By The Landlord
"One day you're the statue. One day you're the pigeon." – Diane Sawyer, broadcaster
“Statues to great men are made of the stones thrown at them in their lifetime.” – Jean Cocteau, film-maker
“The United States: the country where liberty is a statue.” – Nicanor Parra, Chilean poet
“The statue of freedom has not been cast yet, the furnace is hot, we can all still burn our fingers.” – Georg Büchner, German author
“There are many statues of men slaying lions, but if only the lions were sculptors they might be quite different.” – Aesop, sage
We all have them – heroes and heroines. They might be in music, sport, film, politics or greater social change. Or they could be away from the public realm – someone who was a personal idol, a mentor, perhaps even a parent, a friend, an older sibling, or a lover. But things, of course, can change.
On two different occasions, around five and 10 years ago, I hosted and attended parties in which there was a dressing-up theme – come as your childhood hero. A good time was had of course, with many amusing and genuinely affectionate costumes of characters real and fictional. Some harked back to childhood TV – Mr Benn and Hong Kong Fooey for example, or characters from Sesame Street or the Muppets, and James Bond 007.
There were also couple of Kate Bushes who had a Wuthering Heights dance-off, two Purple Rain-era Princes, a Jimi Hendrix, a Marc Bolan, a Suzi Quatro, a David Bowie naturally, some footballers – George Best, Kevin Keegan, Kenny Dalglish, and Bryan Robson – as well as the Soviet gymnast Olga Korbut, Björn Borg, Muhammed Ali and Bruce Lee, and even a Jacques Cousteau in full scuba gear. And then there were ones that were a little more ironic. TV's Noel Edmonds in a loud jumper, a big Irish friend dressed as the Pope, and then two edgier ones. I can't remember whether rather racy Gary Glitter was pre-scandal. But the Jimmy Savile was definitely before his death, his sex crimes had not emerged, so to the child now within the adult, he was a genuine, if slightly unconventional hero.
Jimmy Savile. British TV presenter, DJ, charity fundraiser, friend to royalty, sex criminal of huge proportions
Such is the level of disgrace and heinous disgust that came out when he died in 2011, Savile doesn't even have a gravestone now, let alone a statue. But without those posthumous sex crime revelations, surely there would be one of him now outside Stoke Mandeville Hospital, or the BBC headquarters, having raised so many millions for charity, a great grooming distraction for his crimes, and having been a strange but definitely heroic figure for millions of children for two decades on his BBC TV show – Jim'll Fix It. But of what other high achievers, famed for their fundraising, philanthropy or philandering? Beyond big business and apparent generosity there is is often a long shadow of dubiousness. And might perspectives radically change after their death?
Slave trader Edward Colston, let down in Bristol harbour
In the wake of George Floyd and other deaths at police hands, and a mountain of racist history spurring the Black Lives Matter movement, came the the symbolically important removal of the statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol, as well as a revision of historic figures memorialised in stone and brass. In his day Colston was presumably a revered figure, a hero. Now he is fallen, into the water and removed. Robert Milligan of course, is justifiably also being removed, but then there's John Cass, but some raise questions, such as other the effigy of Thomas Guy at Guy's Hospital, the one founded along with other institutions as a pioneering MP, with wealth generated as shareholder of the 17th and 18th century slave-trading South Sea Company. Then there’s Sir Francis Drake, Elizabethan military hero but also slave trader. And many more.
Robert Milligan in London.
And of course Winston Churchill, not a slave trader, and undoubted vital role in leading Britain against Nazi Germany in World War II, but also a man responsible for many British colony atrocities in his earlier career, glossed over in his memoirs and books. And that's just Britain. Slave trader King Leopold II of Belgium is heavily memorialised in that county, and there are many more such figures set in stone or brass across Europe, the US and elsewhere. The line is hard to draw. Education and perspective are the only answer. British idiots doing Nazi salutes while supposedly turning up to protect Churchill's statue must surely be compulsorily jailed and re-educated.
