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Mark Rothko was a painter who became most famous for “multiform” paintings consisting of large bars of colour. These were his attempts at conveying emotion through colour, and were known to cause viewers to break down and cry. However, the simplistic nature of his works makes them easy to fake and sometimes attracts derision outside of art circles.

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In 1996, England had not won a major football trophy since their victory at the 1966 World Cup, hence the “thirty years” of pain. Still, football encourages escapism and the promise of a victory tomorrow. England’s failure to win any of the last fourteen major tournaments wouldn’t stop anyone from hoping that this could be the year.

This line implies that the hurt started the morning after the 1966 World Cup final, but “28 years of hurt” isn’t as catchy!

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Football was first codified in England in 1863. The official slogan for Euro ‘96, the first European Championship to be held in England, was “football comes home”.

England had won the only previous championship that they’d hosted, the 1966 World Cup. Combined with the ability of players like Paul Gascoigne and Alan Shearer and a strong performance in the 1990 World Cup, there was genuine optimism among many fans that England would win. Not only would football be coming home, but so would the trophy.

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While the insult “motherfucker” is usually intended literally — you are someone who has sex with their mother — in this case the fucking is metaphorical. The systematic class system requires working-class single mothers to work long hard days, both paid and unpaid. It fucks them.

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This refers to the 20th century Irish-British painter, rather than the better-known 17th century philosopher.

Bacon started painting bleak self-portraits following the suicide of his boyfriend in 1971. These were never intended to be photo-realistic; describing them as “selfies” is anachronistic and is used to illustrate the speaker’s ignorance of art.

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Richard Billingham is a British photographer. He is best known for Ray’s A Laugh, a series of photographs about his parents, Ray and Liz. These could easily be dismissed as nothing more than family album material, but Billingham manages to capture both the grotesque and touching sides of his parents in a way that demonstrates real skill.

It’s true that these photos probably wouldn’t make good screensavers, but there’s so much more to life than that.

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As well as doing paid work to survive, traditional gender norms require women to do unpaid labour raising children and doing housework. Many working-class mothers will only have enough free time to sleep.

Joe Talbot says that realising how hard his mother worked for him was the moment he became a feminist:

Like ‘hold on, my Mum works 15 hours a day to make sure I am comfortable, why are we making jokes about women?’. Its just not OK. Not that a woman’s worth is measured by her labour, it just triggered recognition on my part and made me want to explore gender inequality. Without my Mum I would be fucking dead!

Talbot’s mother died during the recording of Brutalism, which was one of the big influences on the record.

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A freestyle fixed, or just a freestyle, is a term for a fixed-gear bicycle in West Indian communities. This term pre-dates the complex usage of “freestyle” in hip-hop, which was given its current meaning by the Freestyle Fellowship:

Michael “Myka 9” Troy is a Los Angeles rapper and a member of the influential group Freestyle Fellowship. He remembers the original meaning of “freestyle” really well, and recalls it being used in other now-less-remembered ways also: as a term in West Indian communities for a fixed-gear bicycle.

“That was called a ‘freestyle fixed,’” he recalls. “That’s what freestyle was. KRS-One even mentioned it in one of his songs: ‘Riding one day/On my freestyle fixed.’”

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In Chapter 3 of Book 2 of 1984, which inspired this song, Orwell juxtaposes sex and death. Winston is convinced that he and Julia are already effectively dead because they are criminals in a totalitarian state, but touching Julia’s body convinces him otherwise:

She twisted herself round and pressed her bosom against him. He could feel her breasts, ripe yet firm, through her overalls. Her body seemed to be pouring some of its youth and vigor into his.

Here, the imminent approach of the secret police means that the speaker is no longer interested in sex. His capture is effectively his death, and so he metaphorically compares his hands to those of a corpse.

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The first half of Songbook is a greatest-hits collection spanning Frank Turner’s first six studio albums. The second half consists of re-imaginations of various songs. Sandwiched between them is new song “There She Is”.

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