Happy Birthday

LETTER FROM BRITAIN

Simon Frith

Happy Birthday

Im writing this on July 4th. On the television there are flickering satellite pictures of Americans at play and very rum too: blond children, their faces deeply smeared with watermelon, the Tallahassee Munich Restaurant Marching Band in leather shorts and braces, the Ice Maidens of Ohio squaredancing with no clothes on. And only half a hippie in sight. Hes playing the Beethoven theme from the Clockwork Orange on a banjo on the White House Lawn in protest.

Im not protesting at all. Im really glad you got your freedom all those years ago and even gladder that you took Elton John off our conscience as well. But one things obvious even through the mist round the satellite: everyone in America is still clean cut, well fed and with a complete set of teeth. Poor old Keith Richard had to cancel the Stones tour for shame and all these years CREEMs been lying to me. I believed in those dum-dums on the letters pages and had this faith that America was slowly being edten up by rats and degenerates and small wildeyed teenagers with bad breath who didnt wash their hands after they used the bathroom. Turns out they were all invented by a clean-cut copy man! [Not true! The letters are real and the copy man is a girl with a dirty beard and one arm.—Ed.] Punks, huh!! I dont even believe in Lester Bangs anymore.

So congratulations and 1 hope you go on being independent of us for many years to come. WE DONT WANT YOU BACK!!! Imagine if we hadnt let , you win in 76. American immigrants, yuk! Spitting watermelon seeds in the streets, exposing their teeth in the park, stuffing detergent through old ladies letter boxes! Britain has a proud tradition of intolerance and racism and we hate you anyway but as immigrants wedve hated you much, much more. Like we hate Asians. Its been the longest hottest summer here since 1911 and1 with no summer single to cool us

off weve had a flush of fascism instead. Old men play cricket for England to stop the blacks winning and long hairs in the crowd sing "Rule Britannia." We went to Birmingham to see Bob Marley and the Wailers.

On the way we were joking: given that it was a Rasta concert the bar would be empty. Yippee, on a hot day! In fact, it was closed. And guarded. No chances. Black + White = Trouble. Black + White 4Drink = Double Trouble. In the streets there were more cops than Rastas and we got to see the support after all. It was Mrs. M&rc Bo-, lan, aka Gloria Jones. Mr. Marc, by the way, has had his hair cut, grown another chin and looks like a hip toad. Poor old Marc. He lost out somewhere along the line and wont admit it yet. "Ive been resting," is how he put it, on the radio the other day. He had to give his fans (and count me among them) a break. Gloria wore shrunk silver pants, took a deep breath and sung "Get It On" all through without stopping. About a minute and a half it took, and we were looking for our classy seats in the front stalls. There were black men sitting in them, sneering at Gloria and evil like the ones upder Enoch Powells bed. "Excuse me," I spid, "Youre sitting in our seats." "I and Is terribly sorry," they replied, and leapt up and trotted away. For the next hour it happened all around us: nervous white couples^ tapping these > uh, Jamaican people on the shoulder and the black kids < jumping polite-

ly up. By the time the Ethiopian flag came down and we were ready to move on up, the front stalls were full of whitey and the back stalls were packed with blacky. A long line of security guards separated us, holding hands like cops at a demo.

When Marley came out, the back stalls jumped on their seats and danced and the front stalls finger-bdpped on their arm rests. "Get them crazy bald heads out of here!" he chanted, and in the roar of assent, I felt the slightest frisson of racial tension. What if these fuckers took him at his word? They . didnt. They sang along and so did we and Marley shielded his face with a hand and led us like a preacher through our favorite hymns till we were all on our knees and the old showman was reciting his Haile Selassie bit about racial harmony and loving each other and liberating Angola, which is already liberated, and South Africa,which isnt, but even a couple of days after Soweto doesnt seem to bug anyone too much.

On the way out the back stalls pushed the front stalls aside with exuberant contempt and I thought how odd it was. These kids werent Rastas, hadnt been Jamaican for a long time, werdBrummies if anything. And Brummie scrum too—few jobs, no prospects, hassled by the police, abused by the National Front and theyd.come to Marley to be black and relax for a while. They knew every note of every song and waved and smiled and us white TURN TO PAGE 78 rockers thought it was our concert too. "Me belly full but me hungry," we sang and so it was true, too. At the end we didnt leave arm in arm but took out the same suspicions that we came in with. -Marley had solved nothing and exhilarated - everyone. Tension and anger and guilt still just the same, but entertainment too, and a good laugh and a "shout. My only evil thought was( that if Jamaica had got independence in 1776, or ever for that matter, we wouldnt have had this music but some black-faced Little Feat. They played Birmingham the week before and boogied most joyously but always clean cut and well fed and with all their teeth. Theres a man whos been to every 'concert Ive been to this year. Every evening, but especially when theres a sign of flagging or tenderness, he shouts "Rock “n Roll!!" He didnt need to at Little Feat. They did it all night long arid everyone duly grooved:

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Boogies your gift to the world and many thanks for it, but, seeing as its your birthday, weve got something for you too. His name is Cliff Richard and hes the cleanest cut, wellest fed, fullest beteetbed Englishman you could hope to see. He hasnt had a woman since 1960 and hes been my teen dream since I was twelve. Hes just started singing falsetto and Elton John and Rocket Records have decided that the time has ^come, after nearly twenty^ years/ for thb Big Americari Break. Look after him Weil, Jeach him to boocjie, and remember that the only punks these days Come from really crummy places. Like Jamaica. And