dido criticised for using lyrics linked with IRA

MP calls on singer to “clarify her position”

Dido is often branded inoffensive so it’s somewhat surprising that she has been accused by the MP for East Londonderry, Gregory Campbell, for incorporating lyrics from a rebel song with strong links to the IRA into ‘Let’s Do The Things We Normally Do’, a track from her newest album Safe Trip Home said to be inspired by the death of her father, William O’Malley Armstrong, an Irish publisher.

The song in question, ‘The Men Behind The Wire’, was originally recorded by Northern Irish band Barleycorn in support of people languishing in prison without charge or trial. The controversy is that those “men behind the wire” referred to several high-profile Irish nationalists then being interned at Maze/Long Kesh prison in Lisburn, NI, men which the MP describes as “murderers, arsonists and terrorists.”

“Given her Irish roots, it is inconceivable that she doesn’t know the background of the wording,” said Campbell in a statement last week after discovering the use of lyrics describing raids by British soldiers on the homes of suspected IRA members (”Armoured cars and tanks and guns / came to take away our sons / but every man must stand behind / the men behind the wire”). The Democratic Unionist party member called on Dido to “clarify her position” on republican issues “so that her fans and the wider public knows where she stands on these things.”

No comment so far from the Dido camp.

Alan Pedder

Written by: Wears The Trousers magazine

Tags: alan pedder, dido, news

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