Who first used feedback on a recording?

Who was the first to use feedback, a sound that became a staple of rock music, on a recorded song? The thumbnail picture might have given it away, but it wasn't Pete Townshend or Jimi Hendrix. I guess it must have been someone we've never heard of, with a tiny bit of inadvertent feedback that got left in. But, in terms of deliberate use of feedback, it was John Lennon. At least according to John Lennon:

“That’s me completely,” John said in a 1980 interview speaking about the intro to ‘I Feel Fine’.

“..the guitar lick with the first feedback anywhere. I defy anybody to find a record… unless it is some old blues record from 1922… that uses feedback that way. So I claim it for the Beatles. Before Hendrix, before The Who, before anybody. The first feedback on record.”

I assumed it would have been John's faithful Rickenbacker* guitar that produced the feedback drone at the start of I Feel Fine but interestingly, it was done with a semi-acoustic guitar. You could listen here while you read on...

As the account in Wikipedia has it:

"I Feel Fine" starts with a single, percussive feedback note produced by McCartney plucking the A string on his bass, and Lennon's guitar, which was leaning against McCartney's bass amp, picking up feedback. This was the first use of feedback on a rock record. According to McCartney, "John had a semi-acoustic Gibson guitar. It had a pickup on it so it could be amplified ... We were just about to walk away to listen to a take when John leaned his guitar against the amp. I can still see him doing it … it went, 'Nnnnnnwahhhhh!' And we went, 'What's that? Voodoo!' 'No, it's feedback.' 'Wow, it's a great sound!' George Martin was there so we said, 'Can we have that on the record?' 'Well, I suppose we could, we could edit it on the front.**' It was a found object, an accident caused by leaning the guitar against the amp." Although it sounded very much like an electric guitar, Lennon actually played the riff on an acoustic-electric guitar (a Gibson model J-160E), employing the guitar's onboard pickup.

Later, Lennon was very proud of this sonic experimentation, making the remarks above in one of his last interviews. Here is Lennon with his trusty J160e and his muckers (hmm bit of an odd choice of phrase that when one of them's Macca):

That guitar is a very familiar sight for those of us of an age. Indeed, according to PMT online, a site selling music kit, the J160e is the only guitar that featured on every Beatles album.

The same reference has the story about John and George buying their original J160e's at Rushworth and Dreaper, the well known music store known locally as Rushworths, which rather sadly closed in 2002. The business started as organ builders, became a musical instruments supplier and, by the 1960s, was also one of the major record shops in the city. I used to buy my records there, well until Virgin opened and sold them cheaper, which probably contributed to the start of Rushworths decline. This is the rather grand building as it now looks:

By 1962 Lennon had set his sights on his first quality American guitar. The Beatles, up and coming but still scraping a living playing locally, had been signed up by the manager of another local music store, Brian Epstein. Which was just as well as Epstein co-signed the HP agreements through which Lennon and Harrison bought their guitars, or they'd just have had to save up***. Here they are collecting the guitars in Rushworths:

I find it fascinating that photos like these were taken and survived. Did Epstein even then have an eye on publicity? Or was it a relatively unusual purchase that Rushworth's wanted to publicise?

Lennon had two J160e guitars. Also just as well as the first one got nicked after a gig in late 1963. A Californian man bought it for $275 in the late 60s but was unaware of its provenance until many decades later he stumbled on a photo of Harrison with his guitar, which had similar markings to Lennon's. An expert was able to match up the serial number and wood grain markings to Lennon and the guitar was sold for $2.4M at auction in 2015. So as I Feel Fine was recorded in a single day on 18 October 1964 it was the second guitar that produced the famous feedback.

* producers are always looking for an ear catching start to songs. It rarely sounds right if the song starts straight off with the main riff or melody. I'm not sure why - it just doesn't, so few songs start that way. Lennon and McCartney were struggling with how to start She Loves You until Martin suggested starting with the chorus. But there's still an introductory drum roll from Ringo to signal "it's about to start". In the limit there's always "1-2-3-4..." - as in the start to the first song on the first Beatles album...

