Johnny Foreigner walk us through Forwards!, track by track.
Foreword
A found future song about Birmingham, media pulled from the smoking rubble of the Rotunda, written in the far future and looking back. My family really does have a blue plaque. I got invited to the unveiling, more cos I'm the last of my linage still living here than any actual involvement, and I noshowed for similar reasons. It should be on Snobs but history is written by those who want to sell books about it.
The Remnants of the Lunar Society
Brummagem at the end of the 18th century had become famous for religious tolerance, progressive working conditions, a fair and balanced working government, and was also the place for a pub lunch with passing Frenchmen and Americans to discuss ways of automating factories and disposing of the bourgeoisie. Every city had a Lunar Society; a group of Learned Gentlemen who met under the safety of a bright full moon and discussed the latest science and philosophy trends. But only Brum had an informal team with the power and desire to modernise the city and materially improve the lives of those that called it home. It couldn't last; this record starts off on the precipice of that decline.
The Sacking of Fairhill House
A fun song about the gutter press, religious right and government all colluding to dogwhistle up some angry mobs, that set fire to places suspected of harbouring subversive foreigners, in order to keep the population divided and distracted from asking them some awkward questions about why the fuck are some media barons and other powerful lobbies even allowed to have such a damaging and ruinous influence on our communities. Set in 1791 ofc.
The Concrete Collar
An ode to Herbert Manzoni and the second Birmingham Blitz, that both cleared the Victorian slums and installed a ring road that choked the city centre. No research, no studies, just some bulldozers, vibes, and that mediocre white man confidence that this was inarguably right thing to do, whatever the folks that actually lived here said.
City Elders Refrain
A news report about the latest vacant historic building that just like, went on fire in the night for no real reason, but luckily the land owners had a plan to build some high end apartment blocks there so really everyone's a winner. Progress!!
The Rea Will Rise Again
A little song for the forgotten river under Digbeth that made us, and how it will eventually rise and drown everything it bought here in the first place.
The New Navigation
A fun ditty about how Westminster choked post war expansion with the IDC, and is now buying up our assets to save us from the debt spiral they designed in the first place. We've literally been reinventing ("futureproofing" lol) ourselves as London But Cheaper since 1166. Maybe we just need one more combination shopping mall/train terminus, then That London will cuck us less.
The Great Work
A song for all the great patriots out there bravely putting up Flags Of Are Cuntry to inspire a sense of community, belonging and friendly local pride. "Not far right, just right so far" they exclaim, as they blame immigrants for simultaneously taking both their jobs and dole checks. You don't have to be a radicalised fascist to laugh react at corpses floating in the channel but I reckon it probably helps. This song was going to be called "go back to yr own, johnny foreigner" but all the others are named after various Bham media and phrases. The Great Work is an 18th century reference to the Lunar Society's ethos of, essentially, build stuff, become better, so interpolating it to fit the grift of the current shit stirring Blackshirts felt smugly right on the nose.
City Elders Reprise
A seance but channelled spirits are just repeating the same sentence over and over, louder and louder and also somehow they're drunk.
Yr Ideas
Archival personal correspondence from Matthew Bolton to James Watt imploring him to move to Birmingham, hang out and maybe invent the Industrial Revolution.
