Irish Blood English Heart: Second Generation Irish Musicians in England

Coda: From the Margins to the Centre

145 Coda: From the Margins to the Centre This book has addressed the diverse ‘routes’pursued by second-generation Irish musicians, exploring three high-profile projects in the 1980s. Its account of Rowland,MacGowan and Morrissey/Marr illumines the different means by which Irishness was engaged by Irish-descended figures in the popular-cultural sphere, stressing the significance of this issue for second-generation music-makers. While Rowland sought to mediate between Irish and English cultures, staging an intervention against certain silences and misconceptions about the Irish in Britain, MacGowan served to express the lived experience of being both Irish and English, forging an irreducibly London-Irish style, and evoking the traditional/ ethnic and contemporary/urban aspects of second-generation life in equal measure.At the same time,Morrissey and Marr evinced an ambivalence and uncertainty towards notions of ‘home’and origins (a sensibility that resonates with many second-generation Irish people) while staging a dissident critique of England. Informing all of these projects, it would seem, was a wish to claim space for, and to give voice to, a certain ‘outsider ’view. In this context, Morrissey says that the satisfaction he felt in The Smiths came from ‘standing in front of people and forcing them to accept you,or take your life on board’.1 In a similar vein,both MacGowan and Rowland sought – in different ways – to stage definite ‘outsider’ views. In this respect, the musicians surveyed in this book underline pop’s potential to act as ‘a voice and a face for the dispossessed’,2 reminding us that pop can bring ‘visibility and partial social inclusion’, as Jon Savage puts it, to ‘previously outcast social groups’.3 The Irish-English ‘routes’ observed in this book can also illuminate what, for Simon Frith, is ‘most interesting about music’ – that is, ‘its blurring of insider/outsider boundaries’.4 Thus, the migrant Irish slip, through a certain musical sphere, into the stream of English culture, confusing – in the process – centre/margin distinctions. Reflecting on this point, Kevin Rowland suggests that the most ‘significant thing’ about the second-generation Irish is their place at the forefront of British culture, as evinced through their role in British pop.5 Such transitions 146 ‘Irish Blood, English Heart’ (from fringes to hub) can be fruitful and dynamic, re-energising the host culture whilst enabling the migrant group.In this context,England has not acted simply as ‘perfidious Albion’(as it has in Irish-nationalist discourses),6 for it has furnished both possibility and prejudice, and has thus helped to facilitate (as well as constrain) second-generation Irish creative pursuits. If this generation accrued – from their upbringing – certain tastes and sensibilities associated with the migrant group, then these would come to interface with (and perhaps be enlivened by) the frames and styles of the host culture. While the musicians surveyed here often saw Irish ethnicity as a wellspring for their work, they equally saw in England ‘opportunity and adventure’ – as Marr would put it – and pursued the national popular culture with aspirational desire whilst being alert (and also subjected) to anti-Irish prejudice.7 Thus, the musicians observe that while their work was often born of an Irish context, it simultaneously drew on strands of the host culture (and other sources), suggesting that we might think of music as – in Mark Slobin’s terms – ‘coming from many places’.8 In this context, Rowland says that while he sought to engage with Irish styles and themes, he did not wish to do ‘just an Irish thing’, pointing to the ‘massive influence’ of England and its urban cultures, which he says he was ‘shaped’ by and in turn ‘embraced’.9 Even MacGowan – the most overtly ‘Irish’ of the musicians addressed here – was keen to stress the English aspects of The Pogues’ œuvre. Leaving aside his London-Irish persona (and metropolitan imaginary), the singer would occasionally claim that The Pogues were a ‘London band’that played ‘Irish music’.10 Moreover, MacGowan’s colleagues would observe in his lyrics not only the afflictions of the outsider but also an affection for England.11 Such affection has also been expressed by Morrissey, who, despite seeing England as a place of constraint (‘it hammers people down and it pulls you back and it prevents you’), has evinced an attachment to the place, often in overblown ways.12 While this investment in England (which emerged shortly after The Smiths’ demise) was...