** some sources say it was the Rickenbacker. Ian McDonald's fabulous - and usually definitive - Revolution in the Head (Fourth Estate, 1994) says it was the Rickenbacker, the sound being obtained by striking the note with the volume switch turned down and then turning it up while pointing the pickups towards his amp, noting that Lennon was "inordinately proud of this in later years". However, while Lennon can be seen holding the Rickenbacker while miming the song in the youtube link above, I take that with a pinch of salt as Ringo is pedalling an exercise bike rather than pretending to play drums. Lennon used the J160e to play the main riff in live performances of the song (see link below). Lennon would have had both guitars with him in the studio so, while we can't be sure, I think we'll have to take McCartney's story as the most likely. Intruigingly, McDonald claims McCartney used feedback before Lennon on several tracks including She's A Woman though for the life of me I can't hear any. And why wouldn't Macca have said so in the quote above?

*** no credit cards in those days, kids. Far Out magazine has the story of Ringo getting his first set of Ludwig drums in April 1963, as the Beatles got ready for their summer tour. Epstein took Ringo to London's Drum City, Britain's first shop specialising in just drum kits and Starr picked a set with oyster black pearl finish. But Epstein didn't want to actually pay for the kit and attempted to hussle a free set in return for promoting the shop, on the back of the group's growing fame, Please Please Me having been in the top three for most of February and March. The owner, a jazz musician called Ivor Arbiter, wasn't having any of it, claiming he hadn't heard of the Beatles and "every band was going to be big in those days". They compromised on trading in Ringo's old Premier set and having the Ludwig brand name visible on the bass drum, which would allow the vendor to negotiate favourable terms. Epstein decided if Ludwig's name was going to be on the kit so was the Beatles and paid Arbiter £5 to paint the band name on the bass drum. There and then Arbiter sketched the soon to be famous logo with the enlarged B and dropped T. Oddly Arbiter has another claim to fame besides designing the Beatles logo: he introduced the first karoake machines to the Britain.

I spotted the story of the I Feel Fine feedback on the Abbey Road tribute facebook site, a cornucopia of Beatles stuff, see https://www.facebook.com/share/19tmD78rPj/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Feel_Fine

The story of Lennon's J160e and the photo of him and Harrison with their guitars in Rushworths is at https://www.pmtonline.co.uk/blog/2016/05/04/epiphone-brings-back-the-j160e-acoustic/

The story of Lennon's stolen guitar is at https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/lennon-gibson-auction-1.3310703

You can see Lennon playing the J160e in a live performance of I Feel Fine at the 1965 NME awards at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPXxMt1fXLs

Ringo's Ludwig kit and the Beatles logo story is at https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/who-designed-the-beatles-logo/

What is Wales number two in the world at?

The answer to my question is recycling. A global recycling league table published in June had Wales in second place, narrowly behind Austria, with both countries recycling 59% of their "municipal waste" as defined by the EU. England didn't do so badly in 11th place.

According to UK statistics, on some other basis presumably, Wales recycles 66% of its waste, with England in the high 40s.

Why are the Wales stats so good and so much better than England's? Here is the reason:

These are some (most to be fair) of the waste receptacles provided by our local council. You see essentially the same receptacles by the roadside everywhere in north, and I assume south, Wales. There is of course a black wheelie bin and, in front of it a food waste caddy with a bag for recycling coffee pods on top. Then we have a brown wheelie bin for garden waste and the device on the right is known as a trolibocs. (In Wales we don't do the letter x, so taxi is written tacsi for example. Imagine hearing trolleybox with a gentle Welsh lilt and you'll get the idea). The top stackable box takes paper and white card, the middle takes plastic and cans and the bottom glass and brown cardboard. Until this week when, great joy, we've had yet another receptacle delivered:

This bag will from now on take the brown cardboard. I'll have to flatten and break up boxes to fit in the bag as boxes too large for the bottom trolibocs container left alongside the trolibocs as previously "will not be collected" I am sternly told.

Which will mean it takes me even longer to sort and pre-process all of our recycling. But I don't mind too much as I've always been against waste and for as much re-use as possible. 

Soon after I retired I saw a cartoon which captured some of the essence of no longer being in employment. A man and his wife (of course they're married, they're both of an age) are lying next to each other in bed. He looks twitchy. She says to him "I know it's bin day tomorrow but try to contain your excitment dear". 

Part of my excitement comes from the now ten receptacles provided for our recycling. In addition to the eight shown above (counting the trolibocs as three) there are occasionally used bags for batteries and for textiles. Oh and you can place small electrical items on top of the trolibiocs for collection too.

