Music Arcades: Robert Wyatt: Nothing Can Stop Us

"Ideologically sound." Not a term you hear very often now, having been supplanted by "politically correct", which is the mindset of the traffic cop. I don't know if Robert Wyatt has even been politically correct, notwithstanding his wheelchair, but a quarter of a century ago he was the epitome of ideological soundness. I've every reason to believe he still is; it's just the world that's gone ideologically rootless.

Still, it's strange to listen to songs so evidently of that era when Michael Foot was leading the Labour Party, and the grand narrative of collective ownership had yet to be abandoned. (Pedantry note: I am aware that some of the songs on this compilation of singles were probably recorded before Foot became Labour Leader; I like playing loose with the facts.)

You might guess that I bought this to build ideological capital with people like Matt and Nick. But, no — or not solely. There was an interview with David Byrne where he said that he found most political songs didn't move him — unless they were sung by Robert Wyatt. Everyone used to go on about how great Shipbuilding was. I've always thought it was a bit ham-fisted. So I didn't get that; I got this instead, around the same time as, or just before, Work in Progress.

I didn't like it as much as Work in Progress, and I still don't. Today even the covers of Ivor Cutler and Chic fail to flow like they used to. And much of the rest is what might just have given ideology a bad name in the first place.

Sorry, don't feel I've expressed myself very well here — not for the first time, I know — still feeling under the weather.