Wednesday 7 September 2011

PJ HARVEY'S MERCURY WIN PUTS AN END TO ALL WAR


Critics of the Mercury Music Prize’s supposed meaninglessness have been silenced after PJ Harvey’s win for Let England Shake has put a stop to all warfare. The album did not get the reception it deserved upon its initial release in February but now, thanks to the exposure of the Mercury win, the world has finally paid heed to its powerful peace-promoting message and laid down its arms.

All current military conflicts have ceased, including those in Iraq and Afghanistan, after warmongers everywhere saw the error of their ways thanks to the West Country songsmith with a crow on her head.

On announcing the immediate withdrawal of troops, Liam Fox, the British Secretary of State for Defence, said: “I guess none of us really realised that war is bad before. But it is. War is bad. It is really, really bad. The world knows this now. And we have PJ Harvey to thank for that.”

Elsewhere, the Israeli-Palestine conflict has been put to bed and a ceasefire agreed after leaders on both sides tuned in to BBC2’s coverage of the prize presented by Lauren Laverne before immediately seeking out Let England Shake on Spotify. A joint Israeli-Palestine statement read: “We are glad to announce the end of the Israeli-Palestine conflict and are now entering a process for establishing a permanent peace along the West Bank and Gaza strip. It never occurred to us that war is bad before. But it is. It is really, really bad. Even when we listened to Let England Shake’s first track about Gallipoli we were somewhat unconvinced. The second track about Gallipoli, well that started to win us over a little, but we remained cynical. By the time the third track about Gallipoli kicked in, however, boy were we converted! War is bad! War is actually bad! It isn’t good, it’s bad. Thanks PJ!”

Meanwhile, Brummie brit-poppers Ocean Colour Scene, who (criminally) have never been nominated for the Mercury, are said to be slightly annoyed with the furore over Harvey’s record. When they radically announced to the world that war was bad in their 1999 single ‘Profit in Peace’, for some reason nobody gave a shit. But in honour of their unacknowledged efforts, in memory of the fallen, and in celebration of a new era of world peace established by the power of music and the impact of the Barclaycard Mercury Prize, let us reflect for a moment upon those deeply moving lyrics:

Hey, we don’t wanna fight no more
Hey, hey hey, we don’t wanna fight no more
But there’s no profit in peace
So we gotta fight some more
La la la
War is bad
La la la
War is bad
War is bad
War is ba-la-la-la-baaaad…

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