I recall one of the many recent Tory PMs, I think it was Sunak, saying that his party was going to bring some sense to waste collection in England and was not going to allow the proposal for as many as seven different waste bins. Only seven - ha! The BBC reckoned there never had been a proposal from the PM's own Deparrment of Environment etc for seven bins, though the Environment Secretary admitted the government was "assailed by representations of this sort". It's not clear yet whether Labour will cause inflation in the number of English bins, but you've got a way to go, boyos.

I've often wondered - and sometimes read about - whether all this waste separation is necessary. Just chuck it all in one bin and the equipment will separate it. Isn't that what they end up doing anyway? And doesn't it often just go to landfill? Ah but. We know that the equipment struggles to sense black plastic trays for example. And the plastic bottle tops get separated from the bottles and end in the wrong waste stream, which is why they're now anchored onto the bottles. (Of course I twist them off, it's a struggle to get them back on to the orange juice bottle otherwise. I'm not perfect you know!)  I tend to think this is what they mean when they talk about waste streams being contaminated. Sure, I rinse out glass jars wondering, as I do so, whether there's any net benefit or disbenefit to the environment. A bit of jam on a glass jar isn't going to make any difference when the jar is melted down in a furnace, is it? But apparently fairly small amounts of the wrong plastic in a waste stream condemns the whole batch as being no good for re-use in making our fleeces or whatever.

The frustration about different containers in England stems, I think, from the differences between local councils and the difficulty in finding out about what should go where due to the different contracts councils take out with providers and the differnet processes those providers use. Wales seems to have benefited from standardisation of the process nationally. As a result if you have a question and phone to ask the council (yes, someone does still pick up eventually) they know the answer. "Egg boxes go in the bottom of the troliobcs, mate". Or at least they did until we got that new large green bag. How will I remember?

We don't, of course, have to put all of the bins out every week. I remember quite a few years ago the Daily Mail poking fun at the weird Welsh council - my local council - which was moving to four weekly collection of the general waste black bins. How could anyone be so daft, they clearly thought. We'd already gone from two weekly to three weekly, a move which had finally got us to start using the food waste caddy, which we'd always thought would cause smells in the kitchen. Which it doesn't. Unless it's full of raw onion. What it did was prove that the larger caddy, photographed above, could not be left outside the back door. Although it has a handle which locks the lid in place, making it supposedly animal proof, the foxes are too clever and determined for that if you've left a chicken carcass in there. So that has to live in the garage. And no, it doesn't make the garage smell.

Using the food caddy proved a revelation. There is an amazing amount of weight in the food waste, even though we try to use as much as possible, Mrs H choosing some menus on what's left in the pantry or fridge. "No, I'm not cooking that, it doesn't go with the sweet potatoes which need to be used up". If food was economically available in smaller packages, especially things like bread and potatoes, there would be much less waste.

As a result of separating the food waste our black bin never smells and is usually no more than two-thirds to three-quarters full after 4 weeks. If we have a large item to dispose of, say a duvet, I keep it back till bin day and it will nearly always fit in the top, putting off the need to make a trip to the tip (sorry, waste recycling centre) which is a twice yearly irritation as it has to be booked on line and there are never appointments at short notice. I've learned it's not sensible to spend the morning producing bulky gardening waste, load the car with that and an assortment of items set aside in the garage and go in at lunchtime expecting to book an afternoon appointment, only to have to unload the car, muttering because there were loads of appointments available earlier and I hadn't known which time to pick but they've now all gone.

So when I read of Tory ministers promising to bring back weekly bin collections I was bemused as to why that would be necessary. To be fair we are only a two person household but then that must be pretty close to the average household size in our area.

The other excitement and tension about bin day is getting the right containers down to the street on the right days. The trolibocs, food and other recycling apart from garden waste is collected weekly. The garden waste is collected fortnightly and the black bins every fourth week. Best not to miss that! Though, when we unavoidably do because we're away, we've always managed to fit everything in for the next collection.

I was actually quite glad when our council went from three to four weekly black bin collection. The bin collection calendar (no longer sent out annually on hard copy, I might have to download their damned app which will send me reminders of which bins to put out) became easier to follow. Week one black and recycle, week two brown and recycle, week three only recycle, week four brown and recycle. Which meant there was never any need to put out all of them at once.

