God Save Jean Genet

Sex Pistols ft. Jean Genet (SA/2026)

Photo credits: Sex Pistols by Bob Gruen (1976) 

and Jean Genet by Brassaï (1948)   

 

Beauty is the projection of ugliness and to achieve harmony in bad taste 

is the height of style ...

 

 

I.

 

Jean Genet (1910–1986) was a seminal French writer and political activist whose life was defined by his transition from a marginalized outcast to a celebrated avant-garde icon. 

 

Born to a prostitute mother and placed into foster care, he spent his youth banged up in reformatories and prisons for crimes including theft and vagrancy [1], before joining the Foreign Legion at eighteen, from which he was dishonourably discharged on grounds of indecency (that is to say, well, I think we can all imagine what he was caught doing). 

 

After this, Genet stole and slept his way round Europe as a tea leaf and rent boy, before ending up in and out of prison in Paris; experiences that served as the primary inspiration for his lyrical debut novel, Notre-Dame des Fleurs (1943) [2].

 

Genet's later work - which includes novels such as Journal du voleur (1949) [3] and plays such as Les Bonnes (1947) [4] - is renowned for its stylised (but uncompromising) exploration of power and the beauty of evil, as well as the subversion of social hierarchies and the transgression of traditional morality (often giving iconic status to outlaws and outcasts, punks and queers).   

 

 

II.

 

Genet was championed by both Jean Cocteau and Jean-Paul Sartre [5] and, in his later years, following the events of May '68, he became increasingly active politically, advocating for all kinds of oppressed groups and radical causes and participating in various demonstrations. 

 

In 1970, Genet spent three months in the United States at the invite of the Black Panthers, before then spending six months visiting Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan [6]. He also became pally with Foucault during this time and, in his experimental text Glas (1974), Jacques Derrida contrasted Genet's ideas on crime, homosexuality and all the reste with Hegel's philosophy, in order to deconstruct traditional concepts of the law, family, and the ideal of Wholeness (or the Absolute) [7].   

 

Like Joe Strummer, Genet expressed solidarity with the Red Army Faction (or Baader-Meinhof Gang); a militant far-left group designated as a terrorist organisation by the West German government, publishing an article titled Violence et brutalité in Le Monde (2 Sept. 1977) [8]. 

 

Whilst Strummer was, of course, simply posing in a T-shirt - the Clash specialised in radical chic - Genet was driven by a deep-seated hatred for Western imperialism and French bourgeois society in particular; in 1985, the year before his death, he informed a shocked interviewer from the BBC that he loathed France so much that he had even supported the Nazis when they invaded Paris. 

  

 

III. 

  

Whilst Genet never collaborated with the Sex Pistols - nor ever refer to them in his writings or interviews - it's tempting to imagine that he would have found McLaren and Westwood's tiny shop at 430 King's Road a conceptual space very much to his liking, promoting as it did anarchy, sexual deviance, and the kind of transgressive behaviour that he seemed so excited by.

 

And if we define the denizens of 430 King's Road as Peter York once famously defined them - "the extreme ideological wing of the peculiars" [9] - or, alternatively, recall the description of them from the trailer to The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1980) - "a kamikaze gang of cat burglers and child prostitutes" [10] - then it's possible that Genet would have identified with the Sex Pistols and acknowledged how his legacy found youthful expression via punk [11]. 

 

But, again, just to be clear - there is no evidence of a direct relationship between Jean Genet and the Sex Pistols and I don't remember Malcolm ever mentioning his name, whereas he would often refer to other poets and playwrights he admired, such as Oscar Wilde and Joe Orton. The speculative connection suggested here is largely based on the fact that both McLaren and Genet understood style as a form of refusal and aligned themselves with the counterculture. 

 

On the other hand, however, it's worth noting that while Genet may have appreciated the SEX and Seditionaries aesthetic, by the mid-1970s he had become increasingly cynical about art and theatrical rebellion and so it's possible that he would have dismissed punk as just another fashion and commercial commodification, rather than something genuinely subversive or dangerous - who knows? 

