Gary Flockhart: The devil doesn't have all the best tunes after all

Published on Friday 14 November 2008 13:52

DARK times, they say, bring out the poets. And looking back, the Bush admin-istration certainly begat a bumper crop of protest albums from the likes of Neil Young, REM and Bright Eyes, with the no-holds-barred American Idiot by Green Day blitzing all other contem-porary 'Bush-bashing' releases.

In the midst of Obama mania, similar-minded musicians have been celebrating a new era in politics in the US by giving away their songs for free.

Radiohead's Thom Yorke is so pleased Obama won last week's presidential election that he put a remix of his solo song Harrowdown Hill online for free download.

And now rapper Jay-Z has got in on the act with a song that celebrates the newly-elected US president's win being leaked online earlier this week.

The track We Made History was produced by Kanye West and features on his blog.

It's not exactly difficult to read between the lines as the Brooklyn MC – who recently urged a crowd to vote Democrat by saying, "Martin Luther King walked so Obama could run. Obama's running so we all can fly" – raps: "Now victory is mine/It tastes so sweet/I've been waiting for this hour/History is ours."

Elsewhere, Beyonc has revealed she'd love to play the Glastonbury Festival after seeing her husband Jay-Z headline this year's event.

Speaking about her spouse's performance in June the Destiny's Child superstar said, "I thought it was brilliant. Jay had all the controversy – but he came out and he did good."

When asked if she would like to perform at the festival she enthusiastically replied, "It would be really amazing – I would love to do it."

Before all the narrow-minded indie-only people get their oar in . . . Go Beyonc!

She's done some great music over the years, and it would be good to see her there. Especially after Jay-Z proved the haters (including Oasis' Noel Gallagher) wrong this summer.

Glastonbury has a long history of including all types of music, and there's no reason why this shouldn't include the likes of Beyonc.

In other news, The Shock-waves NME tour 2009 will be headlined by band-of-the-moment Glasvegas – which is a fair shout. The undercard sees St Albans disco-pop threesome Friendly Fires, White Lies and Florence And The Machine join the Scots.

The tour kicks off on January 29 in Liverpool, with all the usual suspects like London, Glasgow and Birmingham getting a look in.

Sadly, Edinburgh has been overlooked; instead they've chosen Oxford and Cambridge, Norwich and the live music hotbed that is, er, Lincoln.

Come on NME, give us a break will you?

Beatles' fans will be intrigued to learn that Paul McCartney has revealed the identity of the woman who inspired the band's 1966 song Eleanor Rigby.

McCartney donated a hospital accounts log from Liverpool's City Hospital to the Sunbeam Trust charity, which revealed that an E Rigby was a scullery maid who worked at the hospital.

Macca had previously suggested that he came up with the name Eleanor for use in the song because of the Beatles' association with actress Eleanor Bron, who appeared in their film Help!

However, the document, along with the discovery of a grave marked Eleanor Rigby in Peter's Parish in the Woolton area of Liverpool in the 1980s, has caused some to suggest that Rigby may have been a real person known to McCartney, who penned the song.

If true, the non-dated document is thought to be the only known signature of Rigby's in existence.

The document, which McCartney donated to the Sunbeam Trust, will be auctioned at London's Idea Generation Gallery in a fortnight's time. Get saving.