Which was a merciful relief as there is a problem for me with the Welsh system. I have to wheel and lug those many receptacles 100 yards down the fairly steep hill I live up to get them to the side of the nearest public road each week, often in the dark at this time of year. I've become adept at taking the trolibocs and a black or brown bin down together, one in front of me, one behind. A kind of "bin train". When we've filled our second brown bin* or there are other items two journeys is necessary. Together with posting all the different wastes into the right bins one does feel like an unpaid waste recycling operative.

But we're second in the world, so I guess it's worth it.

Da iawn Cymru!. Say it phonetically something like "dai-ow-nn, cumry" and you've said "well done Wales" in Welsh.

* we have to pay for the brown garden bins, of course. The second one is at a bargain rate. The collection is done by a private contractor separate from the council collectors who pick up the other stuff. It's all unusually efficient for a council supplied service

Wales second in the world for recycling rates. BBC website 5 June 2024

Da iawn Cymru! Wales named as second best recycling nation in the world, media.service.gov.wales 5 June 2024

Seven bins and Sunak's other net zero claims fact checked. BBC website 21 September 2023

This year's gigs

Not many gigs to report on this year. There was From The Jam and the Skids (see The Bitterest Pill and an unexpected delight, 6 May) and two more since - The Eagles Long Goodbye tour and Squeeze's 50th anniversary tour.

Off we went recently to our local venue, the venue of Wales - Venue Cymru - for the Squeeze gig. This was the 6th, or maybe 7th or 8th time we've seen them dating back to one of our favourite ever gigs, at Liverpool's Royal Court in 1981. They're always good and this was no exception. Though on this occasion the audience reaction, always warm, was ecstatic.

When we saw Squeeze about 15 years ago Mrs H, a bigger Squeeze fan than me, said she hadn't enjoyed it that much. "Why not?" I asked, "I thought they played well". "Oh they were great" she said "it was the audience". "They seemed enthusiastic to me". "Well they were but they all looked so old!" What had got to her, as we sat in the circle, was the view of all the bald heads below.  Take a look at us, I thought. Especially since, as Squeeze became successful in the late 70s, many of their original fans would have been born in the 60s, not the 50s like us. It was the evidence in front of us of the years ticking by that had got to her.

So this time I made sure we were in the stalls.

However, the audience seemed to mainly be more like 20 rather than the expected 10 years younger than us. And they knew all the words. Not just the hits like Up the Junction, Is That Love, Labelled with Love and the evergreen Cool For Cats, but all the album tracks they played that had never been hit singles.

The atmosphere was fabulous, they played well and everyone was up and dancing by the end. The band seemed chuffed with the reaction at the end which, given it's a sell out tour, was notable. But it is a fairly intimate venue for its size.

Pictured below is Glenn Tillbrook, with a satisfied smile, after nailing the guitar solo in Another Nail For My Heart on his trusty Fender. There are a lot of vocals in Squeeze songs and his voice never faltered, albeit these days occasionally reinforced by an addition to the band, a supplementary female singer.  His guitar work was as good as ever, which is very good indeed.

A few months ago we went to catch the Eagles, who we'd never seen before, at the Co op Live, the new Manchester venue. Yes, the one that had all the teething troubles, delayed opening, cancelled gigs etc. Fortunately that was all resolved for our trip. The venue is on the impressive  Etihad campus right next to Man City's ground. Walking around the football stadium the statues of recent era City players, like Kompany, Aguero and David Silva, really does reinforce how little sustained success, "history" if you like, the club has had until the last 15 years. The only older era reference is a statue of Bell, Summerbee and Lee from when I was a lad. Here I am by it, holding my nose - and wearing the right shade of blue:

The venue itself is good though there wasn't enough space around the food and drink outlets and, depending what you wanted, you couldn't necessarily get it in one queue; very frustrating! And surprising in a venue purpose designed for music when they make much of their money from those sales, the big bands forcing a tough deal on who gets the ticket money and merch revenue. The public areas were all rather disorientatingly black. But inside the auditorium was good and, as billed, the sound quality was excellent. 