  

 

Notes 

 

[1] Genet's mother raised him for the first seven months of his life before placing him for adoption (one likes to believe she did so with good intentions and was putting the child's interests first). According to his biographer, his foster family was loving and attentive. Neverthless, his childhood involved numerous attempts to run away and incidents of petty criminality (even whilst the obviously bright boy got good grades at school). Eventually, aged fifteen, Genet was sent to a brutal penal colony, where he spent three unhappy years. 

 

[2] The first English edition, trans. Bernard Frechtman, was published as Our Lady of the Flowers in 1949. 

 

[3] The first English edition, trans. Bernard Frectman, was published as The Thief's Journal (1964).

 

[4] This work was again first translated into English by Bernard Frechtman and was published as The Maids by Grove Press in the United States (1954), and by Faber in the UK (1957). A famous film adaptation, dir. Christopher Miles and starring Glenda Jackson and Susannah York, was released in cinemas in 1975.

 

[5] When Genet arrived in Paris, he sought out and introduced himself to Jean Cocteau and the latter, impressed by his writing, used his contacts to help get Genet's first novel published. 

      Later, in 1949, when Genet was threatened with a life sentence after notching up ten convictions, Cocteau and other prominent intellectuals, including Jean-Paul Sartre, successfully petitioned the French President to have the sentence set aside. In gratitude - and perhaps realising there was more money to be made from art than crime - Genet stayed on the straight and narrow after this (or, at any rate, he avoided being caught doing anything that might return him to a prison cell).

      By this date, Genet had completed five novels, three plays, and numerous poems, many controversial for their explicit and often deliberately provocative portrayal of homosexuality and criminality. In 1952, Sartre wrote a long analysis of Genet's existential development (from vagrant to writer), entitled Saint Genet. Profoundly affected by Sartre's analysis, Genet did not write for the next five years, during which time he became emotionally attached to Abdallah Bentaga, a tightrope walker. Following Bentaga's suicide in 1964, Genet entered a period of depression and attempted to end his own life.

 

[6] A memoir detailing his encounters with Palestinian fighters and Black Panthers was published posthumously; see Un captif amoureux (Gallimard, 1986). Translated into English by Barbara Bray and with an introduction by Edmund White, it was published by Picador as The Prisoner of Love (1989).      

 

[7] The English translation of Derrida's book, by John P. Leavey, Jr. and Richard Rand, was published by the University of Nebraska Press, in 1986. A more recent translation, by Geoffrey Bennington and David Wills, was published with the title Clang by the University of Minnesota Press in 2021. 

 

[8] This Le Monde piece can be found in Jean Genet, The Declared Enemy: Texts and Interviews, ed. Albert Dichy, trans. Jeff Fort (Stanford University Press, 2004), pp. 171-177. 

      According to the blurb for this book, Genet affirms a heroic politics of protest and revolt with "an uncompromising outrage". In other words, it's that depressing mix of militant asceticism and pathological narcissism that I genuinely despise. In fact, the only thing I hate Genet for more is his reported sexual abuse of the eleven-year-old daughter of his friend and fellow writer Monique Lange. Viewers interested in knowing more about this should see the unconventional docu-drama Little Girl Blue (2023), written and directed by Mona Achache, and starring Marion Cottilard: click here to watch the trailer.

 

[9] This wonderful description of McLaren and company was coined by Peter York in an article entitled 'Them' which appeared in Harpers & Queen (October 1976). It was quoted by Paul Gorman in The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 329. 

 

[10] Click here to watch the trailer to The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (dir. Julien Temple, 1980); the film that incriminates its audience. The narrator is the famous BBC newsreader John Snagge.

