Don’t give up

Listening to the radio while doing something else last Saturday, I heard John Bercow, the Speaker of the House Of Commons, talking about music.

For me, part of the beauty of radio is that you hear all sorts of interesting things you wouldn’t have come across otherwise, and this was a case in point. John Bercow was talking about ‘Don’t Give Up’, a song sung by Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush that didn’t much engage me when it came out in the 1980s because I fondly imagined that nothing in my life could possibly go wrong. (Ever.)

Hearing it again, it struck me what a beautiful piece of music – and of storytelling – this is.

I was just listening, and reflecting on how much of the wisdom in this song applies to anyone dancing with cancer, when Mr Bercow also mentioned Winston Churchill’s famous acronym, allegedly used at the end of every phone call: ‘KBO’. (‘Keep buggering on.’) Which is another piece of good advice.
Thank you, John Bercow, You have gone up in my estimation.

Leave a Reply