The Best Way To End A Protest Song

Billy Childish & the Stuckists - 'Art or Arse?'

It starts with the voice of Tracey Emin, peeved and wheedling. She's been sent a parcel of stuff from a new anti-modern art group called the Stuckists, and her former boyfriend Billy Childish is one of them. He's even written a song about the vacuous nature of her work:

"Hi Billy, this is Tracey here. I've been away, and I've just opened up your 'Art or Arse? You Be The Judge'..did you do this? This kind of puerile...THING?"

Then a guitar razors into your face, and Billy Childish starts yelling:

"Damian Hirst's got his fish in a tank
Some call it art, others think it's wank..."

Already this is shaping up to be the best song ever written, don't you think? And I haven't even got to the good bit yet.

(Here's the song - Spotify link to the best version)

The rest of the song is a bolt of pure vitriol, sharpened with cruel wit and fired from a (self) righteous rusty old crossbow, made of stiff frustration and moustache wax.

Modern art, it screams, is about modern artists, and modern artists are all about themselves and commerce. They don't make art, they package things, wrap them in explanations and them sell them. Bugger. That.

It's not a million miles away from a Daily Mail editorial bemoaning the idiocy of the art establishment, only a lot swearier and a lot funnier. I'm not sure if I agree with it entirely , and I don't really think it's that important if you do either.

In fact, the only reason I'm explaining all this is because the amazing bit at the end only really works because of the howl of protest that precedes it.

Having laid waste to the world of conceptual art, and with a song to finish and a flourish in mind, Wild Billy suddenly yelps:

"OOMPA-PAPPA OOMPA-PAPPA OOMPA-PAPPA...HEY!

OOMPA-PAPPA OOMPA-PAPPA OOMPA-PAPPA...HEY!"

before a final, triumphant shout of "Is it art or is. It. ARSE!"

And that's that. The battle is over, Billy has won. He's, like, Billiam The Conqueror.

Cos all the conceptual ideas and self-congratulatory scenester mirror-kissing in the world can't beat a grown man in old clothes channelling 'Surfin' Bird'. Even if Tracey is right, this makes her wrong. Even if Damien Hurst's bejewelled skulls are on a par with the Sistine Chapel, he has no feral thrill to match the power of the heartily-screamed "OOMPA-PAPPA", has he?

Best of all, as an ending to what is essentially a protest song against the over-rationalisation of art - albeit a childish one, pun intended - it defies explanation. It simply IS.

Oh, sorry, a word fell off. It simply IS BRILLIANT.