 

[11] Of all the Sex Pistols, I think it would have been guitarist Steve Jones whom the Frenchman would have found the most appealing. For as Glen Matlock once rightly observed, it was Jones who was the true spirit of the band and "like a character out of Jean Genet book [...] a real livewire scoundrel, unabashedly so".   

      Matlock was speaking in an interview with Matt Catchpole; see 'Trigger Happy - Sex Pistol Glen Matlock on Life as a Solo Performer and New Album Good To Go' (26 June, 2018): click here. Matlock later repeats this observation in an interview with Dave Steinfeld; see  'Glen Matlock - Truth or Consequences: Talking with the original Sex Pistol about politics and punk rock', on the website Rock and Roll Globe (18 May 2023): click here. 

 

 

For a sister post to this one on Joe Orton, click here. 

  

Musical bonus: Sex Pistols, 'L'Anarchie Pour Le UK', from the album The Great Rock n' Roll Swindle (Virgin Records, 1979), uploaded to YouTube by Universal Music Group: click here. The vocalist is Loius Brennon and he is backed by his merry band of street musicians on accordian and fiddle.  

 

Everybody's on Top of the Pops

 

Legs & Co. dancing to 'Silly Thing' by the Sex Pistols and 'Bankrobber' by The Clash 

Top of the Pops (BBC Television, 12 April 1979 and 21 August 1980)

 

I. 

 

'Top of the Pops', by the Rezillos, is one of the great punk singles by one of the great punk bands [1]. And, in August 1978, it led to one of the great punk performances on the BBC show of that name: click here.  

But even though the band make it clear in the lyrics to their song that they are critiquing the music industry and the significant role played within it by the broadcast media - 

 

Doesn't matter what is shown 

Just as long as everyone knows 

What is selling, what to buy 

The stock market for your hi-fi [2]

 

- TOTP producer Robin Nash, simply smiled and said that not only was it always nice to be mentioned, but that being attacked in this manner demonstrated just how relevant the programme remained even to the punk generation. 

 

Ultimately, it appears that the cynicism of those who control the media and the music business trumps the ironic protest of a new wave band. 

 

 

II. 

 

As if to hammer home this point to those who still believed in the integrity and revolutionary character of their punk idols, we were treated to the spectacle of Legs & Co. dancing to the Sex Pistols on Top of the Pops just eight months later: If you like their pop music, you'll love their pop corn - click here [3].

 

Perhaps even more surprisingy, the following year Legs and Co. gyrated behind bars to the strains of 'Bankrobber', by The Clash, in a routine squeezed in between songs from Shakin' Stevens [4] and Billy Joel [5]. 

 

Worse, the somewhat sentimental punky reggae composition written by Strummer and Jones, which reached number 12 in the UK charts, was sneered at by Cliff Richard, who mockingly declared that it could have been a Eurovision winner: click here [6]. 

 

 

On the front of a television screen ...

 

 

Notes

 

[1] I'm being generous, of course, but it's hard not to love the Rezillos; an assemblage of art and fashion students from Bonnie Scotland, fronted by Fay Fife, who took a much more fun approach to songwriting than the Clash and described themselves as a new wave beat group rather than a punk rock band. More glam than garage - and seemingly more interested in sci-fi and B-movies than rhythm and blues - the Rezillos are sometimes compared to both the Cramps and the B-52s. 

 

[2] Lyrics from 'Top of the Pops', written by John Callis (or, as he was known whilst a member of the Rezillos, Luke Warm). This track, released in July 1978 as a single from the album Can't Stand the Rezillos (Sire Records, 1978), reached number 17 in the UK chart, whilst the LP did slightly better by getting to number 16 and is now considered something of a classic of the punk-pop genre. 

 

[3] To be fair, 'Silly Thing' is a great pop-punk track by Cook and Jones and the always excellent Legs and Co. - a six-girl dance troupe formed in 1976 - give a spirited and amusing performance, choreographed by Flick Colby. 

