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Remainers and Leavers attempt to mark Brexit day with chart battle
By Andy Malt | Published on Friday 31 January 2020
Because a thing is happening, there’s a chart battle over it. For some reason, we can’t do anything anymore without trying to get a song to number one in reference to it. And therefore, because there’s nothing else left to be done, people are trying to get songs to number one in the UK singles chart in order to mark or mourn Brexit.
On the marking side, there’s a campaign by Brexit supporters to get comedian Dominic Frisby’s painfully long ‘Seventeen Million Fuck Offs’ to the top.
Originally released on his ‘Libertarian Love Songs’ album last year, he’s now added an extra verse – although the punchline still remains the words ‘fuck’ and ‘off’. And, to be fair, who are we here at CMU to suggest that’s not enough of a gag to sustain an entire piece of prose?
Over with the mourners, it’s the decidedly less sweary ‘Ode To Joy’, which was chosen, of course, because it is the anthem of the European Union.
Campaigners have gone with an Andre Rieu rendition of the Beethoven piece because, while trying to get classical music into the charts will do little to convince leavers you’re not elitist, Rieu is very popular. Populist, even. I mean, he routinely dominates the classical albums chart. Although that chart wasn’t popular enough for Classic FM to keep broadcasting it.
In case you wondered, Rieu hasn’t added an extra verse for the occasion.
But who is winning? Well, we won’t find that out until 5.45pm this afternoon. At this stage, it’s too late for you to influence the outcome, but it’s not too late for the government to take on board the result and change course, if necessary. As of yesterday, Rieu was at 27, while Frisby was at 40.
Not the most thrilling battle then, but at this stage I think everyone’s a bit worn out. Actually slugging it out for number one are Lewis Capaldi and The Weeknd. Capaldi will almost certainly top the list and therefore think he’s the winner, before The Weeknd sells him a load of chlorinated chicken and destroys the NHS.
Except The Weeknd is Canadian of course. So I should probably have made this sign-off something about Canada plus plus. Fuck it, chart battles are tedious and Brexit is shit. There is nothing good about any of this.