It's Britain's biggest indoor arena, its seating capacity of 20,500 marginally bigger than London's O2 and nearly twice that of Liverpool's Echo Arena. But, even though we insist on sitting facing the stage to avoid that half turned in your seat position that your back and neck tell you about the next day, it didn't feel as if we were any further away than at smaller arenas like Nottingham.  Here's the view we had for our £250 outlay. The cheapest seats but not at all bad:

Ah yes, that price. Having never seen the Eagles before, when I saw the Long Goodbye world tour tour was coming to Manchester for 5 nights - the only dates for their 'last ever' UK  appearances - I rather fancied it. I've always been keener on them than Mrs H and I thought she'd probably pooh pooh the idea. She didn't, not outright anyway. Then I pointed out that the support was Steely Dan. Now we have only two Eagles albums but 5 by the band named after a steam powered dildo in William S Burroughs's novel The Naked Lunch*. And we used to listen to their album The Royal Scam while doing jigsaws and colouring in psychedelic pictures with felt tip pens, when they were a novelty, in our first house in the 1970s. Nothing better to do I suppose with only 3 TV channels, though maybe that was before we even had a TV.

Anyway Steely Dan clinched it and so we arrived at the Co op Live excited to see the world renowned Eagles but mildly disappointed that Steely Dan had long since pulled out, main man Donald Fagen having been hospitalised with an unspecified illness. However Steely Dan had been replaced with the Doobie Brothers, who we also like (though only one album in our collection to the Dan's five and Eagles two).

The Doobies were a bit of a disappointment. The main problem -  for us anyway - was singer Michael McDonald, he of the wide vocal range on songs like the 1980 Billboard number one and Grammy award winning What A Fool Believes. McDonald, who had sung with Steely Dan, joined the Doobies in 1975 to give some relief to founder member and original lead vocalist Tom Johnson who was having health problems.

The problem is we much preferred the early, raunchier Doobies style and it certainly came over better on the two songs Johnson sang lead on, China Grove and Long Train Runnin'. In contrast the McDonald songs came across as rather strained, as he seemed to struggle with the high notes and it felt like the band were holding back. Oh well at least they rocked it on China Grove and Listen to the music.

The Eagles came on to a video montage of their performances across the eras which set the scene nicely. While I've always liked their stuff some of their early songs verge on being too countryish for me and definitely so for Mrs H who famously likes her music to have "balls" (her phrase).  But they got Take It Easy, with its irritating hillbilly banjo, out of the way early and it was immediately onward and upward with One of These Nights and its guitar string bending atmospheric opening. The song was written to get away from the country ballad style and features some heavy guitar with distortion to add bite. Superb.

Then through their huge catalogue of hits including  Witchy Woman, Take It to the Limit, Tequila Sunrise, Lyin' Eyes etc, etc. Mrs H told me she'd read suggestions that the performances were 'too good' to be 100% live. Now you never know what's going on backstage but it didn't sound 'too perfect' to me. Just to make sure I recorded some snippets on my phone, like you're not meant to, and I can vouch that my ears were right - very good, essentially note perfect performances but it definitely sounded 100% live.

I think there's a reason for this. When you have an 8 piece band playing some classic but fairly simple songs like Lyin' Eyes, with two drummers, two keyboard players and up to 5 guitarists, none of them individually have to do very much. And when they play as carefully as Steuart (yes I've spelt that right) Smith, their touring guitarist who took over from Don Felder when he left nearly 20 years ago, nailing those inter-woven guitar sections is very possible. I've never seen a guitarist playing with a major band look so attentively at the fretboard while playing. The band also sang well, which helps when the harmonies are such a big part of the sound. It also helped that the lead singing role is shared between so many: Don Henley, Vince Gill (a distinguished musician in his own right before joing the band), Deacon Frey (deceased band member Glenn's son who, with Gill, sings Glenn's songs), Joe Walsh and Timothy B. Schmitt. As a result voices don't get strained.

It took me a while to figure out, apart from Joe, who was who. The band position themselves in two rows, front and back. Remaining founder member Henley plays drums (and sometimes sings while doing so) and sometimes plays keyboards or guitar, all in the back row. But then he pops up to sing lead and play guitar in the front row. I say pops up because the Eagles adopt that lights out and silence approach between songs, without chat or announcements. The lights come up and, like a Pep Guardiola team, they've switched positions and, in some cases, instruments. 