      The line quoted is from the cinema ad sequence in The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (dir. Julien Temple,1980) which correctly predicts the manner in which the Sex Pistols would be co-opted by consumer capitalism and become just another brand name to be stamped on a range of products.

 

[4] Welsh singer-songwriter Shakin' Stevens released his cover of 'Marie, Marie' as the third single from his album of the same title (Epic Records, 1980). Despite being released in July, the single did not enter the UK Singles Chart until the second week of August, staying in the chart for ten weeks and peaking at number 19 (his first top twenty hit). 

 

[5] The Billy Joel song, 'It's Still Rock 'n' Roll to Me', was released from his hit album Glass Houses (Columbia Records, 1980). It made number 1 in the US, but only reached 14 in the UK. The song conveys Joel's criticisms of the music industry and press for jumping on the new wave bandwagon, when it was merely a rehash, in his view, of older musical forms and inferior to his own brand of slightly more sophisticated, ambitious, and highly polished soft rock.   

 

[6] For those who would prefer to watch the official video for 'Bankrobber' (dir. Don Letts), click here.       

      To be fair to The Clash, they never did appear in person on Top of the Pops, unlike almost every other punk band at the time (and the reformed Sex Pistols in 1996). However, they did allow the use of videos for 'Should I Stay or Should I Go' and 'Rock the Casbah' on TOTP when these singles were re-released in 1991 (six years after they disbanded).     

Serge Gainsbourg: l'improbable artiste reggae

Serge Gainsbourg and his Jamaican cohorts 

(including Sly & Robbie)

 

 

I. 

 

Joe Strummer and Mick Jones of the Clash were not the only white recording artists to leave the safety of their European homes in the late 1970s [1] and travel to Kingston Jamaica in the hope of finding inspiration. 

 

Always happy to hop on the latest bandwagon and experiment with musical genres, the French singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg also flew to the Caribbean island, in September 1978, with the intention of recording a reggae album with super-talented local musicians and producers Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare [2].    

 

Surprisingly perhaps, it was the 50-year-old Frenchman - whom many regarded by this date as past his prime - and not the younger, cooler duo of English punks then at the top of their game, who seemed to have a better time of it in Jamaica and fit in more easily with the scene; particularly when it was discovered that he was the man responsible for the notorious love song 'Je t'aime ... Moi non plus'. 

 

And it was Gainsbourg, not the Clash, who arguably made the more challenging album ...

II.

 

Released in March 1979, four months after the Clash released their second studio album, Give 'Em Enough Rope - a fairly standard rock record with minimal Jamaican influence, apart from on the opening track - Gainsbourg's Aux armes et caetera is a unique but genuine reggae album; i.e., one recorded in Kingston and featuring some of Jamaica's best reggae musicians, as well as vocal support from members of Bob Marley's backing group, the I Threes [3].

 

The album, which has since been remixed, dubbed, and expanded with previously unused material, is now considered an absolute classic (and I'm not sure that's something that can be said of Give 'Em Enough Rope) and has gone on to sell over a million copies. 

The title track, released as a single, is probably the most notorious; a reggae adaptation of 'La Marseillaise' that is guaranteed to offend the more conservative and reactionary sections of French society. Indeed, it provoked an equivalent amount of media-driven outrage as 'God Save the Queen' by the Sex Pistols had produced in the UK in the summer of '77 [4].  

 

Gainsbourg, however, was so happy with the album and so taken with reggae as a genre, that he recorded another album in 1981, Mauvaises nouvelles des étoiles, employing the same Jamaican musicians and backing vocalists (even though Bob Marley was less than pleased to discover that Gainsbourg had persuaded his wife Rita to sing erotic lyrics). 

 

This album too was eventually given a dub-style remix a decade after Ganisbourg's death (in 2003) and continues to find new fans, although it isn't a patch on Aux armes et cætera and pales in comparison.  

 

 

III.

