Behind The Song: Tracy by Jump The Underground

I was curious to know who Tracy is in this song by Jump The Underground. I asked the lyricist, Antony Smith and this is what he told me.

Tracy is a song about a young naive student who went to art school, His background and knowledge of art was purely based on his love for graffiti and he was active in the graffiti scene in Southampton, prior to going to art school.

In art school, he was dumbfounded. He had thought art was for everybody but he began to learn about elitism in the art world. He understood nothing about the art world he was getting into and felt the realist form of art was graffiti and street art because it had no boundaries. It existed only as the purest form of expression, simply because of one’s need and want to do it.

Then, he was refused entry to the Tate Gallery because he didn’t have the entry fee to go in and view the Turner Prize or whatever it was he was there to see. This confirmed his opinions about elitism in art.