Henley eventually did some introductions,  said he liked the new auditorium and praised the sound quality. He noted that he wasn't normally fond of being away from the USA but as things were pretty crazy there (this was June before Biden pulled out of the presidential election) he was happy to be away. This produced warm applause. After letting that die down he said words to the effect of "but you've got some fairly crazy people of your own at the moment". Too true.

I was pleased that the Eagles included a couple of Joe Walsh's songs from his solo repertoire.  I remember first hearing that Joe had joined the Eagles. It was a big surprise at the time, and not just to me. While the Eagles were already hugely successful, Walsh had released three albums with his own band and had a hit with Rocky Mountain Way - a track I've always loved -  on both sides of the Atlantic, featuring the then novel guitar talk box which he uses to shape the notes a bit like a wah wah pedal with your gob. "The reinforced Eagles" a buddy called them, though it wasn't an obvious fit: Walsh was much rockier. But the Eagles needed another singer/guitarist, Bernie Leadon having announced his departure from the Eagles by pouring a beer over Glenn Frey's head. And it worked, the next album, Hotel California, having some significant Walsh inputs and becoming one of the most successful albums anyone's made, anywhere, ever.

I'm still trying to think of any equivalent scenario where a successful  guy with his own band takes up an opportunity to join an even more established band. It was a bit like Clapton joining the Beatles.  But for Joe it was simple: he didn't have to try to think up a whole album full of new ideas, just a track or two and come up with some guitar breaks on other guys' songs, while still doing solo projects when he wanted.

I wondered just how much the original country style Eagles fans would like Joe Walsh. But when Don Henley introduced him as the King of the Stratocaster**, the auditorium erupted. The answer was they all seemed to love him. Apart from Mrs H who said he looked weird. She clarified this was because he looked so old - see Squeeze audience comment above - but yes very wizened. And also because he pulls strange faces while singing, gurning to reach some of the notes. When you look back at live videos from the 1970s he always did, but such mannerisms become exaggerated as one gets older. Phil Collins does much the same.

Walsh's Rocky Mountain Way and Life's Been Good, a solo hit single with a humourous, self deprecating lyric*** from a couple of years after he joined the Eagles went down a storm and I'm really glad I got to see him perform them.

Leadon's beer shampoo for Frey was far from the end of arguments in the Eagles. The band, formed as Linda Ronstadt's backing band, basically argued until Henley was the only pre Joe Walsh member left. Bass player Randy Meisner decided he'd had enough in 1977 and was replaced by Timothy B Schmitt, just as he'd been replaced by Schmitt when he left Poco to join the Eagles. Don Felder joined a couple of years in and was fired in 2001, leading to a slew of lawsuits, though in the meantime the band had argued themselves into breaking up in 1980 before re-forming for live tours in the 90s . The survivors and their replacements all seem to get on now, but then the paycheck must be enormous: having completed the world tour part of the long goodbye the band is now doing residencies at the new Sphere venue in Vegas.

Henley's solo hit The Boys of Summer was another highlight as was Desperado which he sang beautifully (he was never happy with the recorded version having only been given 4 takes at it by producer Glyn Johns).

The band left the stage after 16 songs and came back for a 4 song 'encore', starting with their Hotel California epic which was, er, epic, Smith and Walsh ably reproducing the classic Felder/Walsh closing guitar joust - though it didn't sound quite like the record so yes I'm sure it was all live.

It was a superb gig and the Eagles put on probably the most profesional performance I've ever seen. It was even value for money for the most expensive gig tickets we've bought. (I don't think I'd have said that if we'd shelled out several times as much to be at the front though!)

It's theoretical but would I go and see them again? No, been there, done that, don't need the tee shirt, etc. 

Would we go and see Squeeze yet another time? Well we wouldn't travel far but if they're back in our neck of the woods next year - yes, like a shot. The Eagles were brilliant but Squeeze are fun.

Though neither band put quite as big a smile on my face as the Skids performing Into The Valley, the single song I'd pick as my favourite performance from the gigs we've been to this year if I could re-live the experience. 

Another Nail for Your Hearts Squeeze and Heartache Tonight for the Eagles?

