When I cook I rarely use anything approaching a recipe book, preferring to toss ingredients into a pot with some fried onions and a tin of chickpeas according to the inscrutable whim of the moment. My curries are spectacular, my sponge cakes inedible. When I’m exploring a city I like to wander without a map, figuring out how the road network fits together in relation to a handful of landmarks, an approach that I confess means that I get lost in back streets and miss some of the main sights altogether. And when I’m writing I like to create my own structure for ideas to flow into rather than copying one that already exists.
The structure is important, though – ideas need a framework to belong in just as roads need a network and a good curry needs a sturdy pan. I love to step out into the unknown, to explore the great wide open, but that doesn’t mean abandoning the paths completely. Today’s assembly is going to circle back to the great wide open, but we’re going to spend some time on structure first, starting with the structure for a slot on Radio 4 called Inheritance Tracks. This is, at its heart, about five minutes of autobiographical content from whichever celebrity has been persuaded to contribute to the show, but what makes it worth listening to is the structure within which the life story has to be told through the lens of two musical tracks. The first is one that has been inherited – usually from a parent – and the second is one that is worth passing on – usually to offspring. I like this idea and think it encapsulates my idea of legacy nicely – some of our musical taste was given to us, we all have a start in life, we’ve all benefited from what others have provided for us. Then, through our lives, we develop our record collection, our sense of self, our skills and experiences, and are able to pass on something to others – and what we give forward is not the same as what we received. The thesis of Inheritance Tracks is that somewhere in the path from one to the other is the story of your life.
I find that quite charming and, despite not having been invited to appear on the show (despite some quite heavy hints), have thought a lot about my inheritance tracks. My choices change with the seasons and this spring I’ve been thinking about what I might pass on to you – if any of you took my advice on something as mundane as pop music. According to the structure, I need to start with a track I received from my parents and I’m going for my second favourite song of all time, a piece called Songbird which was written by Christine McVie and released by Fleetwood Mac (with Christine on lead vocals and piano) as the final track on the A-side of their 1977 album Rumours. If you are already a Fleetwood Mac fan then you’ll know it, if you’re not then you should be and Rumours is the place to start. Second Hand News and Go Your Own Way are fantastic pieces of pop rock, Don’t Stop is a piece of upbeat hope that will raise a smile for tomorrow however dark today seems, Never Going Back Again is a slender thing of finger-picking, guitar playing brilliance, Dreams is Stevie Nicks being so slinky and sultry that I dare say no more in my role as principal and Songbird is a love song of beautiful perfection that declares “The songbirds are singing like they know the score, and I love you, I love you, I love you, like never before.” I confess that the B-side is a bit more hit and miss, but the first six tracks are all killer without a single second of filler.
I’ve chosen the song I’d pass on to you less for its musical brilliance (although it’s still worth a listen) and more because there are a couple of ideas that fit today’s purposes. Back in 1990 my friends were heavy metal fans and so the acoustic backdrop of my sixth-form years was heavily coloured by screaming guitars and ear-melting drums. This world intersected briefly with more traditionally pleasing sounds when one band released an acoustic love song that hit the mainstream. The song was called More than Words and is a sweet and beautiful piece until you pay attention to the lyrics and recognise that the main message is that “if you really loved me you’d have sex with me,” which is one that I strongly encourage you to steer clear of whether it’s a reflection that crosses your own mind (in which case you need to give yourself a stern talking to) or one that is shared by your romantic partner (in which case you should seriously consider ditching them). Since none of you have asked my advice on modern dating, we’ll leave More than Words behind and move onto the parent album which was purchased by a huge number of people who had fallen in love with the hit song (presumably not listening too closely to the words – or maybe having a worrying attitude to relationships). They were, in large numbers, disappointed to find that they had in their hands a heavy metal album. Before you feel too sorry for them I should tell you that the band’s name was Extreme and the album was titled Pornograffiti. I think they got what they deserved.
