[MUSIC] 808 State, "One in Ten"
Jul. 30th, 2009 01:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldI forget how I happened upon 808 State' "One in Ten" on Audiogalaxy, but I did. It's a song taken from their 1993 album Gorgeous, which drew upon UB40's 1981 single "One in Ten".
When I first heard the song, I thought that it referred to the (now discredited) figure in the Kinsey Reports that claimed one-in-ten men were homosexual. But no, it's a song prompted by the one-in-ten rate of British unemployment, perhaps unsurprisingly since the band took its name from a British unemployment form. It may not be a coincidence that 808 State released the song just when Britain's recession was ending. The lyrics start out by relating directly to unemployment, but G. Anahera states the obvious in the essay "Ub40 “One in Ten”: Raising Political Awareness" and points out that remainder of the lyrics reference all manner of disenfranchised--the cancer sufferer, homeless women, murder victim and murderer, Third World famine victims--and that "UB40 valued the importance of equality and dignity, and [strongly] opposed Thatcherism for the way it was treating the “common” people." It doesn't say anything about queer people, but can't that be implied? Why not?
I am the one in ten-a number on a list
I am the one in ten-even though I don't exist
Nobody knows me but I'm always there
Statistical reminder of a world that doesn't care.
I am the one in ten-a number on a list
I am the one in ten-even though I don't exist
Nobody knows me...
When I first heard the song, I thought that it referred to the (now discredited) figure in the Kinsey Reports that claimed one-in-ten men were homosexual. But no, it's a song prompted by the one-in-ten rate of British unemployment, perhaps unsurprisingly since the band took its name from a British unemployment form. It may not be a coincidence that 808 State released the song just when Britain's recession was ending. The lyrics start out by relating directly to unemployment, but G. Anahera states the obvious in the essay "Ub40 “One in Ten”: Raising Political Awareness" and points out that remainder of the lyrics reference all manner of disenfranchised--the cancer sufferer, homeless women, murder victim and murderer, Third World famine victims--and that "UB40 valued the importance of equality and dignity, and [strongly] opposed Thatcherism for the way it was treating the “common” people." It doesn't say anything about queer people, but can't that be implied? Why not?
