This song came out in 1978. This was Thatcher’s Britain. The working class had lost respect and a place in society. The well-paid, tough jobs that they had worked at were gone. The mines, shipyards and steel works were closing. The opportunities had dried up. They found themselves stacking shelves in supermarkets for low-pay. All their self-respect and status as ‘Salt of the Earth’ evaporated. Many found themselves on the dole and were described as lazy scroungers. It was tough. The estates, once proud, were scenes of drug abuse and crime with bored youth seeing no future.
Patrick Fitzgerald saw the hopelessness and reported it in this song. The Middle Class were oblivious. They were focussed on the global arena and not the plight of the working class. This feeling of hopelessness and abandonment that the working class felt was to surface in the referendum.
The working class were fed up with the establishment that had taken their jobs, their pride and their future and did not seem to care about them at all! The middle class were doing all right and were too busy fighting their irrelevant battles. But for me – those battles aren’t irrelevant. All the world is being steamrolled by the establishment in search of wealth and power. The working class were victims as were the poor people all round the world. It is the system of inequality that is to blame not the poor Chilean and Vietnamese.
But what a great song!
PATRIK FITZGERALD “Irrelevant Battles” (1978)
You’re all too busy saving children in Chile
And helping (?) victims on the other side of the world
But when the war was over in Vietnam
You had three adopted boys and five adopted girls,
Gotta post through parcels when they’re starving in Afghanistan
India, Kenya, or anywhere we’re winning
I seen some tramp asking for the time on the street
You just said: “Sorry, I’m fast” but not as fast as your feet
You’re too busy fighting your irrelevant battles
To see what’s going on in your own backyard
You’re too busy fighting your irrelevant battles
To see what’s going on in your own backyard
‘Cause some of us are having a hard, hard time
Yeah some of us are having a hard, hard time
And you’re all too busy saving children in Chile
And helping (?) victims on the other side of the world
But when the war was over in Vietnam
You had three adopted boys and five adopted girls
You’re out on the streets with your little placards
Marching up and down saying: “Tear it down!”
I don’t think you’re really seeing what you’re talking about
Except for the tourist version no doubt
You’re too busy fighting your irrelevant battles
To see what’s going on in your own backyard
You’re too busy fighting your irrelevant battles
To see what’s going on in your own backyard
‘Cause some of us are having a hard, hard time
You know that some of us are having a hard, hard time
Because some of us are having a hard, hard time
