Liverpool Wins is the 7th track on Moor Mother’s 2024 album The Great Bailout. The album focuses on the abolition of slavery in England, and seeks to reframe the lens through which we approach the act. More specifically, it seeks to retell the story of emancipation in the British Empire, which has long been represented as a progressive government act that changed lives for emancipated slaves. Moor Mother challenges this perspective, outlining the social, material, and personal damage that resulted from, or was re-shaped by, the abolition of slavery.
Sonically, the track is atmospheric and sporadic. It is introduced by a sharp, swelling bass note that persists through its length. The instrumental that is constructed around this is jarring; there are introductions of static feedback at different points, as well as what sounds like a detuned keyboard that increases tension. Tension is also built by making percussive elements out of what sounds like wind and metal, which travel across the panoramic field in differing intensities. Towards the mid-section of the track, these elements reach a climax where they are further complemented by metallic percussion and tape-stops, seemingly out of time. This continues until the end of the track. It is also worth mentioning Moor Mother’s non-spoken vocals as well as the supporting vocals from Kyle Kidd. Layers of harmonies add to the atmospheric quality of the track, especially since they are present throughout in different registers of voice. The falsetto vocals are almost ghost-like, inducing an eerie atmosphere that is thematically tied to the lyrical content of the song.
Moor Mother’s poetry is non-direct in the sense that she alludes to what was ‘stolen’ by the British government in both the conceptual and material sense. “Rich during the crime / And rich after”. It is also extremely confrontational – “Who builds death like this?….Who can’t find any room for apologies?”. Additionally, there is a poignant reference to The Secret of England’s Greatness, a Victorian-era painting which depicts the Queen granting The Bible to a kneeling African chief. This reference helps to underscore the saviour complex which Moor Mother is criticising as still existing today, where the British Empire was able to claim superior moral ground on the basis of emancipation, oblivious to the fact that they themselves introduced slavery. It also serves to highlight the Euro-centrism of the dominant perspective on British emancipation; Queen Victoria is “granting” the African chief The Bible as he is kneeling, as if he must respect the opportunity to convert to Christianity, which is suggested to be the “superior” religion by virtue of this act. Moor Mother connects this attitude to the financial exploitation that was also grounded in the British belief of superiority, and, in essence, was responsible for creating the “infrastructure, the ports, the parks, the castles, the churches, the universities” that cement modern-day Britain’s identity as a developed nation.
As a political commentator, Moor Mother is greatly fluent in employing direct and indirect writing styles to build a multi-faceted argument that challenges traditional perspectives on divisive topics. Liverpool Wins is written in such a way that it mentions examples, “August 28th, 1833 / August 1st, 1834”, which are expanded upon with opinion and logical reasoning, “A financial revolution / A stronger Christianity / A whiter God”, and conclusively confronts the wider cultural hegemony that exists as a result of history, “How long did it take to pay off the trauma?”. In this way, Moor Mother constructs a factual and emotional argument that is made more powerful by the irregular and atmospheric instrumentation.