ABSTRACT
The later 1970s saw a sustained attempt to use music against racism. It was not the first time that left-wing artists had considered something like this. In 1968, the Merseyside-born anti-war poet Adrian Mitchell gave a radio broadcast comparing the Beatles to the US writer Allen Ginsberg. Mitchell proposed that the Beatles’ move from likeable pop to ‘adventurous poetry’ would be completed if they could release a song taking on the ‘lunatic’ racism of Enoch Powell. ‘If the Beatles applied their considerable wits to a record called Enoch,’ Mitchell told his listeners:
they would be subject to a great deal of hatred. They have taken risks in the past but this would be higher risk . . . [on the other hand, it] might, by amplifying the same chorus of brave voices, mean that the future might be less bad.
