Pick of the political pops: Steve Earle “John Walker’s Blues”

In a week where it seems like there’s almost nothing new under the sun to say about Brexit that hasn’t been said a million times over, in today’s Pops we cast our minds back to the turn of the century. Steve Earle caused considerable outrage by writing a sympathetic song for John Walker Lindh, the infamous lone American member of the Taliban. “Twisted ballad honours Tali-rat,” was the headline in the New York Post, while Steve Gill, a Rush Limbaugh-style radio host, said that the song put Earle “in the same category as Jane Fonda, John Walker and all those people who hate America”. Earle told The Guardian that “I became acutely aware that what happened to him could have happened to my son, and your son, and anybody’s son. Nobody in my country wanted to admit that. It’s one of the most American stories I’ve ever heard.”