Revellers at this year’s Glastonbury music festival in Somerset, England, awoke to the news that the Leave side had won the Brexit referendum, as the news was broken to them by a poem posted on sign posts around the festival’s campsites.
Jodi Ann Bickley, a Sunday Times bestseller and creator of the poetry project One Million Lovely Letters, wrote the following poem, that was posted around the festival site and tweeted by Glastonbury’s official account:
Everyone is repeating they have no words,
But we’re full of them.
As the camp wakes up to the news,
Tents come alive with profanity,
It can’t be true, can it, really?
It is.
It’s a day that none of us have felt less British.
All those around us crack open breakfast wine and shout for revolt.
I think we’re pretty safe in the knowledge that it’s nobody’s here’s fault.
So let’s trudge on through the mud,
And sing out loud our protests songs.
As the country is divided – in this field we belong,
Embrace your fellow Glastonberry,
As they are feeling just like you,
Goodbye old friend,
We’ll miss you a lot,
Our little mate the EU.
— Glastonbury Festival (@GlastoFest) June 24, 2016
Musical performers at the festival have also reacted to this morning’s result, with rock band Bastille changing the lyrics of their song Pompeii in a set broadcast on BBC Radio One, while Blur frontman Damon Albarn told spectators from the stage: “I have a heavy heart today. Democracy failed us because it was ill-informed.”
