The heavily orchestrated front page lynching of Sir Cliff Richard has not only made it impossible for him to receive a fair trial, but is possibly the greatest act of playground bullying that this country has ever seen.
The cool kids in Fleet Street, on the BBC and on Sky have waited a very long time for this. Longer, in fact, than most of them can remember, or than well over half of them have been alive.
There is a strict canonical text of the history of this country's ubiquitous popular music. To be honest, I generally prefer the canonical acts to the apocryphal and pseudepigraphal ones. But that Authorised Version is incomplete to the point of falsehood.
Look at the charts in any week, month or year since pop music can reasonably be said to have begun. The apostles and prophets of the given period are all there, of course.
But so are all sorts of other people, and not as novelty acts: they took themselves entirely seriously, as did the fans who bought their records by the bucket load.
Cliff was originally so cool that when my father, as a curate in 1950s Leicester, was deputed to take the church youth club to see him, they became so excited that they smashed up the theatre and broke my father's arm, which was never right again.
But for most of British pop's history, Cliff has been the towering, the supreme, the definitive uncool act.
Even stations dedicated to oldies have written policies of not playing him, bizarrely describing the long-dead as more enduring than a man who still performs live and who continues to record.
His response is to be the single biggest-selling British solo artist ever, and the third biggest-selling act in British chart history, beaten only by the Beatles and by Elvis Presley.
He has had more Top 20 hits than any other artist. Only he and Elvis had hits in all six of the first decades of the UK Singles Chart. Only he has had a Number One single in each of five consecutive decades.
In this country, he has sold twice as many records as, say, David Bowie, and well over twice as many as the Rolling Stones. Now, give me Bowie or the Stones any day. But the numbers don't lie.
Moreover, he is only three years older than Paul McCartney, he is only two years older than Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, and he was born in the same year as John Lennon. Yet he has been famous since well before any of them ever was.
Let's face it, we are talking about being seriously famous here. Seriously rich with it, too. All as, and by being, something approaching an unperson to Everyone Who Matters.
Look how a Billy Graham Crusade has been dragged into this long-predictable attempt at a takedown. And look how that event, already too ghastly in itself, has managed to surpass even that by being held in Sheffield.
No wonder that this is being played out on television. Anyone would assume that it were the script for a work of fiction. One of those ones which are not as clever as they think they are, and which are only about laughing at the common people.
Look at the charts in any week, month or year since pop music can reasonably be said to have begun. The apostles and prophets of the given period are all there, of course.
But so are all sorts of other people, and not as novelty acts: they took themselves entirely seriously, as did the fans who bought their records by the bucket load.
Cliff was originally so cool that when my father, as a curate in 1950s Leicester, was deputed to take the church youth club to see him, they became so excited that they smashed up the theatre and broke my father's arm, which was never right again.
But for most of British pop's history, Cliff has been the towering, the supreme, the definitive uncool act.
Even stations dedicated to oldies have written policies of not playing him, bizarrely describing the long-dead as more enduring than a man who still performs live and who continues to record.
His response is to be the single biggest-selling British solo artist ever, and the third biggest-selling act in British chart history, beaten only by the Beatles and by Elvis Presley.
He has had more Top 20 hits than any other artist. Only he and Elvis had hits in all six of the first decades of the UK Singles Chart. Only he has had a Number One single in each of five consecutive decades.
In this country, he has sold twice as many records as, say, David Bowie, and well over twice as many as the Rolling Stones. Now, give me Bowie or the Stones any day. But the numbers don't lie.
Moreover, he is only three years older than Paul McCartney, he is only two years older than Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, and he was born in the same year as John Lennon. Yet he has been famous since well before any of them ever was.
Let's face it, we are talking about being seriously famous here. Seriously rich with it, too. All as, and by being, something approaching an unperson to Everyone Who Matters.
Look how a Billy Graham Crusade has been dragged into this long-predictable attempt at a takedown. And look how that event, already too ghastly in itself, has managed to surpass even that by being held in Sheffield.
No wonder that this is being played out on television. Anyone would assume that it were the script for a work of fiction. One of those ones which are not as clever as they think they are, and which are only about laughing at the common people.
Brilliant. You are one are one of the great truth-tellers of our era.
ReplyDeleteYou are too, too kind.
Delete