‘Every generation blames the one before’
Mike + the Mechanics sang
On their 1988 hit
‘The Living Years’

Every generation blames the one before
Every generation claims the one before
Every generation shames the one before

Feelings of Shame

It’s festival season
And You are looking at the lineup
Not knowing your Jockstrap from your Joy Orbison
These are just names
in the ether

Failure

understanding that Royal Blood is a thing
without knowing a single Royal Blood tune

Embarrassment

At the inability to differentiate Tom Grennan from Tom Walker

Every man is stubbly and tattooed
And all women are Dua Lipa
See
you know who Dua Lipa is
Pat yourself on the back
Now name me one Dua Lipa song

You are Losing touch
Drifting apart

But it’s not you
Being left behind
It’s the world

Every generation blames the one before

Outside Gospel Oak station
You experience Feelings of comfort
When you pass a billboard
Advertising a concert by The Strokes
The Strokes
You know who they are
You recognise their faces
Julian
Fabrizio
Albert
Nikolai and…
Also on the lineup
the Yeah Yeah Yeahs
You know who the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are too

For a brief moment
the world makes sense

It’s 2001 again
The world is not a threat
You are 20
And music will never be better

20 plus years later
you gaze at the lineup for Blur’s Wembley shows
Paul Weller
Sleaford Mods
Yeah year you get it
You even know who Self Esteem is
You’ve seen her
on Later with Jools Holland
And Jools’s Hootenanny

But then there’s that name again
Jockstrap

Maybe they’ve been on Jools
But how would you know

Times were you’d tune in
And Jools would have
Jay-Z
Foo Fighters
Sting
And a chat with Ginger Baker

But now there are only
Unfamiliar Names and faces
Not even a Jockstrap to anchor you in the now

While the wife’s away
You treat yourself to the kind of movie
The missus has no interest in watching
2019’s ‘Bait’
Directed by Mark Jenkin
You enjoy its vivid imagery
The analogue black and white film stock is almost alive
In the ways it crackles and flashes
‘Bait’ deftly handles the story of a man adrift
Adrift From the modern world

After the film finishes
You do what people do
And have a poke around The internet
to find out more about the film
You click through the Wiki
And one cast member links not to their personal biography
But to Jockstrap

This is it
You can postpone no longer
You must engage with contemporary culture
and actually find out who Jockstrap are

In case you’re wondering
Who The you in this hypothetical scenario is
Is it I

Paul Haworth