 

Whether performing Aux armes et caetera live on tour was Gainsbourg's idea or his record company's isn't known, but it was Gainsbourg who insisted that they fly his Jamaican support band - the Revolutionaries [5] - over from Jamaica (sadly, the I Threes were not invited along for the ride).  

 

The short tour in culminated in a number of Paris gigs - the first of which was attended by various French artists and intellectuals (including Roland Barthes) - although it was the show in Strasbourg (4 Jan 1980) that is often best remembered, after a group of angry ex-paratroopers threatened to violently disrupt the event. 

 

Deciding to courageously confront - whilst at the same time disarm the protestors - Gainsbourg walked on stage alone and sang the national anthem, in its traditional form, amusingly obliging the soldiers to stand, salute, and sing along [6].

 

 

Photo of Serge Gainsbourg holding the French flag 

by Jean-Jacques Bernier (1985)

 

Notes

 

[1] See the recent post 'Where Every White Face ...' (11 Jan 2025): click here. 

 

[2] For the full story of this working trip to Jamaica, made at the suggestion of Gainsbourg's producer and musical director, Philippe Lerichomme, see the article by Sylvie Simmons entitled 'Serge Gainsbourg: the Reggae Years' on the Red Bull Music Academy website (26 Oct 2015): click here. 

       Ms. Simmons is the author of the first English biography of Serge Gainsbourg - Serge Gainsbourg: A Fistful of Gitanes (Helter Skelter, 2001).

 

 [3] Aux Armes et caetera (Universal, 1979) was the first time a white artist had recorded a full reggae-influenced album in Jamaica. The I Threes consisted of Marcia Griffiths, Rita Marley, and Judy Mowatt.

 

[4] Gainsbourg received (all-too-predictable) death threats upon release of his reggae cover of the French national anthem. But, bravely, he neither backed down nor apologised. In fact, after purchasing the signed manuscript of 'La Marseillaise' at an auction, in 1981 (for a sum of 135,000 francs), Gainsbourg argued that his take was closer to the original than any other recorded version (not least of all in revolutionary spirit). 

      For full details of the reaction in France to Aux armes et caetera, see Sylvie Simmons 'Serge Gainsbourg: the Reggae Years', as linked to above. And to listen to the track, please click here, or here where it comes with an accompanying video.

 

[5] The Revolutionaries were a Jamaican reggae band, formed in 1975. Moving away from roots reggae, they created the new (more aggressive) rockers style. Over the years, numerous musicians played in the band, including Sly & Robbie (on drums and bass respectively). The Revolutionaries played on various dub albums and recorded as a backing band for many artists, including Serge Gainsbourg.

 

[6] Again, for further details, see Sylvie Simmons, 'Serge Gainsbourg: the Reggae Years', as previously linked to. To watch a French TV report from the time with footage from Strasbourg, click here.

Where Every White Face ... Remembering That Time When the Clash Went on Their Very Own Dreadlock Holiday

 

They got the sun and they got the palm trees ... 

I'd stay and be a tourist, but I can't take the gun play

 

I. 

 

As we all know, the Clash liked to pose as working-class heroes and rebel rockers, even though lead singer, Joe Strummer, was the son of a British diplomat (Ronald Ralph Mellor, MBE) and attended public school where his fees were paid for by the UK government, thanks to his father's job.

 

In other words, Strummer was a privately-educated middle class boy who went through his folk-loving and pub-rocking phases, before encountering the Sex Pistols in April 1976 and deciding to cut his hair, put on a pair of bondage trousers, and reinvent himself as a punk outlaw. 

 

Equally irksome, is the fact that the Clash also liked to wear musical black face from time to time and experiment with reggae, producing a kind of dub-inflected rock that is more Notting Hill than Kingston Jamaica; a pale imitation of the real thing, although, to be honest, I don't care too much about issues surrounding authenticity and cultural apropriation.

 

Amusingly, however, Strummer was given something of a rude (boy) awakening when he and fellow Clash City Rocker Mick Jones went on a songwriting trip to Jamaica, at the end of 1977, and it turned into their very own dreadlock holiday ...  

