Let it be
Ball of Confusion was a song that captured the atmosphere of its time. The lyrics of the 1970 song by The Temptations attempted to express a profound sense of unease at the state of the world. The song was a narrative of the eclectic and contradictory trends of the time, an impressionistic picture of a society where former certainties had disappeared.
Fear in the air, tension ev’rywhere
Unemployment rising fast, The Beatles’ new record’s a gas,
and the only safe place to live is on an Indian reservation,
and the band played on
Eve of destruction, tax deduction,
City inspectors, bill collectors, mod clothes in demand,
population out of hand, suicide, too many bills, hippies movin’ to the hills
People all over the world are shouting, ‘end the war’, and the band played on.
Round and round and around we go, where the world’s headed nobody knows.
For years, the words “The Beatles’ new record’s a gas” seemed enigmatic. Perhaps they were an aside, like the observation that mod clothes were in demand, perhaps they were just something overheard, included to rhyme “gas” with “fast.” Discovering that the record to which the lyric referred was Let it be, the final single released before the break-up of The Beatles, there was a sense of what The Temptations were expressing. In the midst of the massive social upheavals and injustices of the time, Paul McCartney was singing:
And when the brokenhearted people
Living in the world agree
There will be an answer
Let it be
For though they may be parted
There is still a chance that they will see
There will be an answer
Let it be
Living in the United States, at the time of the struggle for civil rights and the Vietnam war, the passive vagueness of Let it be must have seemed a gas. For someone encountering discrimination and prejudice in everyday life, whilst the government sent thousand to die pointless deaths in a distant country, Paul McCartney’s words must have seemed an avoidance of reality.
Sometimes, though, there comes a point, when one acknowledges the reality of what is expressed in Ball of Confusion, but realizes that there is nothing that can be done to change things; Let it be becomes the only response.
Yesterday, I wrote a letter to the secretary of Somerton and Frome constituency Labour Party:
When I returned to England last year after living in Ireland for more than thirty years, I rejoined the Labour Party in the belief that it was a genuinely progressive movement.
After Jeremy Corbyn’s latest comments on Brexit, I can only conclude that Labour is a party of economic nationalism set upon a departure from Europe that is going to cause nothing other than harm to the most vulnerable in our society. Having a degree in politics and history from the London School of Economics, I feel competent to assert my belief that there is no post-Brexit scenario that will not make the poor even poorer. I want no part in any movement that puts its doctrine before the defence of those who are already hurting.
Perhaps Marc Bolan was right, life itself is a gas.
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