One week at number one on w/e 3rd August 1985
As a kid, I had no notion of the fact that there were many facets to folk music. All I knew and understood were the brief examples that fell under my nose – “Daytrip To Bangor”, “A Bunch Of Thyme”, “Streets of London”. Admittedly the latter should have given me a few clues to help me understand that folk could address common social issues with a sense of outrage, but it was hard to read too much into something that was regularly put on the overhead projector during school assemblies. It whiffed too much of school plimsolls and the baked beans being cooked down the hall in preparation for the next school dinner.
One day, my parents left “Folk On Two” on the radio – they would often lose patience with the show and angrily put a cassette on instead – and the presenter suddenly exclaimed with some enthusiasm that they were going to play the new one by The Men They Couldn’t Hang. “They’re a new group of folk performers, very big with critics in the music press right now, and personally I think it’s marvellous that they’re introducing so many young people to the form”.
The group’s cover of Eric Bogle’s “The Green Fields Of France” seeped out of the radio’s speakers, and to my untutored ears at the time, I couldn’t hear much difference between their style and some of the other tracks played on the show. I understood that they were meant to be rougher, punkier and scrappier, but “Green Fields” wasn’t the MTCH track you needed to hear if you wanted to understand how raucous they could be. Their second single “Ironmasters” did the job better.
Opening gently but forebodingly on the lines “This is an old story that’s rarely ever told/ of the raping of the country, of the valley” the group slowly up the speed and the ferocity before ranting and raving about William Crawshay, a 19th Century iron merchant. Born to a wealthy father ‘affectionately’ known as “The Tyrant”, who was also one of Britain’s few 18th Century millionaires, William was an even more troublesome man. In May 1831 many who worked for him took to the streets of Merthyr Tydfil in protest at the lowering of their wages and the levels of unemployment. Upwards of 10,000 workers from Merthyr and the surrounding area marched under a red flag (believed to be the first time it was used a symbol of socialism or communism) eventually commandeering military explosives. British troops were eventually called up by the Government and the rebellion was dispersed, control of the town wrested back again by force on 7th June.
Crawshay was deeply unmoved by this spectacle, showing little sympathy for his workers or remorse for the explosive situation his industry had created. He seemingly resolved to continue as usual; history makes much more noise about the insurrectionists who were punished and hung than any moment of doubt Crawshay might have had.
“Ironmasters” takes this moment and loads it into a cannon, The Men They Couldn’t Hang opening fire and seething their way through a complex historical event in just over four minutes, throwing in the hypocrisy of the church as subtext (“Give generously!”) as well as the obvious war cry of the rest of the single. It’s a rattling, bashing, remorseless high tempo howl of defiance, close to fellow folk modernisers The Pogues in execution, but having a much more pronounced purpose and agitation.
It’s fairly obvious why a song like this might have seemed apt for 1985. The Thatcher Government’s push back against the mining unions appeared to have brought us full circle, making “Ironmasters” and the ghosts of 1831 feel far closer to the current day mood than ever. If the initial purpose of folk music was to spread present day news, “Ironmasters” proves that the stories of old also told us more about the present than we may have given them credit for. The mobs under the red flag in 1831 must have truly thought they had wrestled control back from the millionaires and the Government and were running their own free state. The miners of the mid-eighties were less ambitious, wanting only a fair wage. As time moves on, and expectations sink, so our demands become ever more modest and limp, and yet still are pushed back by the “powers-that-be” with ease. Even The Men They Couldn’t Hang had to change the final line of this song – originally “Oh that iron bastard, she still gets her way” in reference to Thatcher – to ensure radio play.
By choosing their subjects carefully and styling their music to mirror the fury of the day, The Men They Couldn’t Hang did indeed make folk music relevant to younger audiences – although I’m not sure the insurrection of “Ironmasters” would have been something Radio Two would have been keen to broadcast at the time.