The vast majority of people consider themselves to be good and yet many of us do bad things every day, whether it's because we lose our temper or think we're justified in our actions. The difference is the degree of regret you feel afterwards. If you realise that you've done harm and you're gripped by guilt, you're probably a good person. If you're not haunted by what you did, then maybe you're not.
All of which is crystallised in the title of this riff-fuelled, two minute addition to the Fight Evil playlist, encapsulating the whole paradoxical tangle of guilt and innocence into a single, weighted question.
All too often we find ourselves asking the very same thing of over-paid corporate CEOs and government leaders. In some cases of course, they're one and the same. And when the likes of Donald Trump are spouting transparent lies and making groundless promises of impossible rewards, it leads one inevitably...
Oi, what are you on about? How'd you get to Donald Trump all of a sudden? There's nothing about Donald Trump in this song.
Er... excuse me?
There's nothing about Donald Trump in this song. Nothing obviously about politics at all, actually.
Who are you? You're not supposed to be in here...
You're just twisting this meaning of this song to suit your own argument, aren't you? Go on, admit it. You're a typical Liberal lefty. You'd be the first to criticise someone for taking your words out of context, but here you go...
Ah, now, wait a minute, that's not fair. Music is an art form. It's perfectly valid to take your own interpretation, regardless of what the original artist might have intended.
Oh, yes, very convenient.
No, I'm just saying that the delivery of the song and the lyrics suggest to me that the singer is directing his vitriol towards someone who has been abusing a position of power.
You don't know that. He might just be really cross at his little sister for borrowing his Lego without asking.
I think not. The opening lines are: "Do you hear the screams that echo through the night? Do they haunt your dreams or do they cause you delight?" So I'm pretty sure this isn't a song about Lego.
Don't be so sure. Have you ever trodden on a piece of Lego? In the dark? With your bare foot? Oooooh, that smarts.
That remark is in bad taste. This song is clearly about a someone without a conscience who has caused a lot of pain, like a priest who's been molesting choirboys or something. Joking about that just demeans us all.
I'm just saying you can't know for sure.
Granted. And I'm saying it doesn't matter, because listening to it makes me want to do something positive about the crappy state of the world. And if I'm misinterpreting it completely, so what?
Fair enough. Anyway, it really rocks.
Yeah. It really does.
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About the Curator
After graduating from the University of Keele in England with a degree in Politics and American Studies, Jon worked as editor of a music and entertainment magazine before spending several years as a freelance writer and, with the advent of the internet, a website designer, developer and consultant. He lives in Reading, home to one of the world's most famous and long-running music festivals, which he has attended every year since 1992.
A high-speed combination of punk chorus and ska verse, Mustard Plug's singalong Unite and Fight is just one of a sensational 28 tracks on the Ska Against Racism album compiled by Bad Time Records in 2020 to raise funds for non-profit organisations working to improve education, opportunity and justice for black people in the USA and beyond. With a barrelling momentum and a repudiation of violent action, this uplifting song is a call to arms for those of us committed to disarmament.