Grace Petrie is currently on repeat on my iPod, as well as her CDs being in my car. She is that good. A woman with a guitar, she turned up on my radar at the 2010 Glastonbury Festival. Billy Bragg introduced her and, as always, he had a story to tell. The crowd, in the Leftfield, learned that Grace Petrie had approached him after one of his Leicester gigs. She had handed him a CD of her own songs. He went away and listened to them, before immediately contacting her to invite her to play Glastonbury.
The Leftfield loved her. Comments like 'the female Billy Bragg' have been over-used then and since, but not without reason. It is fair to say that she stole the show in both years that she played there. She did so with a mixture of vitriolic lyrical rants, against the British Coalition government, and love songs that range from the poignant to the hilarious. She was back again at the 2011 Glastonbury Festival and this was what finally prompted me to buy all three albums and the newly released EP. I was in a long queue to do so.
Grace Petrie: When No-one's Listening.
When No-one's Listening is the aforementioned EP. It was released on June 28th, 2011, and features Grace Petrie on vocal, guitar and harmonica. Caitlin Field provides backing and harmonies on all of the same, while Tim Knight provides the percussion on the bodhran.
Unlike her recent album Tell Me a Story, the emphasis on her EP is more about the politics than the ups and downs of her love life. Of the four tracks, three are protest songs. They are giving eloquent, passionate voice to the current generation of Britain's youth. The final track is a love song, as lost and sweet as any on Tell Me A Story.
The EP's title comes from a lyric in the opening song, Emily Davison Blues, and epitomises the emotion of all four songs. Whether in politics or in love, the sense of alienation and exclusion is clear. Fortunately, when Grace Petrie kicks back, it's in tunes that will stay in your head for a long time to come.
Grace Petrie: Emily Davison Blues.
In December 2010, Grace Petrie took her guitar and a camera to the Sheffield constituency office of deputy prime minister Nick Clegg. She stood outside the door, in the snow, and played Emily Davison Blues. That anecdote alone should contextualise this song in the modern political climate. It's about the electorate feeling like they have not got a voice, unless drastic action is taken to make government sit up and take notice.
This message is reinforced with reference to the eponymous Emily Wilding Davison. As a British woman, during the opening years of the 20th century, Ms Davison was quite literally silenced. She had no right to vote. As one of the most famous Suffragettes of the time, she blew up buildings, amongst other headline grabbing actions. When it still seemed that no-one was listening, Ms Davison martyred herself, in the name of Women's Suffrage, on June 4th, 1913.
There is a note of fury and despair in Grace Petrie's voice, as she ponders the political landscape in 2011. She wonders how far modern British subjects will have to go, before those in power pay attention. This is not a suicide note, but there is definitely a deep empathy for the situation in which Emily Wilding Davison found herself.
Grace Petrie: Maggie Thatcher's Dream.
Recession, rising unemployment, reckless City banking and spending cuts dogged British affairs for half a decade, before Petrie wrote Maggie Thatcher's Dream. For Petrie's generation, the future looks bleak. Many of the things that her parents took for granted, like owning a home and state paid higher education, have gone. The darkest headlines talk about how not even a pension awaits in old age for today's youth.
This track is a poignant commentary on this outlook. As a twenty-four year old, Petrie wonders if it was something that she personally did wrong, or the inevitable consequence of Thatcherism. Since prime minister Margaret (Maggie) Thatcher introduced her Capitalist policies, from 1979, they have arguably been perpetuated by every successive government. There is only one note of optimism, as Petrie muses on the fact that, once everyone is in poverty, then Socialism might have a chance again.
Grace Petrie: Tonne of Bricks.
In the winter of 2010, 50,000 protestors marched through London campaigning against the imposition of tuition fees, which put higher education out of the range of the majority of British students. Many of those campaigning were teenagers and twenty-somethings, who had been raised to work towards gaining a degree. While initially peaceful, some of the marches became more riotous, often in response to real or perceived police heavy-handedness. For those arrested, abnormally high sentences were quickly meted out in courtrooms.
Grace Petrie has rarely sounded so furious, in the defence of her peers. She references the Bullingdon Club, a group attached to the prestigious Oxford University, whose membership is solely upper class. Their reputation, for 200 years, has revolved around destructive behaviour towards property. Prime Minster David Cameron was one of its members. This club has never been lambasted in the press nor its students arrested. Unlike their poorer counterparts, who committed similar acts in the name of justice.
Grace Petrie: Orbit.
Orbit is the sole love song on this EP. Petrie plays it softly, but the lyrics tell of alienation and stagnation in a teenage relationship. She feels like she's merely orbiting around her partner, feeling the cold. She tells how she's tried hard to make it work, but she's starting to burn out.
There are references to James Dean's role in 'Rebel Without a Cause'. It is the ultimate anthem to unsatisfactory first love.
Source:
- Channel 4: When Boris Met Dave. (Televised on October 7th, 2010.)
- Grace Petrie (official website): When No-one's Listening.
- The Telegraph, Student tuition fee protest: student arrested over Millbank fire extinguisher incident. (November 12th, 2010.)
Jo Harrington - Jo has a BA (Hons) in History and Philosophy and a MA in History. She has a book published on the history of Wicca.
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