Thursday, December 02, 2010

Twittergem: Johnny Marr

Or possibly "johnny marr":

David Cameron, stop saying that you like The Smiths, no you don't. I forbid you to like it.


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By Simon Hayes Budgen

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7 comments:

Robin Carmody said...

I get tired of all this "cultural theft" talk, though. What were the backgrounds of a great many of the 1960s pop managers and offshore radio entrepreneurs? And how liberal and forward-looking is Morrissey's concept of Britain?

This isn't any kind of endorsement of Cameron - it's a recognition that pop was never really the egalitarian dreamland certain people love to fondly imagine.

2/12/10 8:01 pm
Robin Carmody said...

Once a record has been made, it's out there in the capitalist system. Anyone can theoretically like it. And the idea that people from Cameron's background just didn't listen to pop music was always more mythical than real - it was actually more the middle class and some self-made working-class autodidacts who had a certain snobbery over it, Cameron's class was too far beyond any kind of social insecurity and uncertainty to care about these things.

This sort of talk is simply a distraction, and ignores the true nature of capitalism entirely.

2/12/10 8:04 pm
Simon Hayes Budgen said...

Robin, isn't what Marr doing a reversal of reader-as-auteur theory rather than a attempt to accuse Cameron as a thief?

Marr clearly has an idea of what "The Smiths" is, and he doesn't believe that Cameron's "The Smiths" is the same thing at all - therefore, from his perspective, Cameron cannot like "The Smiths" as The Smiths intended them to be.

Where Marr is wrong, of course, is the belief that he can forbid Cameron from liking Marr's version of "The Smiths" - Cameron's background and belief system might make it impossible for him to like Marr's "The Smiths", or for Cameron's "The Smiths" to align with Marr's "The Smiths", but the forces which stop that happening are far beyond Marr's command.

3/12/10 12:34 pm
H. said...

Or perhaps we're just over-intellectualising an off-the-cuff joke made on Twitter.

4/12/10 10:06 am
Simon Hayes Budgen said...

Perhaps, H, but remember: Semiotics Can Be Fun. Depending on what you mean by "can" and "be".

4/12/10 11:02 am
Infusion Art said...

I don't get why anyone enjoys the Smiths - depressing!

16/8/12 11:23 am
Coral said...

Awesome, really great quote!

3/10/12 12:07 pm

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