The Jam Generation
February 18th, 2008 by Roo ReynoldsThe Sunday Supplement is one of the highlights of the Westminster Hour. This week’s was “The Jam Generation” (MP3), presented by Anne McElvoy of the Evening Standard.
Photo credit: ‘Jam of Sun’ by yvesmoreaux
None of the “music of conspicuous consumption of Duran Duran and Wham” for the Jam Generation. The people who lived their teenage years to an acoustic back-drop of Paul Weller’s ‘The Jam’ have reached the tops of their political parties.
Strange and fascinating to hear (around 08:20) that David Cameron listened to The Jam (and The Clash) while growing up. Hard to imagine him tapping his brand new shoes to The Eton Rifles when he was a member of the actual Eton Rifles. The cadet corps of Eton college, described by Weller as “a bunch of tossers” for heckling a socialist right-to-work march, inspired the song by the same name.
A largely interesting documentary, and is only fleetingly irritating when the politics is occasionally allowed to break the surface. I’ll be looking out for the second part next Sunday.
This is the third time I’ve talked about the Sunday Supplement but if you’re a real fan the Sunday Supplement Archive lets you listen to them all the way back to 2005.
February 18th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
I was going to blog this one myself, even if only because she seems to be talking about me - or at least my generation. In fact, most of the posh, bright-eyed pols on the show were actually younger than me. So that’s it, then. Looks like I’ve missed my chance for entry to the political elite all together.
February 18th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
The moment when I knew, absolutely, that I was going to hate my three years of university was when I heard a load of public school people gathered in a room singing Eton Rifles with a couple of acoustic guitars.