 

 

II.   

 

My knowledge of the long-haired English rock band 10cc is very limited [1]. 

 

However, I do remember being invited to load up with rubber bullets by them in 1973 [2] and I also remember their recounting the tale of someone having a series of unfortunate experiences whilst on a Caribbean vacation later in that decade [3].   

 

Whilst the song's narrative is essentially a lyrical fiction, it was, apparently, based on real events experienced by one of the founding members of 10cc, Eric Stewart, during a visit to Barbados, and by the band's bassist and singer Graham Gouldman, when he went to Jamaica. 

 

The former, for example, recalled seeing a white tourist trying to look cool and generally acting like a dick, go up to a group of Afro-Caribbeans who rebuked him in no uncertain terms and told him that he needed to show some respect (a concept that is central to the code of informal rules that govern behavior and interpersonal interactions amongst certain groups).    

 

In the song, having been mugged for a silver chain - given to him by his mother - said tourist retreats to the relative safety of his hotel to drown his sorrows with a piña colada by the pool, only to be approached by a good-looking young woman offering to supply him with some weed. 

Thus the track and accompanying video - whilst reinforcing several stereotypes - does at least touch upon the politics of race, tourism, and cultural appropriation (even if it's in a manner that might make many people uncomfortable today).

 

 

III. 

 

Returning to the Clash ... 

 

The opening track to their second studio album, Give 'Em Enough Rope (1978), is entitled 'Safe European Home' and it provides us with an honest admission by Messrs. Strummer and Jones that it's one thing being a white man in Hammersmith Palais for an all-night reggae gig [4], and another thing entirely cruising round Kingston after dark; a place where, according to the song, "every white face is an invitation to robbery" [5].  

 

Both men were, just like the tourist on a dreadlock holiday, out of their depth and out of their comfort zone, and so mightly relieved to get back to their hotel [6] alive - and even happier when they were finally able to return home to Blighty.   

 

Why they decided to go to Jamaica in the first place - leaving bassist Paul Simonon and drummer Topper Headon behind (much to the former's anger and irritation, as he was the genuine reggae devotee in the band) - I don't know. Probably it was one of Bernie's bright ideas; hoping they'd find inspiration in a land riven with political violence and criminal gang activity.    

Which perhaps they did: though it came also with a certain disillusionment. For ultimately there's nothing more glamorous, more radical, or more authentic about life under the Carribean sun - and certainly not when you're living in slums or shanty towns with poor quality housing and almost zero social infrastructure. 

 

One wonders why Joe never asked himself why it was that large-scale migration from Jamaica to the UK (as well as to the US and Canada) occurred in the 1950s, '60s and '70s; and why most of these people (and their descendants) really didn't want to return.   

 

Notes

 

[1] Readers might be amused to discover that I once had a job interview with Godley and Creme, in the mid-1980s, long after they had left 10cc and established themselves as successful pop video directors. The interview was held at the Cadogan hotel. I remember they offered me a spliff, to which I responded by asking in my best Rotten voice: Do I look like a hippie to you? Needless to say, I wasn't offered the job.  

[2] 'Rubber Bullets' was a number one single released from the band's eponymous debut album in 1973. Whilst not particularly relevant to this post, readers who want to give it a listen and see the band perform it on Top of the Pops can do so by clicking here.

 

[3] The white reggae track, 'Dreadlock Holiday', by 10cc, was the lead single from the band's 1978 album, Bloody Tourists (Mercury Records, 1978). It became the group's third number one in the UK and was a huge hit internationaly (with the exception of the US, where many radio stations refused to play reggae of any kind). To watch the video for the song on YouTube, dir. Storm Thorgerson, click here. The image used with this post is a screenshot taken from the opening of this video, whilst the lines underneath are taken from the lyrics to 'Safe European Home' by the Clash (see note 5 below). 

