It’s pretty weird talking about Brexit now, given we are now in a new low. But there is something so personal and candid in Goldenbloom’s new single ‘(Great) Britain’. So we asked Jordan to get us through the lyrics.
Jordan: We’d just released our debut EP ‘Life’, which was almost entirely fuelled on ennui and angst about modern living in London. I think I’d just got off a phone call with my mum where she’d told me she’d voted for Brexit. All of a sudden, I was picking apart life in our nation one line at a time.
“Our Great Britain don’t know what to do. She’s more confused than Scooby-Doo. The Union Jack means Union Jack as she tries to claw her empire back.”
Jordan: I didn’t want to mention Brexit at all. The song would seem dated so quickly. I wanted to leave the lyrics open to interpretation. Why, as a nation, were we so confused? Lies we’d been told on why it would be better if we stayed or if we left, no matter how many kippers Boris Johnson held up. Just all blurs into irrelevance pretty quickly.
“Our Great Britain signed up on the dole. For not doing as she’s been told. She’s too busy wasting time taking pictures of vegan sausage rolls.”
Jordan: That whole period of people just trying those Greggs sausage rolls. It was odd to see something so trivial sweep the nation. I think the idea behind the lyric was that these same people that probably got sucked into believing whatever lies they got sold, were perhaps the same ones rushing straight out the jobcentre trying to jump on the fad of whether the new snack tasted like sausage meat or warm cardboard.
“Our Great Britain’s down on her knees. Not sure who’s lies to believe. She subscribed to the Daily Mail, and it’s why she lives in a fairytale.”
Jordan: My family read the Daily Mail when I was young, I used to read it until a few years back, someone pointed out just how biased it actually is. They create a shelter from what’s actually fucking going on outside their front door.
“Our Great Britain’s round the toilet seat. Hold her hair as she throws up defeat. Dust yourself off. You’ll be fine. Go to Lidl. Buy some wine.”
Jordan: This is all about that girl at the end of any generic London house party. Taking too much on board, probably got in one or two emotional altercations, and she’s collapsed in the downstairs bog, staring at her dinner. I guess it’s a metaphor for what could possibly come to the UK. The realisation of fucking up and now having to face the consequences. We are trying to hold the hair up reassuring her everything will be fine. The Lidl thing comes from that award-winning wine they had. I think it was actually Aldi that did it, even had it written like that in my lyric book but Lidl just seemed to roll off the tongue a bit easier.
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Cover photo by Xandru Zahra