Sir Winston Churchill. Undoubted hero, but also racist and war criminal in his earlier career. Perhaps his statue should smartly engrave and record all the facts
So just to be clear, this week's topic is certainly not about military heroes who died saving others, and are posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross or anything like that. It's very much the opposite. It is on songs about people who were held in high esteem but fell from grace, either in their lifetime or later on. And they could also be people outside of the public realm – a disappointing father, or a lover or brother who let the narrator down, but the thing is that they must have been admired, loved, or held in high esteem before their downfall. Ideally the song can capture the arc of their story, or at least make reference to them, whether historic or current, public or private. In the past we've dipped into songs about hero worship and also disappointment, but this is a different area with only some overlap.
We have a few iconic figures in the Bar today eager to take more about statues and heroism.
Hand stand? Saddam Hussain becoming somewhat out of fashion
“Heroes, eh?” says Ralph Waldo Emerson. “Every hero becomes a bore at last.” Many heroes in statue form are forgotten for what they’ve actually achieved. Some statues of men of the past are to to their own vanity and of course wealth. “The man who is ostentatious of his modesty is twin to the statue that wears a fig-leaf,” adds Mark Twain. “And on the other end of things,” adds WH Auden, “a dead man who never caused others to die seldom rates a statue.”
What else could be done with statues? "Imagine painting all the statues in the world in the colour of the sky," suggests Yoko Ono. But is there something slightly sad about statues being destroyed, not because of who portray, but because in a different perspective they are works of art created by great skill and much toil? It’s an interesting point, but can that depend on what the statue represents? Are we ever melancholy when a statue is torn down? Perhaps if you were the one who built it. “We build statues out of snow, and weep to see them melt,” says Walter Scott, capturing a human contradiction, and how time and an knowledge limit us. “Well, here is a statue of limitation,” chips in the film mogul pioneer, Samuel Goldwyn, mischievously.
Lenin in Ukraine. Dignified exit? Change in perspective?
What causes heroes or heroines to fall? It is arguable that celebrities or figures of high-profile get up to all sorts of shenanigans, but it is simply the case that some get caught, or their PR machine lets them down. The causes are generally the usual vices. Sex of course is a big one, in some cases consequential carelessness and marital infidelity (Tiger Woods, Bill Clinton) in others on a whole other level (Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Bill Cosby and in the UK the Yewtree scandal figures).
But then there are sexual charges that leave a reputation in suspension. How will history ultimately judge Michael Jackson? Jerry Lee Lewis infamously married his 13-year-old cousin when he was in his 20s. It is easy to forget how much the scandal tarnished his profile and popularity, not to mention his wallet, with live performance fees dropping from $10,000 per night to $250, but time has taken the edge from that, and that particular fallen hero is likely to be only remembered for his piano pioneering rock’n’roll, so how might that leave others who have currently fallen from grace, such as Michael Jackson, or others listed here?
Too much in bad taste? This giant Michael Jackson statue next to McDonald’s sign. Now removed.
And there are other causes. Drugs and drink go hand in hand of course (Whitney Houston), and then there are those who are simply addicted to attention and controversy (Kanye West, Morrissey). And in politics, some fall from grace is simply down to stupidity, arrogance or incompetence (Richard Nixon, Charles I, Marie Antoinette).
Here then are a couple of starter songs about privately being let down:
So then, I’m sure what will happen next will be anything but a let down. it’s time to turn over the topic to you, whether that be songs that mention famous, infamous or unknown fallen heroes in private lives. I’m delighted to reveal that this week’s fine figure cast in our own particular Song Bar bronze, who will no doubt remain a revered icon of music judgement, is ShivSidecar! Please place your nominations in comments below in time for deadline on Monday 11pm UK time, for playlist published on Wednesday. I’m sure history will judge and preserve us all here with kindness, and admiration.
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