How Green Is the Valley

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How Green Is the Valley
Studio album by The Men They Couldn't Hang

Publication
(s)

1986

Label (s) MCA

Format (s)

LP, CD

Genre (s)

Folk punk

Title (number)

12

running time

35:20

occupation

production

Mick Glossop

chronology
Night of a Thousand Candles
(1985) 		How Green Is the Valley Waiting for Bonaparte
(1988)

How Green Is the Valley is a music album by British folk punk band The Men They Couldn't Hang , released in 1986.

history

As with the previous album Night of a Thousand Candles , the band members were only listed by first or nickname.

Gold Strike , Shirt of Blue and The Ghosts of Cable Street were released as single releases . The latter dealt with the Battle of Cable Street , and Shirt of Blue with the British miners' strike in 1984/1985 .

In z. B. The Ghosts of Cable Street and Shirt of Blue took the band politically again and made clear their rejection of Thatcherism . The first song describes the clash between the approximately 3000 supporters of the British Union of Fascists (under the leadership of Oswald Mosley ), Metropolitan Police and a group consisting of anti-fascists. The anti-fascists prevented the British Union of Fascists demonstrators from advancing and blocked Cable Street. This led to the violent clashes between the two groups and the police. The fascist demonstration was later disbanded.

Shirt Of Blue deals with the strike of the British National Union of Mineworkers, led by Arthur Scargill , which was the culmination of the conflict between Margaret Thatcher and the miners. One of the reasons for the strike was Ian McGregor's announcement that he would close uneconomical mines and cut 20,000 jobs. British Steel had previously been relentlessly modernized by McGregor, cutting 80,000 jobs. During the strike, there were often clashes with the police, sometimes scenes of civil war which resulted in over a thousand injured and over four thousand arrested. However, no solution could be found on either side, despite repeated debates between Thatcher, McGregor and Scargill. The strike also brought supply bottlenecks for the Berglaute, they could no longer rely on state aid, but only on charitable welfare, which, luckily the buddies, was very large and was supported by many millions of pounds. The confrontations were often misrepresented in the media and individual parties were attacked personally, which led to a distorted opinion of the population. On March 3, 1985, the strike was ended after a conference of delegates of the National Union of Mineworkers and it collapsed without any result. He had claimed a total of ten dead and over three thousand injured. More than 11,000 strikers had been arrested - at least temporarily. The strike is said to have cost over three billion pounds in total.

How Green Is the Valley reached number 68 in the UK charts, but the singles Gold Rush and The Ghosts of Cable Street could only reach positions 99 and 94.

reception

medium Rating
Sputnik Music

Nick Butler from Sputnikmusic awarded three out of five points.

Track list

  1. Gold Strike - 1:19
  2. Gold Rush - 2:36
  3. The Ghosts of Cable Street - 4:02
  4. Dancing on the Pier - 2:23
  5. Bells - 3:17
  6. Wishing Well - 2:54
  7. Going Back to Coventry - 3:17 am
  8. Shirt of Blue - 4:37
  9. Rabid Underdog - 2:27
  10. Tiny Soldiers - 3:42
  11. Parade - 2:13
  12. Parted from You - 4:15

Sources and web links