Culture
Dropkick Murphys Frontman Reviews Ed Sheeran's Courage and Finds It Insufficient
By Bruno Von Falken, . BSN Network. Satire.
Ken Casey, frontman of the Dropkick Murphys, a band whose entire artistic output can be summarized as "Boston, but louder," has publicly evaluated Ed Sheeran's personal integrity and come away deeply unsatisfied.
The complaint concerns "Nerve Wracking," a recent Macklemore track on which Sheeran appears as a featured artist. Macklemore has spent the better part of the last two years releasing politically charged music, most of it aimed at American foreign policy. Sheeran showed up, sang his part, and did not, to anyone's knowledge, issue a statement of conscience before or after the session. Casey found this unacceptable.
"He took the knee," Casey told Rolling Stone, in a sentence that will require a moment to fully appreciate. Ed Sheeran, the ginger architect of "Shape of You," the man who collaborated with Taylor Swift on a song called "End Game," has been accused of moral capitulation by the lead singer of a Celtic punk band that once wrote a song literally called "Shipping Up to Boston."
Casey elaborated: "That doesn't sit right with me. That's not how Dropkick Murphys would operate." This is presumably true. The Dropkick Murphys would have operated differently. Whether that means they would have declined the collaboration entirely, or simply have shown up to the studio and started a fight with the mixing board, remains unclear.
Bruce Springsteen, who has collaborated with the Dropkick Murphys and therefore occupies the role of Approved Musical Partner, was not available for comment, but his implicit endorsement hangs over this controversy like a benediction from Asbury Park.
Ed Sheeran, for his part, has said nothing, which may itself be the behavior Casey is objecting to. Or it may be that Sheeran is simply unaware that he has been summoned before an invisible tribunal convened by a man in a flat cap.
Macklemore, the other party in this arrangement, is no stranger to the experience of making other artists uncomfortable. He won four Grammys in 2014 over Kendrick Lamar and then spent several years publicly processing his feelings about winning four Grammys over Kendrick Lamar, which is a level of emotional labor most people reserve for actual crises.
What Casey seems to want, though he has not stated it in quite these terms, is for Ed Sheeran to have done something. To have said something, refused something, planted a flag somewhere, thrown something at a wall. The Dropkick Murphys, as an institution, are in the business of having opinions at volume. Casey has looked at Ed Sheeran, a man worth approximately $200 million who tours arenas filled with people who cry at acoustic guitar solos, and decided that this person has failed a test of grit.
It is worth noting that the Dropkick Murphys recently played Fenway Park, a venue where a man once sued because his hot dog was too cold. The moral atmosphere in Boston is complicated.
Sheeran has not responded, has not apologized, and has not, as far as anyone can tell, revised his position on Macklemore. He is currently on a world tour. The tour is selling out.
The Dropkick Murphys' opinion of this is not known, but one imagines it does not sit right.
The story we are making fun of: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/dropkick-murphys-ken-casey-ed-sheeran-took-knee-macklemore-1235629079/