I've just downloaded A Different Kind of Love Song by Dick Gaughan, an album I first bought 30 years ago and haven't heard since my car ate the tape some many years past. For those of you not familiar with Gaughan, he's a Scottish folk singer, many of whom's songs deal with political or social protest. A Different Kind of Love Song is very much a product of it's time; it's 1983, the cold war is at it's height, a war rages in Afghanistan, political and religious terrorists commit atrocities around the world, Britain is under the iron thumb of Thatcherist politics, with an economy that is in ruins and unemployment soaring. Gaughan's songs touch upon all these subjects, railing against the stupidity and futility of our senseless hatred, greed and violence and simply saying: why can't we just tolerate each others differences and be a little more pleasant to each other?

So it's 2013 and I'm listening to A different Kind of Love Song again, a new cold war is developing between the west and China, Korea, even Russia is sabre rattling once more, a war rages in Afghanistan, political and religious terrorists commit atrocities around the world and Britain and Europe are sliding into economic ruin as unemployment soars......................


..................This is why I paint faeries and make rubber monsters..............