Music has been a way for artists to express their political leanings for a long time and now music is intrinsically linked to politics as it has long been a media that people with the same views can rally behind. One artist trying to tackle the complex political and social systems of our time is Kate Tempest. In her song ‘Europe is lost’ Kate takes a look at the consumerism rife in our society and how it can distract us from the greatest issues of our time. The music of the track itself has a very industrial feel that ties together the themes of a system that holds people down, and kate’s delivery is forceful and angry showing how she’s tired of the monotony of our society.
The track opens with Kate describing the life of Esther, a carer in London who finds herself struggling under the pressure of her work and the worry she feels about the world at large. “She’s worried ’bout the world tonight/ She’s worried all the time/ She don’t know how she’s supposed/ To put it from her mind“.
From this intro Kate attacks the mundanity of normal woking lives as she believes they aren’t truly making people happy “All that is meaningless rules/ We have learned nothing from history/ The people are dead in their lifetimes“. I don’t believe that she means people are literally dead in this line, but more in a metaphorical sense as they are living for large systems rather than for themselves. She then explains how there’s a sense of hopelessness when considering these systems with the lines “But look how the traffic’s still moving/ System’s too slick to stop working“. However this thought is interrupted by the distractions of a life of excess “Business is good, and there’s bands every night in the pubs/And there’s two for one drinks in the clubs”
Later on in the verse Kate explains the isolated sense that she feels in the city “I can’t ask for help though, nobody knows me/ Hostile, worried, lonely“.
In the second verse Kate brings back the imagery of traffic, representing the systems that are out of her control “Feeling the onset of riot/ Riots are tiny, though/ Systems are huge/ Traffic keeps moving, proving there’s nothing to do“. In this verse Kate continuously brings up the biggest issues that our world is facing only to be consistently silenced by commercialism “Stop crying, start buying, but what about the oil spill?
Shh, no one likes a party pooping spoil sport/ Massacres, massacres, massacres, new shoes“, this is to represent how people get distracted by the real problems that our society is facing with the enticement that commercialism brings. The lines “Half a generation live beneath the breadline/Oh, but it’s happy hour on the high street/ Friday night at last lads, my treat!” demonstrate how every time Kate begins a thought she is interrupted by the distractions that are found in everyday city life.
Later in the verse Kate once again reflects on the mundanity she sees in a regular working life “It goes work all your life for a pittance/ Maybe you’ll make it to manager, pray for a raise/ Cross the beige days off on your beach babe calendar“.
‘Europe is lost’ questions the way our society is constructed and makes it clear that the way many people are living will not make them truly happy but simply keep them in blissful ignorance to the problems that we as a world are facing.
Callum Bashford Uni Blog 