Blake

@RichardBurgon I’m afraid it means giving up on Labour, Richard. It’s dead. Starmer and his ilk killed it in 2020.

Blame for Labour’s defeat lies squarely with Keir Starmer and his clique. They put factional interests over having the candidate best placed to win, Andy Burnham. If Labour is to be the “Stop Reform” party, then the leadership must stop treating progressive voters with contempt - and start appealing to them. That means a return to real Labour values - through policies like a Wealth Tax, public ownership of energy and water, and an ethical foreign policy that are all popular with the public. And it means ditching the approach of trying to ape Reform and kicking the left, that has alienated so many people who have voted Labour previously.

George Martin, the Beatles' producer, was received like that in Brazil, with the girls choir Meninas Cantoras de Petrópolis, in 1997. Song: "Because" by The Beatles. #smlpdf #sheetmusic #Noten #partituras #spartiti 乐谱 樂譜 sheetmusiclibrary.website

Our public services aren’t for a secretive profit-hungry US tech firm. Sign the petition to tell the Government to scrap all contracts with secretive US tech firm Palantir. you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/stop… via @38degrees

@jeremycorbyn @M_Star_Online 👏

For too long, Britain has blindly followed the United States as it indulges in disastrous imperial fantasies around the world. It’s time to forge a different path. My piece for @M_Star_Online. morningstaronline.co.uk/article/britai…

@OborneTweets @Pollydoodle1 “But Harold Wilson was onto something important when he said the Labour Party was a “moral crusade or it is nothing”.” 👏

Starmer was doomed the moment he sacked Sue Gray and chose instead the adolescent McSweeney. I charted this tragedy foretold in my Byline Times diary. Here are the relevant extracts:

@batcountry1980 “‘God’s Comic’ is not literature in disguise. It is songwriting pushed to its literary limit.” Such an amazing turn of phrase you have. Your analysis of the potential of a pop song in this tweet is phenomenal. Thank YOU 🙏

@BlakeTweets Cheers, Blake 🙏

You Might Have Never Heard ‘God’s Comic’: Analysing Elvis Costello’s Masterpiece 🧵 We often reach for terms like cinematic, novelistic, or play-like when trying to describe character-driven, dialogue-heavy storytelling songs, not because we want to smuggle music into another art form, but because the song itself is already operating at that level of ambition. ‘God’s Comic’ is one of those rare works. It is unmistakably a song, melodic, rhythmic, designed to be sung rather than read, yet it also functions as a one-act play, a philosophical parable, and a theological satire of extraordinary insight and intelligence. The genius of ‘God’s Comic’ isn’t in what it could be, though. This is not a song aspiring to be a work of literature. What makes it so remarkable is how Costello steps into the existential playgrounds of Beckett and Stoppard and creates something as intellectually heavy and probing as their work, but fundamentally different in kind. Its achievement lies not in borrowing literary prestige, but in demonstrating what songwriting can do when it fully embraces its own hybrid nature: words inseparable from music, drama unfolding in time, insight talking back and forth in rhyme. Above all, it is staggeringly underrated. Buried as an album track on ‘Spike’, a record that, while admired, is not usually counted among Costello’s towering peaks, ‘God’s Comic’ is the kind of work that, with a different narrative around it, would be routinely cited as a monumental achievement of the form. It is aiming high. Very high. Many songs could, with a little imagination, be adapted into plays. That observation is often made as a compliment, but it risks flattening important distinctions. There are plays, and there are great plays. What matters here is not whether ‘God’s Comic’ could be staged, but that it already thinks like a serious piece of drama. It has characters, dialogue, tension, and crucially, revelation.

#DavidBowie describes the art world as a “commerce establishment.” What he says re graffiti artists also applies to other art forms inc pop music. The truth about the way our world operates is depressing. Mammon is the god. Elitism preserves the status quo for the rich. Reject it

@MichaelOrgan1 @imzenxith @EasyRiderRecord Thank you very much, Michael! 🙏

More incredible Albums of 2025 that need to be heard: Zenxith – What’s Happening To Me? (Salt Mine) @imzenxith Blake – Flamingo Road (Rockhopper) @blaketweets Yalla Miku – 2 (Les Disques Bongo Joe) Zig Zags – Deadbeat At Dawn (RidingEasy) @easyriderrecord

@batcountry1980 You persuaded me! 👏

That’s my essay on substack about the greatest trilogy in all of music, and why Help! should definitely be in there. Bit about the Pepper concept in there too. Enjoy. open.substack.com/pub/garyduke19…

@batcountry1980 I respect that but I just don’t get that album. It was such a huge disappointment to me when it came out. I know they wanted simple songs they could tour with but to me it seemed like the magic had mostly gone. I think Let Me In is amazing though.

