“Growing up” is an important concept in Blood Brothers. It is one of the consequences of the class divide, separating Edward and Mickey. After the summer song, which epitomises their childhood, they are 18, and straight away we can see the difference. “MICKEY, LINDA and EDWARD enter, laughing and exhausted.” to the scene after the Summer Song. The scene is Linda and Edward, and Mickey isn’t there. This is because he is working overtime, showing that he already has had to leave his childhood behind in order to stay alive. However, Edward is going to university, and hints to Linda that he loves her. He has a good future ahead of him and a lot of money. When they made the Blood Brothers pact, they were children and now that Mickey has been forced to grow up, after losing his job, he thinks that they aren’t friends anymore, and has grown out of his old, “childish” ideas. Edward hasn’t realised that the relationship between himself and Mickey has changed over time.
“EDWARD: I thought we were…were blood brothers.
MICKEY: That was kids stuff, Eddie...You are still a kid, aren’t y’?”
Russell uses Edward as a representation of all that is bad about the upper classes. He is made to appear unsympathetic and selfish. “Why is a job so important?” he says. This is an ironic comment considering that at the time, many people were losing their jobs and unemployment was at a record level
Russell does not have much sympathy for the upper classes and uses every opportunity to demonstrate this. The moral of the play is very clear –it is wrong that the rich get richer at the expense of the poor. Edward eventually takes everything from Mickey. The song “Take a letter Miss Jones” tells the story of how the workforce was just considered as a resource. It’s insensitive, with a cheery tune which makes it sound fake and insincere. Russell is making fun of the upper class. The cheerful atmosphere of it adds to the heartless meaning. It includes repetition, so we know that people are being fired again and again. It’s very unsympathetic, showing how the rich, unaffected upper classes are condescending to the lower classes. It is significant that Mr Lyons, Edwards’s father sings “Take a letter Miss Jones” because it shows the audience what Edward will become. For some, the 80s was a time of unfairness and discrimination and is referred to throughout Blood Brothers. Class is more important after the Summer Song because the boys are 18 and looking for jobs. As adults, they are judged by class.
The lyrics to the summer sequence are in four main groups; Innocence and youth, Time, Linda and Foreshadowing. The lyrics that fit into the innocence and youth category are:
“Few bob in your pocket” At the start of the song, the children are fifteen. They all have money to spend. This could be construed as ironic, because Mickey comes from a poor background, so he literally would only have a “few bob”. Edward’s family is rich, so he might have a lot of spending money. The phrase “Young, free and innocent,” is repeated throughout, slowly becoming more ironic and sarcastic. “Haven’t got a care,” This adds to the image of innocence. It is foreshadowing later, when the boys’ heads, especially Mickey’s, will be full of worries and doubts. “Lambs in spring,” creates images of innocence. After spring, the lambs are slaughtered, so this can be interpreted as ominous. “But leave them alone, let them go and play,” says the Narrator, referring to the previous line. It feels almost as if he is playing with us, stringing out their future, prolonging the time until their deaths. This adds to the idea of him being fate. “The radio’s singing dreams,” This line is there to show that the children were living in a kind of alternate reality. “You can’t understand how living could be anything other than a dream,” This adds to the idea of innocence and naivety. We feel sorry for the characters at this point, because they are so weak and helpless.
The lyrics that fit into the Time category are:
“Paradise,” This refers to the Garden of Eden, and how it was eternal, until woman corrupted it. This could be construed as a reference to Linda tearing them apart.“Switches off the chippy light,” The children are moths, and have always had a light to follow, someone to tell them what to do. Now there is no light to go to, they must make there own choice. A light going out can also mean death – another reference to the inevitability of the twin’s deaths. “Midnight hour, at seventeen,” Where midnight is the pinnacle of the night, seventeen is the pinnacle of the boy’s lives. It is nearly the dawn of their death day. This quote also has echoes of a modern Faustian pact (Faust made a pact with the devil, which came at midnight to take his soul) the midnight hour is also linked to witches, and the story of Cinderella.
The lyrics that refer to Linda are:
“Girl in the middle,” She is torn between the two boys, in a tug of war that they do not realise is happening yet. “With your friends, with her,” This demonstrates that their friendship has been replaced with love for Linda. “Her” dehumanises Linda, so she becomes a device instead of a full character. It suggests that if it was not Linda, someone else would take her place, and the inevitable chain of events would carry on. It adds to the feeling of fate. The lyrics that are foreshadowing are:
“You’re innocent, immortal,” This is ironic because we know that the twins will die. When you’re are young, it feels like life will carry on forever, and you’re very happy. Immortal is used to reveal the boy’s inflated egos, as they show off to each other and Linda. “Price she’ll have to pay” This is adding to the idea of repaying debts, which is mentioned throughout the play, referring to different characters. It could also be a slight mention of Mrs Johnstone, Mickey’s mother who gave birth to them both. She is still attached to both of them, even going so far as to give a locket with her picture to Edward, who is now Mrs Lyon’s son. “What fate the later seasons bring,” This is adding to the metaphor of the lambs in spring. It is hinting towards the inevitable fate of the slaughter house that lambs face, which the boys soon will. It is mentioned to worry the audience.
