A Pict Song, Billy Bragg

This is a song that has long fascinated me. One reason for this is that it's not really a song (despite the title), but was rather originally a poem by Rudyard Kipling. As far as I know, Kipling didn't write it with any musical notation, so Bragg supplied his own.

The song seems pro-revolutionary in spirit, but given Kipling's well-known paternalistic political views, other interpretations are certainly possible. The song is on Billy Bragg's 1996 album "William Bloke", which appeared a couple years before his critically acclaimed "Mermaid Avenue" collaborations with Wilco.

As far as I can tell, Bragg is the first artist to record "A Pict Song". Its lyrics (which are unchanged from the poem) mesh very well with his leftist political stance:

Rome never looks where she treads
Always her heavy hooves fall
On our stomachs, our hearts and our heads
And Rome never hears when we bawl

The Picts were a group of tribes in Scotland about whom little is known. However, the Picts were known to the Romans and were presumably conquered or otherwise dominated by the Romans like much of European civilization was at the time. So, in the poem/song, there is much resentment of the Romans:

No indeed! We are not strong,
But we know Peoples that are.
Yes, and we’ll guide them along,
To smash and destroy you in War!
We shall be slaves just the same?
Yes, we have always been slaves,
But you—you will die of the shame,
And then we shall dance on your graves!

In my mind, this is a pretty perfect protest song (though Kipling may not have intended it as such). It is general in the sense that it can be applied to any group of people who feel dominated by another group. It also strikes a realistic tone throughout, talking about sabotage and civil disobedience as ways to change things:

Leave us alone and you’ll see
How we can drag down the State!
We are the worm in the wood!
We are the rot at the root!
We are the taint in the blood!
We are the thorn in the foot!

However, it ends with resignation (we shall be slaves just the same) which is later echoed by The Who (meet the new boss, same as the old boss). It seems to say that though things can change cosmetically, things don't really fundamentally change. That doesn't mean people shouldn't make the effort though.

Billy Bragg plays this song on solo electric guitar, which recalls his early "Life's A Riot With Spy Vs. Spy" days. It's a pretty simple melody but it's played with great care.