Deep breath. I hold these truths to be self-evident:
1. Associating “Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead” with the death of Thatcher is crass. I won’t be buying the single. Calling a female politician a witch doesn’t particularly impress me, either.
2. By putting the story on their front page, the Mail and Telegraph have turned buying the song from a puerile joke into an act of defiance, and massively increased sales. (Hey, don’t just listen to me: tell ’em, Nigel Farage. “If you suppress things then you make them popular, so play the bloody thing. If you ban it it will be number one for weeks.”)
3. The BBC should not censor the chart show based around the whims of the newspapers, left or right wing. It has an editorial code, and breaches of this should be the only reason not to play a song on the chart show. Similarly, the BBC shouldn’t editorialise around the song. It is what it is.
4. References to the “taxpayer funded” BBC should alert you that the speaker really wishes that the BBC didn’t exist in its current form. The taxpayers (licence fee payers) funding the BBC have no collective wish about the playing of the song. Some will be against it; some will be for it. Some, like me, will wish the entire chart show was replaced with more topical comedy panel shows and Stephen Fry documentaries about the etymology of English. No one listens to us. The only “vote” anyone gets in this is what single they buy.
5. No one over the age of 25 ever listens to the chart show. Do you have any idea what’s number one right now? (Apparently it’s “Need U (100 per cent)” by Duke Dumont featuring Ame.) At least this weekend, today’s youngsters will be listening to some Proper Music. We could introduce a whole generation to the delight of musical theatre. Imagine!
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