 

[4] This reggae night was on June 5th, 1977, at the Hammersmith Palais, a famous dance hall and entertainment venue on the Shepherd's Bush Road, London. It was headlined by Dillinger, Leroy Smart and Delroy Wilson. Strummer was accompanied by the dreadlocked figure of Don Letts (I won't say for protection, but so as to add to his own credibility as a reggae aficionado). 

      Ironically, Strummer was disappointed by what he saw - not rootsy enough for his tastes - although the evening did give rise to the song '(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais' (1978), which has become a fan favourite: click here to play. 

 

[5] 'Safe European Home', written by Joe Strummer and Mick Jones, is the first track on the second studio album by the Clash, Give 'Em Enough Rope (CBS, 1978): click here. This line, about every white face being an invitation to robbery, may be intended humorously, but it echoes the white anxiety captured on the 10cc track 'Dreadlock Holiday'.  

 

[6] Joe and Mick stayed at the Pegasus hotel, in the heart of the business and financial district, rather than the hipper Sheraton hotel, which is where Rotten stayed when he went to Jamaica a few months later (in March, 1978), accompanied by Don Letts and Richard Branson, who picked up the bill and ensured Lydon would remain under long-term contract with Virgin. Interestingly, Rotten seemed to fit in with the local scene much better than Strummer and Jones. 

 

 

For a related post to this one on Serge Gainsbourg as an unlikely reggae star, please click here. 

 

On Punks, Hippies, and the Boy in the Blue Lamé Suit

 Joe, Johnny, and Jello in their pre-punk days

 

One of the defining characteristics of punks back in the day, was that they hated the complacency, passivity, and untrustworthiness of middle-class hippies and they differentiated themselves from peace-loving flower children by their hairstyles and clothes: no long hair or beards and no flared jeans or tie-dyed T-shirts with groovy psychedelic prints. 

Having a close-cropped barnet was just as much a sign of radical militancy for the punks as it had been for the rank-and-file Roundheads and very few of them had flowing long locks covering their ears. So it's always a little disconcerting to come across old photos of figures central to the punk revolution - including Rotten, Strummer, and Biafra - and see them looking like ... well, hippies!

 

No wonder Jamie Reid later advised us to never trust a punk either (that punks were, in fact, often just hippies in disguise).

 

 

II. 

 

One is also reminded, upon seeing these pictures, that, essentially, we have Malcolm to thank for concocting an anti-hippie aesthetic and philosophy - not Johnny, Joe, or Jello. It was McLaren's provocative and fetishistic take on fashion, his anarchic politics inspired by Situationism, and a penchant for 1950s rock 'n' roll - all brilliantly expressed in the slogan Sex, Style and Subversion - out of which the look of what became known as punk developed. 

 

Vivienne Westwood would later recall just how odd looking 20-year-old Malcolm was when she met him in the mid-1960s; with his very, very pale skin and his very, very short hair he looked so unlike his contemporaries. If he was, in many regards, a typical product of his era and cultural environment, McLaren was never a hippie and only ever had scorn for them. 

 

Thus it was that, in 1971, Malcolm bought a pair of blue-suede creepers, which, as Paul Gorman notes, had by this date long gone out of fashion; street style was now defined by "feather-cut hair, the ubiquitous flared loon pants, stack-heeled boots, platform shoes and velvet suits" [1]. 

 

For McLaren, the shoes: 

 

"'Made a statement about what everyone else was wearing and thinking. It was a symbolic act to put them on. Those blue shoes had a history that I cared about, a magical association that seemed authentic. They represented an age of revolt - of desperate romantic revolt [...]" [2]             

Later, he combined the shoes with a 1950s style blue lamé suit (made by Vivienne) and a matching ice-blue satin shirt: "'I decided it would be really cool to be like Elvis, to be a Teddy Boy in a kind of defiant anti-world and anti-fashion gesture [...]'" [3]

  

And that - boys and girls - is the spirit of punk; more heroic than hippie (and it comes quiffed or spiky-topped, rather than lanky long-haired or feather-cut). 

