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A Touch of Class: Songs from the Morning Star
Various Artists
PPPS
A TOUCH OF CLASS is an album that has been put together to raise money for the Morning Star, with 13 artists donating tracks reflecting the turbulent times and struggles we are going through.
With a mixture of topics and musical genres, it certainly makes for an interesting listening experience.
The album gets off to a good start with Tony Bengtsson’s These Wars.
Setting the scene for later tracks, the song rails at the attacks on public-sector workers and the spending of money on warfare not welfare, pointing out the real war is at home.
This is followed by veteran topical songwriter Robb Johnson’s From Tolpuddle to Timbuktu reflecting themes of struggle and the need to keep left.
Themes of unity and opposition to attempts to divide the working class are an overriding theme of the album notably on Ron Brown’s For the Love of Mankind, while Stranger on a Tube by Jess Silk recounts a tale of seeing a woman on a Tube journey going to a far-right rally based on myths about getting our country back.
A standout track for me was These Are My People by Joe Solo and Rebekah Findlay featuring Carol Hodge and the My People Chorus. This is both a celebration of the diversity of the working class but also a reminder we are one working class.
And Bethany Eden’s Educate, Agitate, Organise along with Claire Mooney’s Heads Held High explore the need to fight for a future much bolder.
Most tracks are in a folk vein: the tempo, which changes somewhat with the rock pace of Ealdfeond’s Cheap Labour and Damn Near 48 Wednesday’s Service Economy, the topics of which are self-explanatory from the titles.
But while I felt they got over some political message, they didn’t quite have for me an enjoyable musical sound to remember afterwards, something the best protest songs have always done.
But the final track Our Sophisticated Weapon ends the album on a classical note. Composed by Ben Lunn and performed by Orkest de Ereprijs the piece contains words by Samora Michel and William Morris.
I feel that although some tracks worked better than others this seemed to be as good a way as any to finish an album to raise money for the Morning Star.
