I know what he’s singing and I know why he’s singing it but I wish he didn’t sound so much like Marc Bolan at times. - John Peel after playing Born on the Wrong Side of Town on 15/11/92.
I think that when I first heard this, I included it because I was drawn in by the catchiness of the chorus, despite the mannered vocals, which considering that J. was singing in a second language, I think we can forgive him for. However, once I started to listening to the track again, in-depth, for this blogpost, I was astonished to discover that what was coming out of that wannabe Anthony Kiedis-mouth was a political song, the contents of which sound predictable after 29 years, but which could have been an incredible shock to anyone tuning in on 15/11/92 who was still enjoying the long political laze that the early 1990s seemed to promise would last indefinitely.
Jaye Muller was born and raised in East Berlin, but moved to Paris between the time of the Fall of the Berlin Wall and German reunification. Just over two years to the day since West Germany and East
Germany came together with the West using free enterprise, market forces and greater individual freedoms to absorb and dissipate the socialism of the East, Muller provides an update on just what the benefits of capitalism have brought to his family, friends and neighbours in the former DDR and the answer appears to be poverty, loss of security, loss of dignity and self direction albeit with the positive that East Germans can travel anywhere they like without having to ensure they have their papers, but as J. remarks even this freedom proves to be a pyrrhic one if you haven’t got enough money to travel anywhere.
It’s always shocking to hear sentiments like these because they not only confront us with the news that “our values” for want of a better word haven’t worked out well for those who it’s claimed will benefit from them, but also they feel pretty irrefutable. Simply saying, “Well, do you want to go back to how it was before?” feels as though it will just invite the answer, “Yes, please.” However, it’s worth remembering that even those of us born and brought up in capitalist societies our whole lives have many of the complaints about the system that J. expresses. The search goes on for a middle way which can bring together the best of both systems, though you won’t find any suggestions of that in Born on the Wrong Side of Town. There’s only a sense of profound disappointment and ice cold fury. Nevertheless, for Müller, capitalism eventually brought its rewards as he co-founded the communications firm, J2 Global in 1995, which allowed users to access fax and voicemail through their email accounts. He has continued to enjoy success both as a musician and an entrepreneur over the last 25 years.
Video courtesy of kittypawn
No comments:
Post a Comment