Ding Dong, Society is Dead

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Yes, it’s childish and puerile, sexist and disrespectful. And apart from being all of that the Daily Mail is angry. Angry that Ding Dong the Witch is Dead from the Wizard of Oz soundtrack has swung into the charts, by some sort of campaign by ‘the left’.

The song is childish (or at least high-pitched) too, and anyone buying it to make a political point is childish too. They know that and, like booing George Osbourne at the Paralympics, the British public have a remarkable history and humour of childish protest. It works so well as it’s not easy to debate against—we both get covered in jelly and ice cream and the kids like it. I also doubt that being respectful is in the minds of anyone at this point.

And, yes, the use of the gender specific insult is sexist. I don’t like it, it makes me uncomfortable.

Oh and, yes, most people who are buying it are probably to the left of Margaret Thatcher politically—but then most people are.

But, they aren’t doing it en masse by an orchestrated campaign and they aren’t all doing it for the same reason. It’s 1000s (and only that many seeing how few sales it takes to get a song into the charts these days) of different decisions for different reasons. It’s a true meme, evolving as it passes through people’s heads—there are those who wouldn’t have dreamt of supporting it getting pissed off by the pious who would tell them not to and clicking ‘buy’ with abandon. In the full knowledge of how they don’t have the heights of moral ground they could otherwise.

There isn’t a single point where this idea comes from, it’s a simple idea and a very well known song. That’s why it isn’t Shipbuilding, or Tramp the Dirt Down—or any number of better, and more politically correct, choices—a campaign on Elvis Costello’s behalf would have failed, people who didn’t know or like him wouldn’t have bought the track, no matter how cheap or easy. A playground ditty got traction.

Some haven’t thought about the sexism, it’s society’s job—if it still exists—to educate them.

Some don’t have huge encyclopaedic knowledge of music or social history—likewise.

Some, like me don’t agree with the song choice, but agree with the protest. And we’ve bought it because of who it pisses off, we make compromises like that when battling an ideology.

Excuse me if I go a bit Mark Steel for a moment, but the use of the group term ‘The Left” is dangerous. It’s as dangerous as any grouping and labeling of disparate people. The Left—it’s me, Billy Bragg, Caroline Lucas, Castro, Tony Blair, a woman from no 42 who once voted SDP, and Dan Hodges all meeting every Wednesday in the Pig & Whistle on Lug Trout Lane. Seven o’clock, back bar, knock on the side door and ask for ‘Attlee’. I did miss last week’s meeting, I was out picketing the local grocers. The Left decided in my absence to pick a song & campaign on it, sent message of solidarity to striking miners in Guam and shared a bag of pork scratchings.

Castro wanted dry roasted nuts, but he lost the motion on a simple show of hands.

Author: Jon Bounds

Jon was voted the ‘14th Most Influential Person in the West Midlands’ in 2008. Subsequently he has not been placed. He’s been a football referee, venetian blind maker, cellar man, and a losing Labour council candidate: “No, no chance. A complete no-hoper” said a spoilt ballot. Jon wrote and directed the first ever piece of drama performed on Twitter when he persuaded a cast including MPs and journalists to give over their timelines to perform Twitpanto. But all that is behind him.

3 thoughts on “Ding Dong, Society is Dead”

  1. I used to play cricket down Lugtrout Lane. I once dropped five catches, all off the same bowler (the vice captain’s son). Oh dear!

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