Footnote* is clever, funny and irreverent—a story about a boy from the redbrick
clichés of smalltown England reconciling Mormonism and punk rock, industrial courtesy and
political insurrection.
He finds a guitar, anarchism and art terrorism and, after years (and years and years) of
earnest, determined, honest-to-goodness slogging, his pop group† makes it big; that’s BIG
with a megaphone actually. They write a song that has the whole world singing and, funnily
enough, it’s an admirable summary of a life well lived—about getting knocked down and getting
back up again.
Meanwhile, there’s a whole world still happening: authentic lives carefully drawn, emotional
but not sentimental and always with a writer’s eye for detail. Footnote is not another plodding
rock memoir but a compassionate, critical and sometimes cynical account of a life steeped
in pop culture, lower division football and putting the world to rights.
* See page 293.
†Boff Whalley is a member of Chumbawamba.
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