Featured Essay: The Music of Cocksparrer: A Perfect Anecdote for Our Nihilistic Times

by Dan Chambers

My wife and I lived in the Chicago suburbs for five years at the start of our lives as young married professionals, before the arrival of our daughter. I had just begun a career as a union organizer, my wife as a veterinarian. This was 20 years ago. A few weeks ago we made the biennial pilgrimage back to Chicago to stay with our dear friends Tim and Amy, and make time to see as many of the people from our lives then as we could. It was a grand trip. 

We met the crew from my wife’s old veterinary practice for a wine tasting at a place we used to frequent in Wheaton, Illinois. What an afternoon. Toward the end of it, my daughter asked if I’d walk with her to Dairy Queen. She had been a good sport about visiting with a bunch of forty-somethings fawning over how big she’s gotten and asking about her college plans during this trip, so I was inclined to say yes, but then she hit me with the kicker–there was a record store next door. She’d done her homework, and I couldn’t say no. Down the sidewalk we went across the train tracks on a beautiful August afternoon. 

Ice cream in hand, she patiently waited by the door as I ripped through the racks, and this particular store had a massive selection of punk records. I picked up two: Alkaline Trio’s “Maybe I’ll Catch Fire” and Cocksparrer’s 2017 album “Forever”. 

In the past year, I’ve become more impressed with Cocksparrer’s music. Their band name is slang (Cockney Sparrow) for someone from London’s East End. The band has been making music since the mid-70’s originally. After early major-label failures, they reformed in the 80’s and helped launch a whole new subgenre–street punk. Music by working class people, for working class people. Less art-school dropouts, more factory workers and bus drivers. What makes Cocksparrer’s music a cut above other street punk bands is their hooks, their anthemic, uplifting lyrics and their longevity–they just released an album last year. 

In the year of our Lord 2025,  times are tough. Things are fucked, not to put too fine a point on it. We face environmental collapse, rising fascism, and a rampant nihilism fueled by the electronic propaganda of bad faith actors on all sides, super-charged by algorithms written by even worse people. It’s easy to give up, and withdraw. And that’s where I’m going to encourage you to dive deep into Cocksparrer’s recent releases which have been a salve for me. 

Now, professionally ironic music appreciators might roll their eyes when they hear songs like “One by One” when the gang choruses get going with lines like  “With mates like these, we’ll take our enemies, we’ll take ‘em all till the last one is gone”, but man there is beauty in hearing 70 year-old men singing hard, fast songs about sticking it out and not letting your friends down. When Colin McFaul sings “I’m telling you she’s gonna be ok. I’m telling you that she’ll pull through and find her own way, Telling you she is gonna win this fight, I’m telling you she’s gonna be alright” it’s because he has absolutely told this to a panicked friend whose child is in the middle of some kind of struggle. 

The standout track on the album for me is “Nothing Like You”, a direct ‘fuck you’ song to some object of their derision. Hooky, tight, angry, the closing lines say it all: “Never had the need to live the dream, Never had the need to make the team. I’ve never had the need to act like you

I’ve never told a lie you never told the truth”.  

The themes on “Forever” and even more so on their incredible 2024 release “Hand on Heart” (which will be my next purchase) aren’t vindictive or angry. They’re hopeful songs of solidarity for your crew, anthemic commitments to be there in the face of long odds for the people in your life. In a bleak world that exalts cynicism and greed, everyone could use a little Cocksparrer in their life. 

Like they wrote in 1984’s “Where Are They Now” about departed punk icons of their youth, “I believed in them, don’t you believe in us?” These guys have lived decades of struggle, and with that struggle comes perspective. But if Cocksparrer still believe in each other, who am I to say they’re wrong? Jawbreaker’s punk poet Blake Schwarzenbach asked on “Indictment”, “I’d like to know what’s so wrong with a stupid happy song?” 

Nothing, Blake. Cocksparrer’s legacy is a testament to the power that approachable, uplifting, simple, anthemic rock rooted in your real life experience has to bring us together and push us forward through uncertainty. This labor day, I’ll celebrate my comrades, my friends, and my family, across all the boundaries that separate us, and in the face of everything that means us ill. This I swear, with my hand on my heart. 

Dan Chambers lives outside Baltimore with his wife and daughter, two dogs, a guinea pig, and a hamster. He’s still a union organizer, still a punk, and still trying to see the best in everyone, despite everything.