Anyway, the reason that I tell you this is that the final song on Pornograffiti is a surprisingly melodious piece with a yeehaw country feel called Hole hearted. As well as the title, it’s the opening lyrics I want to focus on: “Oh yeah, wooh, hey hey hey hey hey yeah.” Hmmm, maybe not exactly the opening lyrics, but the next lines. “Life’s ambition occupy my time, priorities confuse the mind, happiness one step behind, this inner peace I’ve yet to find. Rivers flow into the sea, yet even the sea is not so full of me, if I’m not blind why can’t I see, that a circle can’t fit where a square should be.” You might not yet be sure where I’m going with this – some would say understandably – and to make sense of it we need to step back to Fleetwood Mac.
The title Songbird might make you think of an exotic jungle, but actually you can hear songbirds on the streets of London if you put your head out of the window early enough in the morning – the dawn chorus of squeaks, squawks and chitters is made by songbirds and a lot of that noise is made by the humble sparrow whose use in poetry dates much further back than the 1970s – for our purposes it takes us back to the early days of the 8th century when a monk in a monastery in Tyneside offered as a metaphor for the human life the path of a sparrow through a feasting hall. It enters through the a door and is welcomed into the warmth and light and song until flying inexorably onwards it exits through the far end of the hall into the wide open spaces that lie beyond.
It is my tradition at this point in the year to imagine the school as a Saxon hall filled with light and song and you students as flocks of sparrows who join us fleetingly before you go out, fortified by the feast, to explore the world. This idea fits into the framework of the year at this point in May because today is the day we say goodbye to our year 13s, the day we watch them leave through the open door behind us, and this is the idea my assembly has been headed towards because I think that step is both exciting and scary – and that according to my own idiom one I’d encourage you to rejoice in, but one that could benefit from a bit of structure, maybe some words of wisdom from one who was once a sparrow himself.
First we look at those lyrics and recognise that a feeling of bewilderment is not unusual – life’s ambitions occupy your time, priorities confuse the mind, inner peace you’re yet to find. Exploring is not an activity of settled calm – it’s an experience of exciting novelty and I’d encourage you to embrace that uncertainty and to rejoice in the freedom. Second we recognise the problem with following other people’s recipes “A circle can’t fit where a square should be” and you’re not even circles, in my imagination you’re all sparrow shaped and you need to find where a sparrow should be – for a while that was in the classrooms of Harris Westminster but your destiny lies beyond Steel House so you fly on. And as you fly, do so wholeheartedly – commit, as they say, to the bit. Sometimes you’ve got to be prepared to be a bit lost, or to try some strange-tasting dinners – it’s not a sign that you’re doing something wrong, it’s a sign that you’re exploring.
And as you explore, remember that you’re not alone – in a few minutes we’ll be sending 300 sparrows out into the sunshine – and, when we do, year 12s, it is our tradition to rise and applaud as they leave, to give them a loud and enthusiastic send-off that recognises all they have offered to us who remain in that feasting hall. That’s not all, though, because you’re the tenth year group that we’ve waved off in this way: you are joining thousands of sparrows in exploring a world that is increasingly filled with Harris Westminster Alumni. But more than that, there are writers and scientists and mathematicians and poets whose work has illuminated your studies here and who you will continue to learn from on your journey. And the structure that I poured my ideas into when writing this assembly tells me to pause here and recognise our debt to those great thinkers who came before us, over whose backs we have clambered, on whose shoulders we stand. It is our tradition to recognise Isaac Newton as the archetype of these teachers because it was he who said “If I have seen further it is only because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.” I’d therefore like to invite Grace, as the captain of 2025’s victorious house, Naoroji, to place flowers on Newton’s memorial behind me.
And so, year 13s, songbirds who know the score, sparrows who have enlightened and enlivened our feasting, I invite you to leave our halls into the great wide open emboldened by those who go before, wholehearted in your exploration, undaunted by confusion – and I invite all those you leave behind to stand with you and applaud as you go.
Footnotes:
1. Saying goodbye to the Year 13s is an annual event, complete with mention of the sparrows and recognition of scholars past with flowers for Newton. The 2024 incarnation was Endings.
2. Fleetwood Mac's "Don't Stop", also from Rumours, was used in an assembly of the same name, which attracted comment from the Evening Standard.
3. The Great Wide Open is a reference to a Tom Petty song
4. This is the first time Naoroji house, who take their name from Dadabhai Naoroji, have won the house cup.