A few weeks ago I received my results from first-semester exams for the third year of the law course and after a month or so of not getting any sleep and regurgitating textbook passages and passed down notes (students who pass down their notes deserve the Ġieħ ir-Repubblika, they carry the law course on their backs and most togas are heavily indebted to them), I decided to treat myself.
Anyone who knows me, knows I’m obsessed with my little vinyl record collection and eagerly take on any excuse to add to it, with the latest occasion being the end of exams.
It’s quite an odd little collection and a mishmash of different genres from post-punk/kind of goth albums from the 70s and 80s; 60s ‘Vietnam era’ rock, film soundtracks (currently trying to hunt down Trainspotting) to my personal favourite in my collection which is a 45’ single with the A-Side being l-Innu Malti and the B-side being Sbejħa Patrija (I am heavily aware of the uncool political nerdiness of this statement, nonetheless I stand by it).
Despite being an expensive and honestly just pretentious hobby, collecting records still feels special, actually going to D’Amato and spending an hour or three browsing the stock only to leave with the opposite of what you planned on getting, going home, playing the record etc etc.
It’s an experience. Yes, streaming is convenient and I’m married to my AirPods, but the buzzing of the needle drop just makes you feel warm and fuzzy. Long-winded, music nerd, introduction aside, I sometimes feel like that entire ‘experience’ that makes my hobby feel so special is missing from politics.
I find Parliament to be so cold, corporate and uninviting, speeches read word for word (I’m guilty of this sometimes too) and question time wasted and turned into a Labour press conference by the government backbenchers, all these things make me feel like that one kid in class who just couldn’t sit still. What a waste of an institution.
Some of my albums remind me of the Labour Government. Bill Clinton had actually used the Fleetwood Mac hit ‘Don’t Stop’ as his campaign song back in the 90s – quite a funny little irony there being that the band wrote hit after hit about cheating on each other, and Clinton isn’t exactly ingrained in pop culture for his policies.
As for Malta, there are obvious (maybe lazy) puns you could draw. Every time I listen to a minister defend a crook or mislead everyone about their inflated achievements, my brain starts singing “tell me lies tell me sweet little lieeeeess tell me tell me tell me lies”
A friend of mine made a funnier pun in general that the Labour government is like a bad boyfriend that cheats on you, treats you terribly and lies, but then dangles your own cash in front of you and manipulates you. Honestly, I laughed but ended up agreeing.
It reminded me about that one antidote that’s (mis)attributed to Stalin. In this story, the Soviet Union’s dictator demonstrated to his advisors the ease of controlling a subjugated individual. He plucked a live chicken bare and bleeding, then released it.
Unable to escape, the chicken returned to Stalin for warmth. He fed it grain, and despite its pain, the chicken followed him. Stalin explained, likening people to the chicken, that control is achieved by first stripping them, then offering care.
It’s always the same story under a Labour administration, they mess up, the country plunges into a mini-crisis, they smack some fancy PR as crisis management, then congratulate themselves for finding solutions.
It’s quite tiring, nauseating and just annoying to witness this story again and again, be it in terms of climate change, power cuts, the construction industry, overdevelopment, overpopulation, cheques and the rest of the never-ending list. Although a lack of vision may sound like a tired political slogan, it is actually not only true but very consequential.
I’s the little local things you hear during house visits too. A road would have just been laid and, due to incompetence or a lack of planning (whether it’s intentional or not is anyone’s guess), just leads to shabby work which is damaged within a few weeks or months, sometimes even days, and it’s back to square one and everything has to be done all over again.
It’s not only the massive inconvenience to residents but also the waste of public funds, which is even more infuriating when you hear stories of people in need or initiatives which are desperate for funding but are always met by closed doors and budgets that don’t cater for them.
I’m aware this might all just sound silly, but I feel like commentary has gone past the point of seriousness when we see jokes for national headlines every evening, maybe we should deal with it all with some dry, annoying humour and compare the Government to a bad boyfriend and Labour press conferences to Fleetwood Mac albums.
I find it quite easy to think of Robert Abela when listening to Fortunate Son by Creedence Clearwater Revival, a 1969 track about the privileged few, like sons of senators growing up with a silver spoon, dodging the Vietnam war draft, taxes, and responsibility for just about anything they claim to stand by.
It’s quite easy to make the comparison to the country’s leader, the son of a president, brought up on a sliver spoon and lofty contracts who claims to be the face of the fight for the working class while the rest of us read the headlines and allegations of money laundering and stories of the actual working class struggling to make ends meet, crushed by the cost of living crisis.