 

* I recall my two sons, aged around 10 and 12 perhaps, approaching me conspiritorially. "Da..ad...?" "Ye..es...?" I responded, wondering what was coming. "What's a dildo?" I wondered for half a second where they'd seen or heard the word and then for no more than another two how to respond. "It's an artificial dick" I replied bluntly. Their eyes lit up, they looked at each other and guffawed and ran off cackling. Now they're 40ish maybe I should remind them of the conversation next time we're all together

** Rolling Stone magazine had Walsh at number 54 in their 2011 list of the 100 greatest guitarists

*** snippets include - I've got a mansion, forget the price/I've never been there they tell me it's nice; I've got an office, gold records on the wall/just leave a message, maybe I'll call; Lucky I'm sane after all I've been through....

Stressed out and indoctrinated

I was flicking through the The Times's Good University Guide supplement recently. Mild interest rather than applying all over again! This year the LSE topped their rankings and so I dipped in to what it said about that establishment and happened upon the most encouraging things I've read about a British university in a long time.

Freedom of speech is top of their relatively new vice chancellor's agenda. There will be no "safe spaces", no trigger warnings on lectures and no books banned. A working group will consider how issues such as Islamophobia, antisemitism and transgender issues should be dealt with. All first year undergrads will have to take a compulsory inter-disciplinary module teaching students how to debate controversial issues.

"I say if you come here, expect to encounter ideas you hate, that bite, that go to your identity" said Larry Kramer. "If we are not doing that we are failing to prepare you for what will happen out there when you leave. We will give you the tools to help you engage".

I've been concerned about the proliferation of cancel culture in our universities for some time, with no-platforming of many speakers who can't possibly be considered to be extreme. But I'd been further sensitised to these issues after reading a column by Matt Goodwin, following his resignation from the University of Kent where he had been professor of politics and international relations for 9 years. Goodwin is an occasional columnist in the Times group newspapers so I wondered why he quit.

Goodwin was very clear that he had taken the opportunity of redundancy as universities struggle to balance their books. This is due to the nonsensical position of the tuition fees, set at £9,000 in 2012, having only been raised to £9,250 since making them worth less than £6,500 in today's money, leaving a number of universities on the brink of collapse.

Goodwin said there were a number of factors behind his desire to leave academia: factors which have "collided to erode the quality of higher education, betray students and make universities an unpleasant place to work". These factors include the dumbing down of standards, rampant grade inflation (with 56% of students now getting a first class degree); the "disastrous rise of on-line, or remote, learning which ... has killed attendance and intellectual life, undermining students' interpersonal and learning skills" and how universities have "replaced the things they used to prioritise - intellectual rigour, hard work, exposing students to debates and ideas, even ones they find disagreeable - with an obsessive focus on 'student satisfaction' ".

Goodwin went on to say, however, that the real reason he and many others are leaving academia is not because of finances or teaching, it is because the universities have become "openly political...highly activist ... imposing a dogmatic view on their academics and students, enforcing a narrow groupthink, silencing dissenters and eroding the things higher education is meant to promote - truth, reason, evidence and exposing their students to a full range of ideas and beliefs."

Strong stuff. Goodwin says universities have always leaned left. It was certainly the case when I was at uni in the early 1970s. I didn't have a problem with it as I would have been somewhat on the left myself at the time. The folk interested in politics - student or mainstream - were certainly very to the left but the majority (myself included) were much more interested in studying, partying, music and football. The profs and lecturers didn't appear to espouse any particular political ideology and concentrated on teaching.

But Goodwin says the ratio of left wing to right wing academics has spiralled since the 1960s from three to one to more like ten to one, producing an ideological monculture in which only a narrow set of ideas are allowed to dominate. He says this has resulted in a total obsession with viewing racial, sexual and gender minorities as sacred, wanting to transfer power and resources away from the majority to minorities and sacrificing anything that gets in the way of this "social justice".

By the time students reached Goodwin's third year course some would complain about how, until that point, they felt they had been politically indoctrinated.

From Goodwin's perspective it meant being told to "de-colonise" reading lists, taking part in anti-racism training which has been shown to be flawed, displaying gender pronouns (which he sees as a symbol of a "highly contested belief system") and working in a monoculture which was intolerant to those who hold different views. 

Other academics have quit or been forced out, inlcuding Kathleen Stock, hounded out of her job as professor of philosophy at the University of Sussex by pro-trans activists. The group Academics for Academic Freedom lists nearly nearly 200 academics who have been sacked, harassed or disinvited from giving talks in recent years.

