I don’t want to get all revolutionary on a Saturday morning. And I certainly don’t want to get myself confused with the small movement of anti-vaccine and anti-mask wearers who sometimes have been gathering together to march in the name of their cause. But it was always a surprise to me that almost a decade of austerity (as a Government policy) didn’t lead to more protest on the streets than it did. I realise that there were gatherings of smaller scale but in impact terms, they were nothing like those marches in London back in the day to protest against the validity of the Gulf War.
In the last years, popular protest seemed to take a step forward. Extinction Rebellion really seemed able to tap into the growing desire for environmental change with their deliberately disrupting activities. And the response to the horrific murder of George Floyd was encouraging. People across the UK making a stand alongside their US friends to say that Black Lives really do matter – and in doing so highlighting some of the hypocritical practices and statements we still have operating in the UK. In the midst of the first lockdown, things got quite heated for a while.
I live in hope that, once this Covid thing is all done, the use of protest to get voices heard (preferably the ones I agree with of course) is something that becomes more the norm than the exception. And I suspect that the four members of The Lunar Keys, ‘anxious types from the suburbs of London, with too many tunes and nervous energy trapped in their Psyches not to be in this band‘, would all broadly agree with me.
Their recent release, If It Was, is a song about protest and possibilities. Hidden within a neat, well delivered Indie-Rock tune, we get a call-to-arms simple chorus asking the listener the question “If It was just a choice you could make, Would you change the world today, Would you sign it with your name?”
I ask The Lunar Keys what one thing they would change about the world today. “We would make all world Governments and Corporations accountable to Amnesty International, the WHO and the UN“, they say before adding, “and if we were allowed one more (hypothetically) a ban on any entity of Super Rich…..at the Risk of Human Rights and the Planet.”
Worthy causes but if the revolutionary zeal and ardour within is a little bit strident for you today, The Lunar Keys do add “On the lighter side -We would ban blue smarties.”
Now there is a cause that we could all protest against, right?
sonicbreakfast 