The Waterboys - Old England

"Old England is dying. His clothes are a dirty shade of blue and his ancient shoes worn through."

 
Album: This is the Sea (3rd album)
Genre: Rock, Indie Rock, Jangle Pop, Big Music
Album Release: September 16th 1985
Length: 5.32
Producer: Mike Scott & Mick Glossop
Vocalist: Mike Scott (age 27)
Label: Chrysalis Records

Audio


Live from Glastonbury 1986 (Audio Only)

Charts, Streams & Sales

Spotify: Over 1 million
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Credits

Bass, harmonium, percussion, saxophone

Details

• Singer Mike Scott has said that, as they were made before the band had even played a gig, the first two Waterboys records were essentially solo efforts. So in effect, this album, is the first from 'The Waterboys' as a collective.
  
  
• The song title 'Old England' is taken from a passage by James Joyce in Ulysses (1922).
• The Clash released a similar song, 'This Is England' two weeks later.
  
  
• The song is intended as a condemnation of Britain's so-called resurgence under Thatcher rule. It features the grumblings of a man disaffected by social change after the end of empire. He alludes to passages by famous poets and pontificates.
  
  He is dismayed by the current state of affairs and doesn't know what to do. He can't see a bright future for England and all around him the music howls, gradually rising to a furious crescendo as Scott decries that it's the poor, "the children with heroin eyes," who suffer while the new England is born, or as the old England dies.
  
  The song is a retort to the neoliberal economic policies of the 1980s Conservative government. They transferred money to the wealthiest parts of society hoping they would invest and create jobs for the poor in a process known as trickle down economics.

Artwork