Nadine Shah – Yes Men

Never was there a better time to release a song like ‘Yes Men’. In the week that we go to the polls and decide whether we want to put Jeremy Corbyn or a woman who thinks running through fields of wheat is naughty (when really the “naughtiest” thing she’s done is preside over Brexit and crippling austerity as both Home Secretary and PM), Nadine Shah has delivered a track that takes aim at those who are all too willing to hide behind headlines. As Nadine says, ‘Yes Men’ are “the ones that would make us believe that the hand in power which is perpetually slapping you in the face is the hand that will someday pull us from a chasm of its own creation”. It’s telling that this tale of people who are willing to feed the majority to the wolves to save their own is punctuated by a deep, inescapable sense of melancholia. Across whispers of electronica and reverberating, almost New Wave guitar melody that only gets heavier and more warped (just like certain people’s perspective on the world), Nadine sings about the “right honourable men” who surround themselves with sycophants and there’s “no way man you could ever tell them”. “Sing” perhaps isn’t the right word though; “lament” is probably more accurate, her voice dipping and trailing off at the end of each chorus just ever so slightly, just compounding the mournful tone of the track. Perhaps there’s hope that this situation can be overturned, but for now Nadine has delivered another powerful address on the state of the world.