There are, no doubt, other ways you could compare and contrast the two options on your way to a decision. One possibility that crossed my mind on the morning walk was to line up reasonably similar acts from North America and Britain and see which one I preferred if forced to a choice.
That could have meant a match between, say, Dylan and Costello or Richard Thompson, but it didn’t take too long to realise that that one wouldn't work out. A glance at the lists I've put together suggests that if there's one thing that unites all those performers it's the fact that they're all, basically, incomparable.
Who, for example, is the Brit equivalent of Leonard Cohen?
No, having reached this point it's pretty much a case of looking back over the preceding detail and counting up the number of Britains and Americas, and seeing where you go from there.
And with the vote at 5-4 in favour of America, perhaps I should just leave it at that.
The problemis the implied prospect of a world without Thompson, Costello and the Bonzos. When I look at it in that light, much as I’d hate to have to live without the names on those North American lists, it’d be a bleak old world where the presence of the doom and gloom-meister and the absurdist irreverence of the Bonzos would be essential to Hughesy’s continued mental well-being.
So, Britain.