I like parody songs, I’ve liked them since I first heard stuff by Tom Lehrer on the radio or on vinyl. The best of parody songs can stick in the mind long after the news item or social issue or piece of music that the song is parodying is no longer a current one, or may even take on new meanings for future audiences in the context of their own times.

Tom Lehrer’s song ‘National Brotherhood Week’, which appears to me to be a parody of an upbeat and bouncy show-tune, written in the context of the racial and social upheavals of the America of the 1950’s to the 1960’s stands up today. It stands up not just as a historical record of a particular time but also speaks to me of the falseness and frailty of top down Government imposed, as opposed to organically created, multiculturalism. Sometimes the parody of a song manages to catch the public’s imagination as it did for Weird Al Yankovitch’s 1984 hit ‘Eat It’ a parody of Michael Jackson’s ‘Beat it’ which sold extremely well.

One song I continue to like, even though I’ve not shared the adaptor and performer’s politics for many decades, is Billy Bragg’s version of Which Side Are You On?’ I’ve linked to the original Bragg version below. It takes some musical liberties with the original written by Florence Patton Reece and gives the tune new words related to the Great Miners Strike of 1984/1985. It is this Bragg version that I’m parodying below and have used the subject of two tier policing and police politicisation as my theme. It’s my first attempt at a song parody like this and hope you like it.

Harken good you police officers
We can tell well with who you stand
It isn’t those that you should serve
But with the killers of this land

Chorus
Which side are you on, boys?
Which side are you on, boys?
Which side are you on, boys?
Which side are you on?

You ignored rapine savagery
In Telford and elsewhere
You treated rapists better
Than those who should have got your care

You chucked away your honour
Your trust is now threadbare
You gone and got politicised
From the time of Tony Blair

Officer how do you sleep at night
Two Tiering all you can
You’re nothing less than paid for thug
A weak shadow of a man

You’ve lost the public’s trust now
That’s now your fatal flaw
The British are now fighting
Against your two tier law

Link

Billy Bragg’s version of ‘Which side are you on?’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMqH5broeh8&list=RDyMqH5broeh8&start_radio=1

and

Tom Lehrer’s ‘National Brotherhood Week’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIlJ8ZCs4jY&list=RDaIlJ8ZCs4jY&start_radio=1