NO ONE TOLD HIM WHEN TO RUN: Today I interviewed a guy who wrote a master's thesis entitled "Popular Music and Notions of Englishness, 1963-1978." Need I even mention that our interview ran long? Here's the problem, though: He made a good run at the Emerson Lake & Palmer/Sex Pistols dichotomy and scored (barely) passing marks on the Clash section of our interview. He failed utterly and completely, however, when I asked the question, "what is the English way?" He started to say something about "pastoralism," and then I think he realized that I was shocked. It is just incomprehensible to me that a person could claim Englishness in popular music from 1963 through 1978 as his specialty and not know that the only correct answer was "hanging on in quiet desperation." I choked on my outrage.
By the way, yes, I know the quote is an allusion to an American author.
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