It's a deadpan look at press/popular enthusiasms--"Industrial Disease" then; "Global Warming" now--and at the culture of indignation and blame. All the opinions and emotions he describes are preposterous, from the watchdog with rabies and the foreman with fleas to the doctor who is cashing in on the Anxiety of the Day.
Listen to MK's mocking tone of voice when he sings "There’s a protest singer singing a protest song". I don't think he takes seriously the singer's catalogue of paranoia about what "they" are doing. It's a list of absurdities, like two people who claim to be Jesus. The singer turns all the things he doesn't like into evidence for a conspiracy. In 1982 "they" want to "stop us buying Japanese"; nowadays, the singer would be anti globalization and would complain that "they" want us to buy Chinese.
By the way, I kinda like to read the line "They got free speech, tourists" without the comma, since a lot of tourists go to Hyde Park to "see free speech in action".
It's a deadpan look at press/popular enthusiasms--"Industrial Disease" then; "Global Warming" now--and at the culture of indignation and blame. All the opinions and emotions he describes are preposterous, from the watchdog with rabies and the foreman with fleas to the doctor who is cashing in on the Anxiety of the Day.
Listen to MK's mocking tone of voice when he sings "There’s a protest singer singing a protest song". I don't think he takes seriously the singer's catalogue of paranoia about what "they" are doing. It's a list of absurdities, like two people who claim to be Jesus. The singer turns all the things he doesn't like into evidence for a conspiracy. In 1982 "they" want to "stop us buying Japanese"; nowadays, the singer would be anti globalization and would complain that "they" want us to buy Chinese.
By the way, I kinda like to read the line "They got free speech, tourists" without the comma, since a lot of tourists go to Hyde Park to "see free speech in action".