MP Alan Johnson

Within moments of my phonecall with Alan Johnson it’s obvious that he is no casual music fan. In his Westminster parliamentary office, the Labour MP and former Cabinet Minister has recounted to me his life’s most treasured gigs, talked me through the intricacies of the Elvis Costello back-catalogue and given his reasoned verdict on music, old and new. He has unpacked the charm behind his favourite Beatles track and has even made references to quirky Manchester outfit Everything Everything, as well as offering his opinion on chamber-pop giants The Arcade Fire’s latest album The Suburbs (“fantastic… but I’d rate Funeral higher, I think”). All of this feels a little strange when I have to remind myself that I am having a conversation with a politician, more attuned to appearing on Question Time.

But then Alan Johnson has never been your run-of-the-mill politician. Growing up in a London council flat and thrown into the world of work as a postman at 18 years old, Johnson’s modest beginnings and do-it-yourself work ethic seem worlds apart from the Oxbridge convention followed by many of his contemporaries. Deliciously intertwined with his working-class roots is a keen and open love for music. “Where did the passion for music start?” Johnson wonders aloud, “I guess it starts with what you first hear. I was fortunate I suppose… I was living through the period when rock music started, but it was in my formative years when the Beatles came around, and that changed everything for me. They were the standout.” It strikes me how skilled Johnson is in formulating his answers – something that he has clearly picked up in his political career. There is a pause whilst he selects the best words to fit his subject, and then he answers in a clear and direct way, always making sure to return to the question I have asked so as to make sure he has communicated his idea effectively, as if he was answering Piers or Paxman.

Unlike many Beatles fans, he does not launch into a musical crusade of explaining why George, John, Paul and Ringo were the best thing to ever happen in popular music, but instead makes clear to me how it influenced his musical ambition. “Well it got me into the other defining bands of that time- The Small Faces, The Who. I saw the Stones a few times. Then that got me into starting my own music.” It’s probably at this point where I realise his upbringing contrasts to that of, say, Boris Johnson or George Osborne.

I picture Johnson grimacing as he divulges his experience of forming two bands in his youth. “I was in two bands actually, I’m a bit of a failed rock star really”, he laughs, “but we had to stop playing because all our equipment was nicked. There was the Area – but then we got our gear stole again. And then after that I was in The In-Betweens (note: not the Inbetweeners), and that was pretty oddball – the singer, who was half Columbian, an Indian guy on bass, and a woman who twirled herself around me as I played guitar. It was all very exciting”, he assures me. “But then I ended up getting married, I had already had had a kid, and I had to get a job”. It seems circumstances pushed Johnson along a certain course, as he soon after became a trade union branch official which led him to the Labour Party, reaching a forked path where he had to choose between politics and music. I ask him what he thinks of the group MP4, a group made of UK Members of Parliament and whether there are any chances of a jam in parliament. He laughs and dismisses the idea quickly- “No… I have no thoughts about joining up with them, besides last I heard I was being sought after elsewhere… Yes, Johnson-McCartney does have a certain ring to it…” Similarly, he doesn’t contemplate forming a band with another amateur rockstar-politician anytime soon. When I bring up Tony Blair and The Ugly Rumours- “Tony was always more of a heavy metal man really.”

I bring up the ever pugnacious Morrissey and the scathing comments he has made towards David Cameron’s government and whether such remarks were just. He laughs to himself somewhat, “no, politics is too important for that. A politician trying to be cool doesn’t work, but a musician trying to be profound is not good. Fashionable viewpoints are equally bad, but if you’re genuine in either field, then that works. You need to be an absolute master of these issues to comment on them – when people sit down to write a political song, it doesn’t work”. It’s here where I see the political side of Johnson shine through- he clearly has a sense of drive and moral purpose. He tells me that The Clash and Billy Bragg are two of his favourite politically-fuelled artists. I ask him if he has ever listened to Rage Against The Machine. He hasn’t, but says he has now made a note to do so. I imagine Johnson sat in his office sometime in the near future blasting out Killing in the Name as other MPs walk by in bewilderment but I shrug the image off.

Alan Johnson sounds like he is an accidental politician, as if he stumbled in through a sidedoor. I tell him this, and he immediately agrees. “I was interested in writing songs definitely but it didn’t pan out”, but then he mentions his son, “Ah yes, Jamie is a recording engineer… he’s recorded with Razorlight and with Paul Weller several times… I’m living my dreams through him somewhat, I often ring him up and tell him to check out certain bands- Everything Everything, the New Pornographers, The Airborne Toxic Event…”. I laugh at this dynamic and wonder aloud whether he’s wasted in politics. He has a clear intellectualism and geniality about him that fits a political life, but his fervent infatuation with music is surprising for someone doing what he does. It strikes me how a common interest in music hits a nerve, cutting across politics and class. I tell him- if circumstances were different, and he could do it again, would it be music or politics? His answer is immediate and final- “Music. Without a doubt”, he says, “Without a shadow of a doubt. Spending your life in music as a songwriter, or a recording engineer, or a musician- that would be beautiful. And that’s everything that I wanted to do.”