Quiet Loner

With the country deep in recession and austerity cuts hitting the poorest in our society, where are the artistic responses? Where are the protest singers? 
‘Greedy Magicians’, singer-songwriter Matt Hill aka Quiet Loner’s third album, is such a response – a collection of contemporary protest songs seething with disgust and shot through with melancholy at the state of our coalition-led nation. It’s an album which reflects on recent events and rewrites them as chapters in a long and historic struggle of the many against the few. 
‘The Captain's Diseased’ is the second single to be taken from the album. Picking up on the oftheard mantra that 'we're all in the same boat', this rollicking sea shanty casts David Cameron as a deranged and syphilitic sea captain. The captain decides the sick and frail aren't working hard enough and casts them overboard. The allegory isn't subtle, at a time when the coalition is cutting billions from the benefits of disabled people and carers. Despite the serious subject, it pokes fun in the long tradition of satire, with its boozy accordion and cries of "he's syphilltic and riddled with fleas". Nevertheless it makes a powerful point.