been musing, does Brum need some kind of anthem? I think it’d be smashing.
I think it would be great to have a song that we all loved and could sing, that helped us feel all warm and together inside - these don’t just come out of nowhere tho’, people have to write them. There is a danger, if they’re badly written for them to become laughable - just like this Stoke-on-Trent ‘theme tune’. That said it is possible for songs to cross the divide from fairly trite to meaningful for a body of people - as Flower of Scotland (only from 1967) has.
Obviously this is the sort of thing that can’t come from a council, or any community groups - but Birmingham does have its fair share of great songwriters. If only Stephen Duffy could be nudged into it - I guess he isn’t working with Robbie Williams any more (new Lilac Time album
This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 14th, 2007 at 9:54 pm by Jon Bounds and is filed under music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Help improve our tagging - add some appropriate tags to this post:Tags for this article: Anthem , blog , Felt , I Heart Birmingham , Lilac Time , Stephen Duffy , The Hearding Aid , The Will To Rally
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on 15 November 2007 at 8:48 am Russ L wrote:
It’s not exactly the same thing, but I’ve always wanted there to be a band who make a deliberate effort to mythologise Birmingham & The Black Country in the way The Clash did with west London.
Chinook’s “Birmingham New Street” is a good start.
on 19 November 2007 at 12:37 am Birmingham: The Anthem « Joanna Geary wrote:
[...] Birmingham: The Anthem Published November 19, 2007 Uncategorized Tags: anthem, Birmingham, Brighton, Brighton the Musical, Terry Garroghan B:iNS suggests Birmingham needs it’s own anthem. [...]