The nationalism unleashed by Brexit has claimed pop music as its latest victim. Musical purists are demanding that only music originating in Great Britain be played.
Some argue that popular music derives from British folksong, as adapted and developed by people who have come into contact with Brits. The result was the finger being taken out of the ear, ingredients from around the globe being added, and the whole multiplied by technology. This cultural appropriation is totally unacceptable to musical Brexiters.
To accompany this tuneful eugenics, the new “moBo Awards” have been created. The host of the first moBo (“Music Of BRITISH Origin”) Awards is to be Boris Johnson. Boris has not lost his knack of talking utter bollocks, but his musical credentials are slim indeed. moBo BoJo lost his mojo.
The news means that leave leaning beardy men in folk clubs are getting excited.
Folk singer Al Aroundmyhat was upbeat about the news. “At last my brand of music will have a ‘pop’ at the charts!” he chanted. “British folk songs have a universal theme. Crap bosses, farming and being no good in the sack. Dying at sea. Getting lost at sea. Being transported to a desert prison by ship. Being buggered, getting drunk and getting whipped at sea. These are things that everybody can relate to.”
Piano player Ebony Andivory was feeling crotchety. “I now have to refer to my instrument, the Pianoforte, as a Softloud,” she moaned. “And I’m only allowed to play sentimental melodies in modal keys while some old chap warbles wistful nonsense and spills his beer on the keys.”
Other genres have not been forgotten. Classical music, a largely European phenomenon, will correspondingly be largely banned. Only music by the ultra-English Edward Elgar and Georg Friedrich Handel will be permissible. Handel was, of course, as British as the Royal Family itself.
It only remains to be truly British and crack jokes about the whole sorry affair. So to finish on a suitably low note, here is a false climax:
What does diminuendo mean? It’s a limp knob gag that keeps getting softer.