“Liar Liar” by Captain Ska, a British reggae and ska band, ranks fourth on the UK’s Official Charts, right behind songs featuring Justin Bieber and DJ Khaled. The video for the song has been viewed more than 2.4 million times on YouTube.
It’s not about sex, drugs, or rock ’n’ roll. It’s about British Prime Minister Theresa May.
The song’s popularity could pose a new and unexpected challenge to May just two days before the country’s next election. She has seen her lead cut in half, with her main challenger, Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, now trailing by just 8 points.
And now she’s facing the wrath of Captain Ska, a seven-year-old band founded by a trumpet player and producer named Jake Painter.
The bizarre music video for “Liar, Liar” literally has to be seen to be truly appreciated. It’s a mashup of clips from May’s speeches, shots of other conservative politicians shaking their heads, and a video of May holding hands with President Trump. It also shows May laughing in slow motion, as the lyrics “They’re having a laugh / Let’s show them the door then” are sung.
Throughout the song, lyrics criticize May’s Conservative Party and emphasize that she’s untrustworthy. The chorus is incredibly blunt:
She’s a liar, liar
You can’t trust her
No, no, no, no
As an example of May’s flip-flops, the song specifically points to a Conservative proposal to require individuals needing in-home health support services to pay for them on their own if they earn $130,000 or more. Critics started calling the proposal the “dementia tax,” and three days later, the Conservatives removed it from their platform.
Captain Ska sees it as another sign of May’s failures:
Nurses going hungry
Schools in decline
I don’t recognize this broken country of mine
The new version of “Liar Liar” is actually a remix of Captain Ska’s original single released in 2010, which protested rising college tuition costs, cuts to the public sector, and the coalition government led by previous Prime Minister David Cameron.
“I’ve been in the industry for 15 years and Captain Ska is the result of my total frustration with the apathetic response to the most right-wing government in decades,” Painter said in a recent interview with the Guardian.
Captain Ska doesn’t mention Corbyn’s Labour Party in the song, but the band’s feelings about May and the Conservatives are clear. The song’s popularity suggests that millions of others share those sentiments. And that could be bad news for May.