@BlakeTweets I go back to Monster a lot. Really like that album. Tongue is one of my favourite songs of theirs

Whether it’s singles or albums, us music fans love runs. And for my money, here’s one of the greatest, R.E.M.’s entire Berry era, from Chronic Town (it might be an EP, but it’s got to be included) right through to New Adventures in Hi-Fi. 🧵 A great run doesn’t hinge on years, or the amount of albums. Some are brief but brilliant. There’s something remarkable, though, about a band doing such a huge amount of amazing work over an extended stretch. You’ve got 11 records here across 14 years, and not a dud moment amongst them. Runs are, of course, subjective. There’s no point arguing for R.E.M.’s run if someone turns and says, “I don’t like R.E.M.” It’s a non-starter then. What matters isn’t how these albums stack up against other bands’ peaks, but how they hold up against each other. That’s what defines a great run, the consistency fans feel from start to finish. And while some insist on an I.R.S. versus Warner divide, I’ve never understood it. Document already has Scott Litt on board, and big crossover singles. It bridges perfectly into Green, and it feels like that transition would have happened whether they’d moved to a major label or not. The real brilliance of R.E.M. is the evolution, an organic growth worthy of study by Darwin. The I.R.S years flow into the Warners era, so by the time they take over the world with Out of Time, it feels completely natural, as if they’ve bent the world to their will rather than the other way around. That’s what makes this collection so incredible: sustained quality, organic development. And while I’ve grown to love Up and the albums that follow, these records stand together as a complete story, and one of the all time great runs.

Blair, Netanyahu and now Putin… how many war criminals are required for a Board of Peace? 🕊️

Pretty (Ugly Before) #ElliottSmith cover by @ThisIsBlake youtu.be/MIgahSlaxY0?si…

Mr Dawkins live at @SchtummPresents by @ThisIsBlake youtu.be/ptWWzieHhoE?si… #LiveMusic

@BeatlesPraise Thank u for yr insightful piece. I wasn’t born when Pepper was released but I was 16 on its 20th anniversary and I remember the fuss that was made about “it was 20 years ago today” then. There appears to have been a forgetting of its cultural significance & yr reminder is welcome

Please check out my new long-form article on Substack (after a VERY long hiatus), on the impact of Sgt. Pepper and how modern criticism misses the mark...for those who enjoy comments by other artists, there are lots of goodies for you. Hope you enjoy, and feel free to add your thoughts! #TheBeatles #SgtPepper #Influence #Revisionism perrygartner.substack.com/p/its-time-to-…

You too can look a right bobby-dazzler in these fetching Flamingo Road T shirts, now available from my merch store on Bandcamp. Also, there is 75% off my entire digital discography today for #bandcampfriday ‼️😚 thisisblake.bandcamp.com/album/flamingo…

@ITHERETWEETER1 @mstrstmsc @SurrealFacesG @jameslhewitson @arpraxis @Tom_Heideman @Staggandcollins @SamHaynes31 @vynilyn @Carnivali11 @celldweller @tpsbandofficial @Pepe_Deluxe @powerwolfband @roguefxsynth Awesome! Thank you! 🙌

Zeno.fm/radio/featured… all tracks on 24/7 rotation incl @mstrstmsc @BlakeTweets @SurrealFacesG @jameslhewitson @arpraxis @Tom_Heideman @Staggandcollins @SamHaynes31 @vynilyn @Carnivali11 @celldweller @tpsbandofficial @Pepe_Deluxe @powerwolfband @roguefxsynth @lyon_natali @Dre_Marian @PipLewisMusic @Crawling_Solo @MattKik @Locodomingoband @RobFillo @ForgeHounds And many more @theretweetermag Helping u get ur music heard

Big thanks to the @LostInTheManor crew for their very kind words about my new LP Flamingo Road 🦩 🙏

@owenjonesjourno @AaronMAC30 The Labour leadership told the Left to fuck off when they framed and ejected Corbyn. Why didn’t you leave then? I left as soon as that ***t was elected leader.

@AaronMAC30 I joined Labour about 16 years before Corbyn became leader. I left at the beginning of last year, after the Labour leadership very clearly told the left to fuck off. We did fuck off. And now you all seem rather unhappy that we did!

I warned - over and over again - that Keir Starmer would be a disastrous prime minister. That most political journalists did not understand the obvious tells its own story. New post, with receipts 👇 owenjones.news/p/i-warned-you…