Today I wanted to share an extract from my dissertation, which was titled How the British Punk Movement was informed by the British establishment in the 1970s. I focused on the beginning of the punk movement in the UK, how the government was running the country and how the punk movement had an effect on youth culture, inspiring music, fashion and literature. I wanted to share my favourite chapter of my dissertation all about the music of punk and how it inspired many people to fight back against the establishment. I have kept in of the Harvard referencing in because I'm lazy, but if you want to know where any of the reference are from, do let me know.
The music of Punk
Punk had a disregard for the musical norms and they broke the barrier that traditionally separated the musicians from their audience; the audience were always being encouraged by the bands to get involved, whether it was to form their own Punk bands or to make films and write their own fanzines and dress the part. Of course, many were inspired by this and did go on to form bands. Mclaren played an important role in British punk, which was considered political and economic, since he “envisioned youthful rebellion” and “was an entrepreneur who would profit from peddling youthful rebellion as music and fashion.” (Moore, 2009, p.47) Mclaren had previously dabbled in the philosophy of revolutionary moments, but he more generally seemed to understand that the “mass media furnished the main stage of the new kinds of symbolic welfare.” (Moore, 2004, p.309)
The Sex Pistols were a band that formed in 1975 in London, and were under the management of Malcolm Mclaren, who the band are said to be “originally conceived in the image of”. (Moore, 2004, p.309) With their ripped clothes and spiked hair, the Sex Pistols seemed unusual and dangerous to most people. The band very quickly became the leaders of the Punk subculture, influencing the majority of their young fans with their fashion, sound and message.
At this time there were only 3 television channels in the UK, which were BBC1, BBC 2 and ITV, and because of the lack of television shows compared to today, television personals were big celebrities. (Cross, 2017) Bill Grundy was one of these personals; he hosted a British television show called ‘Today’. On December 1st 1976, the band Queen was booked to play on Bill Grundys show, but had to cancel last minute, but someone in the office had managed to get ahold of Malcolm Mclaren. The Sex Pistols had just released their debut single ‘Anarchy in the UK’ and appearing on the show ended up being their big break. (Moore, 2004, p.310) The band, while drunk, were escorted onto the set, and Grundy was not keen on them. There was no tape delay on this show that day, which meant that there was no chance of censoring anything before it went out to millions of people. Steve Jones, the guitar player, while the show was in full swing, called the host a ‘dirty fucker’ and ‘fucking rotter’ during their live interview. Many people were outraged by this, as lots of families were sitting down for dinner while it aired; it even made headlines on all the newspapers the next morning. Some headlines read ‘The Filth and the Fury’ (Daily Mail) and ‘The Foul-Mouthed Yobs’ (Evening Standard). (Moore, 2004, p.310)
In 1977, Six months after the events of the ‘Today’ incident, Mclaren and Virgin Records, the Sex Pistols record label, had come up with the idea of having the Sex Pistols play on a boat that was sailing down the Thames, in a way that’s mocking the Queens waterside procession which was to take place two days later for the Queens Silver Jubilee. On June 7th, the boat carrying the Sex Pistols, along with writers, artists and film crew, set off from Charing Cross pier. The Sex Pistols had just released their second single ‘God Save The Queen’, which was originally called ‘No Future’ until Mclaren retitled it. The boat trip organized by Mclaren was said to be a ‘provocative promotion’ of the new single as well as a mockery of the Queens river procession. In an interview by The Guardian with Savage, he stated that “The Atmosphere on the boat was paranoid and claustrophobic, but also very exciting. They were by far the best I ever saw them that day. You can’t beat the Sex Pistols, Jubilee weekend ‘Anarchy in the UK’ outside parliament.” (Spencer, 2012) Retail outlets and radio stations objected to the ‘indecency’ of their new song and some refused to produce or distribute it. ‘God Save The Queen’ sold two hundred thousand copies in the first week. Although it is likely that all the controversy over the song is what helped sell so many copies.
After these two events occurred, people felt that Britain was in a “state of rapid decline, as the economic and fiscal crisis thrust the country into structural turmoil and provoked a resurgence of racism and xenophobia.” (Moore, 2009, pg47) The punk subculture in general now appeared as “monstrous symptoms” and the of the end of civilization. (Moore, 2009, p.47) This is when punk started getting a bad name with the older generation, and because of some of their anarchistic attitude, people thought this was how the whole punk population acted. This is when the younger generation was finally feeling like they had some power over their own lives and futures; the Conservative Party was doing them wrong and the youths didn’t want to just sick back and take it anymore, they wanted to change their future for the better. In October 1979, 5 months after Thatcher had won the general election, British punk band Notsensibles had released a single called ‘I’m in Love with Margaret Thatcher’, which was a sort of tongue-in-cheek comment on Thatcher's presence. (Strimpel, 2017)
I hope you all enjoyed this little extract from my recent dissertation, I enjoyed researching and writing it, even though it only got a C grade. Overall I got a 2:1 so I'm still happy with all my results. Let me know your thoughts and opinions of this chapter in the comments below, i'd love to hear what you have to say. Come back tomorrow to find out what's on my Halloween bucketlist for this year.
(All images are found on Pinterest)
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