1933

Album: Be More Kind (2018)
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Songfacts®:

  • This jangling, state-of-the-nation anthem was the first track to be released from Be More Kind. The song was inspired by articles Frank Turner saw that suggested the alt-right was punk rock.

    "That filled me with a mixture of incredulity and anger," said the singer. "The idea that Breitbart or Steve Bannon think they have anything to do with punk rock makes me extremely angry. These ideas are surfacing again that collectively as a species we've already shot down."
  • Turner explained the song's title to NME:

    "1933 was the year that the Nazis took power in Germany. Obviously I’m quite consciously aware of Godwin’s Law and the idea that mentioning the Nazis gets pretty tired in principled debate pretty quickly. But it still, nevertheless, seemed like it was a turning point which in and of itself didn’t necessarily seem apocalyptic at the time – in 1933 I’m not sure that anybody in Germany was thinking of 1945 and yet they were inextricably linked.

    The year 2016 in particular felt quite momentous to me, it was a threatening year, and it’s a song that was written when we were touring in the USA in the summer of 2016 while the election campaign was ongoing."

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