Guys and Dolls: Cornershop - England’s Dreaming (10 April 1993)

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At the risk of repeating myself, I find myself once again forced to confront my teenaged complacency on issues which I remember thinking were on the wane at the time. A few weeks’ ago, Marxman reminded me that Neo-Nazis weren’t sitting it out in post Cold War Europe; now we have Cornershop popping up to show that, as far as they were concerned, racism wasn’t something which used to happen back in the 70s & 80s.

The genius of England’s Dreaming, which was the lead track on their Lock, Stock & Double~Barrel EP is how subtly it targets those it is most disappointed in. While it loudly and defiantly calls out racists, sexists,  homophobics and urges others to join them in the fight against discrimination, the force of the song isn’t so much set at those who would taunt and attack people based on their skin colour, but rather it scolds those whose first reaction to seeing a non-white face is to retreat into suspicion, distrust and fear. It almost sounds as those Cornershop can deal with the prejudice of being hated, but can’t accept the prejudice of being feared. The late music journalist, Neil Kulkarni, summed up what it was like to be on the end of both expressions of this prejudice, and its corrosive effect on those who suffer under it: 

The shout from a passing van window, the night at the bus stop or chippy where abuse and fists fly, the vaginal search your gran tells you of, the eyes on the street, the tight clutch of the handbag as you pass - all those moments are replayed and erase the months of tolerance that intersperse them, becoming a dirt mark on your memory that can never be removed.

That 8:04am train journey mentioned at 1:19 carries the ghosts of all those suspicious eyes and uncomfortable passengers. What’s even more upsetting is that there appears to be no source of support to call on, with even apparently sympathetic church figures unable to do much to turn the tide which the Singh boys feel is against them.  The calls to fight are not only directed at other minorities, but also towards would-be allies. 

It all coalesces in the track’s most audacious moment, as the singer sits talking to a nursing sister in hospital - potentially after being on the end of an assault - in which lyrics from Morrissey are set next to lyrics from Chuck D. The invitation to anyone listening in 1993 was clear - choose your fighter. And when Stephen Lawrence was murdered, less than a fortnight after this Peel show was broadcast, that ongoing call to join the fight was only going to get louder and more urgent.

Neil Kulkarni - Melody Maker 1990s

Lyrics are copyright of their authors.

Video courtesy of Borstal Boy.