Text written for Rock Theatre's Selling Finland-project first published as Facebook and Instagram-post 15th september 2023. In a unique collaboration with artists Rosanna Fellman, Anna-Sofia Nylund and researcher Kaj Ahlsved, Rock Theatre has created an audiovisual concept, which deals with themes from Selling England by the Pound, now set in the present day.

One of the for me most though-provoking songs of the album [Selling England by the Pound] is “The Battle of Epping Forest”, the longest song on the album. The song is said to be inspired by a real news story in The Times about two rival gang’s territorial battles. According to the news 50 men had been battling it out with knuckledusters, razors, and heavy boots in Epping Forest outside London. The winning gang – apparently the Krays – was made up of mostly young men. Those who followed the news in London in the seventies were familiar with the activities of the two groups of thugs.  

This authentic news story, written by a crime journalist, apparently caught the eye of Peter Gabriel. He cut out the story from the newspaper, put it aside and saved it for later.

When Gabriel was writing songs for Selling England, he was looking for this news paper clip, only to realise it had become misplaced. Thus, inspired by this story and earlier battles in Epping Forest, he fabricated a “story of two gangs fighting over protection rights in London’s East End”.  Just like in real life two gangs would meet up and “sort it out” in the forest. In Gabriel’s Words:

“Along the Forest Road, there’s hundreds of cars – luxury cars.
Each has got its load of convertible bars, cutlery cars – superscars!
For today is the day when they sort it out, sort it out,
’cause they disagree on a gangland boundary.
Yes, they disagree on a gangland boundary.”

The text of the song is very thick, and Peter Gabriel makes use of his characteristic, even virtuosic, style of singing with different voices for the different characters as he illustrates the fates of characters like Bob the Nob and Mick the Prick. The story is complex and includes references to other conflicts and the history of Epping Forest.

Even though “there’s no guns in this gentleman’s bout” all the characters in the lyrics, unlike in the real news story, die in the end of the song. The score is settled with the toss of a coin.

The limos that return for the final review, can be seen as representations for the untouchables on top of the criminal food chain; those who don’t who do not hesitate to exploit people in vulnerable positions and who leave the dirty job to those who have everything to lose. This might explain why the ending of the song is very sudden and unheroic, an anti-climax so to say. Perhaps the moral of the story is that in conflicts in the outskirts of democracy there are only losers.

Gang battles like these, even though here presented in an entertaining format, are the results of societal failures on many levels. Gabriel gave his characters names and lives, as to remind us that behind every tragedy where lives are lost, there are real human beings grieved by other human beings.

The Genesis song “The Battle of Epping Forest” is fiction inspired by reality. As the story is made up one could argue that the song is fake news in musical format. As such it also invites us to ask which news stories, we in the digital era are “sold” and how these constructs how “we” perceive the world. Or, how “we” are perceived by the world.

Since the media landscape has changed a lot since the 1970’s today most of us are not only media consumers – we are all to some degree media outlets that moderate and produce content for others to consume. This means that territorial battles – be they geographical or ideological – are today often battled out on the turfs of social media.

Gabriel physically misplaced his news clip. In the digital era commercially driven algorithms, propaganda, and trolls fuelled by the wallets and interests of faceless men in limousines strive to destabilise democratic societies and undermine impartial journalism. The goal of these manipulative acts is to make the important talking points of the 21^st century get lost in the noise.

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Trailer for Selling Finland:

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