Goodwin's personal experience was that, having publicly suggested after the Brexit referendum that the democratic decision made by 52% of voters should be implemented, he was subjected to a sustained campaign of bullying, harrassment and intimidation with many left wing academics shutting him out.

As a result students "self censor" on campus, feeling unable to say what they think.

What I find scary is that this has happened while we had a Conservative government, albeit one that didn't know where the pitch was, let alone keep its eye on any balls.

Goodwin was part of a group of academics who helped design the Higher Education (Free Speech) Act, which creates a legal requirement for universities to promote and protect free speech and leaving them liable to fines if they are found to sack or harass academics because of their views. But Bridget Phillipson, Labour's Education Secretary, has said she will pause if not cancel this new law. Labour could do a lot of damage unpicking things like this and trade union legislation.

Goodwin is finished with universities but will continue to write books and his blog on Substack, a blogging platform that allows authors to charge subscriptions (no, I'm not planning to do that!)

I will try to keep an eye on what Goodwin is saying. I'm sure many of his students will miss his teaching and those who don't will miss the benefit of hearing their received wisdom challenged.

If they can be bothered to attend lectures at all. A column by an iconito lecturer revealed the problems universities face in getting students to turn up to be indoctrinated. If they aren't too stressed to attend they find work so stressful they say they can't cope, can't deal with more than one assignment at a time or avoid assignments that involve talking to people, preferring to email or text.

It seems there is an epidemic of students with self-diagnosed mental illnesses, mainly anxiety, which they blame for absences and needing extensions to deadlines. And it's not just university life: they have anxiety about being on time, booking doctor's appointments (ha, obviously deluded if they think they can get one of those!) and managing money.

A study of 11,000 students in six Russell Group unis since 2022 said 30% of students reported anxiety disorders. Many of these are not medically diagnosed. A King's College study found the number of students self-reporting mental health difficulties had nearly tripled between 2017 and 2023, from 6% to 16%. A 2022 survey by Student Minds, a mental health charity, said 57% of respondents reported a mental health issue, of which 24 per cent had a diagnosis. This would still mean a staggering 14% of their sample  had such a diagnosis, though I'd expect their sample was skewed by people who just get on with things not responding to the survey.

The problem for lecturers is the onus is on them to accommodate this epidemic of real and imagined illness and they have a responsibility for following up with absent students to check they are ok. The Secret Lecturer claimed this sometimes meant checking up on 20 out of 30 students, rearranging courses in ways the students feel meet their needs. This might include adapting lessons so students can participate, providing course materials they can read in their own time and recording lectures or finding other ways of students being able to attend remotely. 

Lecturers have to be careful what they say and wouldn't dare to challenge students or suggest work might be just the thing to distract them and provide a sense of purpose. Pushing students hard is risky -  lecturers risk being investigated and some are reported to have been fired for being "too forceful".

I don't want to appear unsympathetic. One of the problems with this tidal wave of self reported issues is that it may conceal the smaller number of cases of students who are genuinely in difficulty and really do need help. But turning the normal struggles of life into a pathological condition isn't healthy. Mentally fragile students shouldn't put themselves through an experience they are unsuited to. Not everyone needs a degree, together with a debt of, on average, £45k. 

That debt often proves to be a poor investment. The IFS has calculated a wide range of how the degree subject affects the discounted present value of lifetime earnings. Medicine, economics and maths were the most strongly positive. Many other subjects were marginal at best.

As for indoctrination, I would guess the issue arises more in arts and humanities faculties rather than in engineering courses like the one I did all those years ago, though the climate of wokery is no doubt present everywhere. To aid pain to suffering the creative arts subjects had a negative discounted present value in the IFS study. That means those students are expected to earn less over their lifetime - by up to £100,000 in present day money - than if they hadn't gone to uni. Go figure, as they say.

I guess my biggest concern is that many of our universities are still centres of world class excellence and are a huge asset to the country. But for how much longer, I wonder?

The Good University Guide was published by the Times on 22 September 2024.

Matt Goodwin's article Goupthink is strangling universities, count me out was in the Sunday Times on 15 September 2024

My students tell me they're too stressed to learn. I don't dare to challenge them, a column by 'The Secret Lecturer' was in the Sunday Times on 6 October 2024

The costs of studying for a degree and the IFS lifetime earnings data were reported in How much does uni cost and is it worth it? BBC website 17 September 2024