They used Beautiful Day at the end of Sky's coverage of the 1998 cup final when Hearts beat Rangers 2-1.

I remember sitting watching it at about 4.00am the following morning tonking back vodka round at a party at my mates so I've always had a soft spot for it.

I do look like bathing though and really if they'd played some James Last instead I'd have ended up with a soft spot for that likely.

Yeah, I always thought "One Way of Life" was an extraordinarily trite lyric, particularly as so many of the people jumping up and down to it looked exactly the bleedin' same.

Weren't Design for Life and Common People astonishing songs, given the context of the bland, apolitical pop of the time? Their distinctiveness from the mid-90s pack deepens with the years.

Carcass wrote:


The Levellers' way of life is an orthodoxy though. "There's only one way of life - and that's your own"?



Depends how seriously you take them. Like their song The Boatman - great song, good lyrics (imo). But I couldn't hack living on a boat all year round, mainly because it would be bloody freezing for most of it here in Donegal.

It's a nice dream, though.

historyman wrote:
do others on here think that folk/roots based music has a credibility problem in England in comparison to the Celtic nations?

Yep, but Mumford and Sons have been selling something close to an Anglo-Irish folk-based music to a willing public all year. It's one of the top 10 selling albums of 2010. So even if there's a critical antipathy, there's an available crossover market.

E10 Rifle wrote:
Yeah, I always thought "One Way of Life" was an extraordinarily trite lyric, particularly as so many of the people jumping up and down to it looked exactly the bleedin' same.

There's also that thing about these lads from Colchester and rural Sussex singing about "My old dad worked in the factory all his days" and what have you. But I'm not sure how I feel about that, because I never mind it that much when Steve Earle does much the same thing. In the end it's about whether the song grabs you; for my money, in their dreams will they ever write anything as good as "The Mountain" or "Oxycontin Blues".

Perhaps 'One Way of Life' helped nudge key thinkers toward a 'Third Way' that - similarly - culturally conservative bigots could buy into while feeling good about themselves. It feels 12% rebellious, 72% "common sense", yet 16% a comforting, "we don't like them funny-looking fancymen." Sussex in a cup.

Aotearoa Beryl wrote:
historyman wrote:
do others on here think that folk/roots based music has a credibility problem in England in comparison to the Celtic nations?

Yep, but Mumford and Sons have been selling something close to an Anglo-Irish folk-based music to a willing public all year. It's one of the top 10 selling albums of 2010. So even if there's a critical antipathy, there's an available crossover market.

Yeh I have the album and I think most of it is great - if a little corny at times. But in my mind I have it down as Americana, and I know that has created a seperate issue in the press as to whether they are 'authentic' or not.

I wonder if the recession has had a significant impact on M&S breaking through - a rootsy, earthy and pastoral feel to their music striking a chord during hard economic times. The Levellers also got big during the last recession - coincidence?

That last paragraph could be just me on a completely different orbit to everybody else.

Oh god I heard a Mumford and Sons song on the radio the other day.
Without realising what it was, Pamela and I turned to each other and said "what is this shit?"
Then they told us.

I will see your Mumford and Sons and raise you one Seth Lakeman.

I've heard Seth Lakeman be uncharitably referred to as the "Bon Jovi of Folk" (which is probably a bit unfair on both him and Bon Jovi). He has gone down the route of making his music palatable for daytime radio 2 and as a result I just find him a bit dull.

To return to Why on Earth's point about people singing about their Dad working down the factory when that is obviously not true: any good folk singer, like any good pop singer, would acknowledge the essential artifice of what they're doing. Folk musicians are just trying to revive the pop music of the past if you think about it.