Liverpool Wins (Movement 3)

The track from Moor Mother that I’ve chosen to analyse is Liverpool Wins (Movement 3), one of the tracks from the deluxe edition of The Great Bailout. This track is 18 minutes long and focuses on unearthing the truth of why Liverpool became prosperous, due to it being England’s main port for slave ships. This track begins with very simple piano, in a major key, that plays a melodic part that feels nostalgic and triumphant. Its later joined by a violin that further harmonically reinforces this feeling of triumph. On top of that, a sample of a football commentator’s voice can be heard exclaiming “Liverpool triumphant” repeating over and over. At around 3 minutes in, Moor Mother begins her poetry/ narration that can be heard throughout the album. As she reveals more through her words in the next 15 minutes, the music gradually becomes more dissonant and haunting. The piano, which was once bright sonically, is now dull and sounds much more worn than the first section. The strings gradually become scratchy and broken sounding also. This change happens around 7 minutes in, but everything gets exponentially harrowing both melodically and texturally throughout the rest of the track’s runtime. Moor Mother’s work very clearly engages with politics, and does such an incredible job of doing so. Her lyrics and the music both work together to give an overwhelming sense of real pain and horror caused by the slave trade, both emotionally and factually. What I find most interesting in how she achieves it is the individual roles of the vocals and the music, both performing different functions to create one haunting experience. A lot of what she chooses to say is factual and historical from a modern viewpoint, not from the point of view of slaves at the time. It seems her main lyrical angle in this album is focused on how history has been rewrtitten by the countries that engaged in the slave trade, to fill them with comforatble lies that cover up for their atrocities, whilst still hypocritcally reaping the benefits of the horror they caused. This serves an important fuction of telling the truth to those who have believed these lies, and presenting some hard questions on where their nation’s “greatness” came from (e.g, Track 6 “All the Money”). The music on the other hand, does feel like a representation of the pain, confusion and torture that had to be endured by the slaves captured. Her use of samples, texture and harmony create an incredibly chilling atmospheric world to pair with what she says. The end result is a terrifying yet amazing piece of art that transcends what music tradtionally is, becoming an immersive experience that will force many people to face some hard truths that have been covered up by Europe.