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Album
Our Man In The Field
Great White Hope
(Rocksnob)

Price: 0 SEK

The new Our Man In The Field single »Great White Hope« is a follow up to the critically acclaimed debut album »The Company Of Strangers«, released in September 2020. »Great White Hope« is not on the album, but the mood and the sound make it a natural sequel.

Our Man In The Field/Alex Ellis says:

I'd heard the phrase »The Great White Hope« used before in relation to American sports and politics, Bill Clinton was the first »The Great White Hope« for America I remember hearing about. I'd noticed use of the phrase creeping into coverage of UK politics about 5 years ago (Also Tyson Fury was being touted as “the great white hope” for boxing around the same time) and it made me wonder where it came from.

I read about the incredible life of Jack Johnson - the first black heavy weight champion of the world, the first black boxer allowed to fight for the title. 100 years ago he was literarily and figuratively fighting for racial equality on his own terms. All this time later has much changed? Colin Kaepernick would probably say not.

I don’t know when the phrase crossed into politics but in the last few years the global rise of populism has swept many a Great White Hope to power whilst promising to do incredible things. Just as each boxing Great white Hope was found wanting so many of the political versions have failed to deliver on their pre-election promises.

I wondered about the conversations between boxing fans after each Johnson win gradually changing as it dawned on them that Johnson was just better than anyone else.

So “Great White Hope” is a conversation between two people beginning to think maybe there is no such thing. They could be from 1910 after Johnson beat Jim Jeffries in »the fight of the century« or they could be from any other time in history, maybe the end 2020.

1. Great White Hope

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