Go away, I’m listening to Steeleye Span, no, not Steely Dan,
and Fairport Convention, whom record sellers label ‘folk’,
shouldn’t be confused with Fairground Attraction, who are pop-musical.

The Fairporters are regarded as founders of the style of music known as folk-rock,
the birth of which annoyed Britain’s finger-in-the-ear mob, for not being strictly traditional.

Then there is’ a repetitive sound called funk, but, as an old folkie, I won’t go there.
Now, don’t even mention punk!

My mind’s in a muddle, as this talk of genres tends to confuse.
For example, enslaved Africans are credited with creating jazz and the blues,
supposedly behind the phenomenon that became known as rock ’n roll.

Its greatest exponent, Elvis Presley, made the choir leader who rejected him
as a Gospel-singing kid, look an idiot.

Which sparks the debate, was Ian Anderson crossing over that classical divide,
when he adopted the flute, as a classical instrument,
to become the front man of a progressive rock band, called Jethro Tull?

The Welsh, Scots and the Irish are proud of their native music,
but England’s traditional dance, Morris, is not considered ‘cool’,
by the young, who are anything but. 

But I have heard that a former prime minister, called Boris,
whom some called ‘a fool’, loves to don hat and clogs,
in his Cotswold village of Middling-Malice.

‘Oh, what’s in a name?’ Asks Clive, his trumpet in hand,
clutching an invitation he’d reluctantly accepted,
as leader of a brass band from West Yorkshire, to perform at Blenheim Palace.

You know that huge pile, home to Boris’s hero, Winston Churchill,
whom Clive wasn’t a fan of, as a staunch Labour voter?

‘I don’t know,’ was the answer from a guy with the Victoria Cross,
Britain’s greatest military medal. 

‘But aren’t we all one in this disunited kingdom,’ asked a politician?
or, asks a history student, ‘Is flag waving an easy display of patriotism?'

So I asked Mavis, a qualified nurse who, as a child,
had been trafficked across the channel, ‘Do you fit in?’

‘No, I’ve always struggled to do that,’ she answered,
looking around in fear, clutching a Bible.

Then added, ‘But would my patients object if they knew where I really came from.’

I scratched my chin, ‘Some might, who are very rightwing.
‘Oh, what’s in a label?’

Then the nurse stood to attention, as a brass band struck up,
playing God Save the King.