Never Heard Marquee Moon

How a Twitter Meme Brings Home a Classic Guitar Album

In August 2020 a Twitter account Memorial Device* posted a picture of far-right “commentator” Nigel Farage sprawled out on a verdant hillside, overlooking the south coast of Britain—an island nation famous for its bright white cliffs—complete with the caption: “This man has never heard a single note of Marquee Moon.” And so a meme was born.

The phrase quickly extended into several variations of a hashtag #neverheardmarqueemoon  #thismanhasneverheardmarqueemoon alongside nudge-nudge asides “they’ve never heard it”—an acidic sting that delivers a rod of taste-making justice to beat political pseuds across the papier-mache head of their public image. The Farage photo-op was later righteously edited with the addition of a passing Nazi parade and box of tissues near to hand. 

In spite of the lurid bonfire that X has become, infected by vitriolic hate speech, porn-bot zombie followers, and “verified” (paid-for) blue tick autocrats, a scorched earth wildfire fuelled by drug-addled egomania of the platform’s current owner, Twitter still endures as a platform for vicious humor, critical discussion, and sharing music and creative influences. And it was in this spirit the Memorial Device account delivered its own double-punch: combining nostalgia for Television’s iconic debut album with biting present-day satire of the self-declared commentariat class and feckless Conservative members of the British parliament—pop culture meets political angst on the internet’s best never-ending hellscape.