This excerpt is from Tim Farron’s main speech to the Bournemouth conference:
Since May, the Government has threatened the human rights act, demonised refugees, penalised working families, abandoned green energy. You know, if ever you doubted the effectiveness of the Liberal Democrats in Government just look at what’s happening without us. In the words of Joni Mitchell
“Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got til its gone “
Except for one thing – we are not gone. We may not be able to change our country from the top down, just for now, but we can change it from the bottom up…our party must do more than just survive, we must grow, we must thrive, we must rebuild.
It occurred to me that some may not be familiar with the song referred to by Tim, especially as the title is not the catchline. With a coincidental link to our party colours, the title of the song is “Big Yellow Taxi” and this inspired the Guardian’s cartoonist, Steve Bell, to draw a brilliant cartoon which was published the day after Tim’s speech.
You can listen to the song by clicking on the YouTube embedment below. It’s been a hit around the world, is played regularly on the radio (particularly in Mitchell’s native country, Canada) and has been covered by many artists including Counting Crows.
But it struck me that the lyrics of the song, which only tangentially mention a Big Yellow Taxi, are very Lib Dem-friendly, referring as they do to themes of conservation and fighting pollution:
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
– Refers, according to Joni Mitchell, to a scene which awaited her on her first visit to Hawaii.
They took all the trees
And put them in a tree museum
Then they charged the people
A dollar and a half just to see ’em
– Refers to an actual tree museum in Hawaii.
Hey farmer, farmer
Put away that DDT now
– Refers to a noxious insecticide, controversial in the seventies, which was eventually widely banned for agricultural use.
So, on the face of it, this is a cheery ditty which is quite familiar, but there some interesting themes in the lyrics. It was very welcome that Tim gave it a mention in his speech.
* Paul Walter is a Liberal Democrat activist and member of the Liberal Democrat Voice team. He blogs at Liberal Burblings.
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12 Comments
Good one Paul .Perhaps we should start the big yellow taxi club and adopt Jodie Mitchell song as our anthem !
As he said “Cathy come home” there was a shout of “BINGO!”
He had toured the stalls, but he may have missed that one.
In Bath, it has been your Party councillors who have been most objecting to the need for housing. The amount of student housing being built on prime land in the centre of the city incredible.
You never know what you have until it’s gone. Often too late. That too, is a lesson to learn.
An equally good song for disillusioned Lib Dems to ponder is the Stone’s ” You can’t always get what you want, but if you try, sometimes you get what you need”. (At least I think that’s how it goes.)
That works two ways, either positive or negative.
Sometimes, life teaches us a lesson.
I would suggest that anyone else who thinks the Steve Bell effort is a “brilliant cartoon” has a look at a sample of the comments that follow it. This will give them a real flavour of how the Guardianistas view you, me, and every other LD member. While admitting that Bell is a very talented draughtsman, note the following: Tim is driving the Big Yellow Taxi off the edge of a cliff, Paddy and Ming are the back seat drivers. ‘We are not gone’ is the caption but the sub-text is ‘but we will be any moment now.’
Anyone who was at Conference – numerically the biggest we have ever held – knows what the mood is in the party and how exciting the newly-joined members made it for us old-timers.
The wounds in the Labour Party after losing a General Election they thought was theirs for the taking go much, much deeper than I thought. And the Bell cartoon has helped me to remember why I gave up reading the paper he works for several years ago. Try it; you’ll feel much better after giving it up!
Steve Bell’s alleged ‘brilliance’ included incessantly portraying Ming Campbell with a Zimmer frame; Will he wheel out the Zimmer frame for Jeremy Corbyn? I don’t think so – I suspect he will have mysteriously discovered some scruples that will prevent him. Meanwhile the Labour juggernaut juggers on to Corbinista nirvana (definitely not off the cliff, definitely not onto the rocks in Bell’s alternative world).
@ Richard Fagence,
In 2010 when I last voted Liberal Democrat at a General Election, the Guardian supported the Liberal Democrat Party too . What do you think might have undermined this support?
Hehe sorry but I burst out laughing at some of the comments under the cartoon.
” move back a bit to the centre, lads, or we’ll fall off the edge” 🙂
@ Richard Fagence
So which paper would you suggest a good LibDem should read these days; The “Mail” , or one of Murdoch’s mouthpieces?
A song for the Lib Dems? How about that old 1970s favourite “Chirpy, chirpy, cheep, cheep” as sung by Middle of the Road?
@ Phyllis
I preferred the famous last words:
“Ang on lads, I’ve got a great idea” .