Bombazine Dolls and Orders from the Dead

Abstract

This chapter considers the artists that best fit the third category from Chapter 2, re-shapers of myth. Empire Soldiers by Vibronics and Brain Damage, an Anglo-French multi-ethnic dub reggae collective, examines the experience of black soldiers and labourers during the War. ‘The Soldiering Life’ a homoerotic love song by the Decemberists, a rock band from Portland, Oregon, sees some positives in the war experience. English artists Billy Chyldish and Martin Newell are dubbed ‘radical traditionalists’ in their often irreverent conceptions of English history. Greek American Diamanda Galás has produced some extraordinary and extreme work that are an indictment of the Armenian and Greek genocides. Finally PJ Harvey’s album Let England Shake is discussed. Her work is shown to be a mature, complex analysis of the martial history of Britain and the First World War in particular. She presents a wholly different interpretation of Englishness and war myths containing the same ambiguity as the best of the war poets.