The lyrics that fit into the foreshadowing category are:
“Young, free and innocent,” This is to emphasise that the boys are still children.
“Chippy” This tells us that Mickey is nearing the end of his life. In the “It’s just a game” scene, Mickey is threatened by frying in chip shop fat, so this is a signal that the boys he will die soon. “Last cigarette” Cigarettes are associated with death. “Last cigarette” is a prisoner’s “last luxury” before they’re hanged. It’s also an allusion to the biblical last supper. “Ferry boat” This is the idea that the three are being taken to the land of the dead on the River Styx.” Broken bottles in the sand,” Broken bottles in the sand are hidden, and when you accidentally stand on them they surprise you. This is referring to how unaware the children are of their futures. “Oil in the water” This brings ideas of pollution, and corruption and spreading fate. Oil and water don’t mix, they will always separate. This is like Mickey and Edward’s friendship. The use of “we” in the final paragraph reminds us that we are powerless, and it is the narrator letting us know that he’s in the same situation as us, unable to let the characters know of their fate. We do not know whether he is being sarcastic, or would actually like to let them know. “Predict no changes in the weather,” This reminds us that this happy summer will come to an end.
The song is made up of rhyming couplets, which make it sound childish, and adds a sense of finality, so after the last rhyme, you know it’s over. For “young, free and innocent,” there’s one word for each child. It also makes them seem vulnerable. You know that the innocence will be lost after the song. “dreams” and “fifteen.” Have a jarring Para rhyme which interrupts quickly, like what will happen to their lives.
The tune of the Summer Song is the first and the last song, “Tell me it’s not true” repeated in different themes. Our minds are taken back throughout the previous moments of the play and the first scene when we see Mrs Johnstone with the two dead boys. This connects the audience more to the characters, making it feel harder when the boys die. It suggests that this has happened before, and will happen again. After the first verse there is a pause in the music, to emphasise the narrator’s last words, “The price she’ll have to pay for just being there.” The audience dwells on the idea of the debt that Linda will have to repay, to make up for Mrs Johnstone’s debt. The line after the pause: “But leave them alone, let them go and play,” implies that summer is the peak of the year, when everything is at its best, and by the end of it everything is fully developed. It makes you think of leisure, fun, warmth and life. Unfortunately it’s fleeting, and is soon over, giving way to autumn when everything is wasting away, withering. Some of the lyrics could be portrayed as sarcastic. The song starts in “Paradise”, and then goes to a chip shop, then darkness, then a filthy beach. The environment seems to get worse and worse. It makes you wonder where they will be next. The first verse is played with a guitar and fairground music and the second is a “sleazy” saxophone, which clashes with what the narrator is telling us about them being innocent. The last verse is said in a wishful tone, which makes us regretful because we know that these innocent, promising children will soon be dead. At the start of the song, when the children rush on, it gives you an idea of their carefree nature. The narrator interacts with the children throughout the scene. When he is the rifle range man in the first verse, he offers the gun to the children, as if he is slyly hinting at their future. When Linda takes it and misses all three shots, we realise how they have changed, because when they were younger Linda was an excellent shot. The narrator throws them a coconut, and they begin a game of piggy-in-the-middle and Linda gets caught in the middle, at which point they freeze. This is when the narrator talks about the “girl in the middle of the pair, the price she’ll pay just for being there.” It emphasises and foreshadows that she will have to choose between the two. The theme of debt shows through here, with the debt transferring to Linda. In the next verse we see them lighting a cigarette, leaning on the lamppost, and suiting their actions to the words. It has a much more grown up feel than the previous verse. In the fourth verse they are at the beach, taking pictures, the first of the two boys, the second of Edward and Linda and the third of Mickey and Linda. Edward and Linda’s seem much more genuine and well matched. Then the narrator takes a picture of the three. This makes the audience wish that the children knew of their futures and it makes the “picture” look empty, and meaningless. When the three exit he says, “and only if the three of them could stay like that forever,” As if the picture he took could have been more than just a snapshot. It makes you wish time could have stopped. The music of the song is matched to the actions and words. The narrator is always hovering in the background, waiting for a chance to become part of the scene. He is a constant presence throughout so the audience are never relaxed. They are always waiting for him to introduce another twist in the story. Before the Summer Song, he is quite far away, usually in a corner. During it though, he is allowed to come closer to them, and his “threats” become much more dangerous. “The devils got your number…he’s staring through your window” changes to “He’s screaming right inside you”. The proximity of the narrator to the characters affects the tension of the scene.
The overall message of the play is that the inequality of classes is very bad thing, which is enforced as we watch the brothers grow from babies to men, and watch them die. We become attached to them, and regret their death, almost as if it’s our own fault. The song is when they make the transition from boys to men, and when they become their own people and their true feelings begin to show. Mickey represents the lower class, and Edward the higher. Linda is temptation and the narrator is fate. We see the lower class and the upper class tear each other apart. The second act is darker, as the dream world of child hood, which is reflected in the first half of the summer song, becomes the cold harsh reality of the 80s. I think that the message that Russell wanted to imprint upon the audience is: class is a cruel thing, tearing family and friends apart. The play made me feel sad, and shocked by how Mickey was driven mad enough to shoot his own brother.