 

Malcolm the proto-punk (1972)

 

 

Notes

[1] Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren, (Constable, 2020), p. 119. 

[2] Malcolm McLaren, quoted by Paul Gorman, ibid.

[3] Malcolm McLaren, quoted by Paul Gorman, ibid., p. 131.

 

 

For a sister post to this one entitled 'Never Mind the Spiky Tops' (28 Nov 2023), click here.  

From Beatlemania to Dyschronia: Some Thoughts on 'Now and Then'

Screenshot from the official video (dir. Peter Jackson) 

for 'Now and Then', by The Beatles

 

 

I. 

 

As a young child, I was never a Beatles fan: they were my teenaged sister's favourites, but meant nothing to me. To quote Sid Vicious: "I didn't even know the Summer of Love was happening. I was too busy playing with my Action Man." [1]

 

And later, as a young punk, I despised the Beatles: I was happy, like Joe Strummer, to affirm 1977 as a kind of Year Zero in which the Fab Four along with Elvis and the Rolling Stones were deemed irrelevant and the past effectively abolished. 

 

(I was happy also when - according to Malcolm - Glen Matlock was thrown out of the Sex Pistols on the grounds that he was secretly a Beatles fan.) 

 

And, in the years since, I haven't been persuaded to change my view or reconsider my relationship to John, Paul, George, and Ringo. But I have been enchanted (and disturbed) by their new single ...

 

II. 

 

Released a few days ago - and billed as the Beatles' final song - 'Now and Then' [2] appears to bring poignant closure to the story of a band who formed in 1962 and broke up in 1970. 

 

But, as I'll suggest below, it also seems to mark the end of something more than that, which is why such a simple ballad has resonated so profoundly with so many people - including those who, like me, have never been subject to (or infected by) Beatlemania [3].     

 

Originally written and recorded as a demo tape by Lennon in 1977, 'Now and Then' was considered as a Beatles reunion single for their 1995–1996 retrospective project The Beatles Anthology, but this idea was quickly abandoned due to technical issues at the time (namely, Lennon's vocals could not be separated out and cleaned up).

 

However, thanks to AI-backed audio restoration technology, the track has now been reimagined and reworked and the result is pretty astonishing - as is the music video directed by Peter Jackson. So well done to Paul and Ringo and all those who contributed to the project, including the ghosts of John and George [4] and producer Giles Martin [5]. 

 

Fans and critics are almost universally happy with the result, although, paradoxically, the song and video make many people upset at the same time; even some of those who were not born in the 20th-century have been moved to tears. 

Obviously, most people have experienced individual loss and can feel nostalgic for their own past. But it seems to be more than that; people seem to be mourning something collectively, not so much as a generation, but as a people, as a culture.

 

So, how has Beatlemania - which began with hysterical joy  - terminated in mournful melancholia? 

 

 

III. 

 

You don't need to be Mark Fisher to understand what's going on here (although reading Fisher's work is certainly advantageous): we are being invited to join Paul and Ringo (and the ghosts of John and George) in a temporal loop (or time trap) where sounds and images from earlier periods get promiscuously mixed up.

 

The classic Beatles sound, "its elements now serenely liberated from  the pressures of historical becoming" [6], has been recreated via a machine. At first, we are astonished and amused; the montaging of discreet time periods is so perfect that we no longer quite know when or where we are. 

 

But then the sadness and unease creeps in, until, eventually, it all becomes a bit hellish and one realises with despair that such indiscretion ultimately leads to stasis and cultural inertia.

 

The Beatles were once genuinely something New: and they promised us the future. But with this final song the Fab Four imprison us in a perpetual present haunted by the past (and enhanced with AI-backed technology). 

 

What seems like an act of poignant closure, is actually anything but and, ironically, despite its title, this song belongs neither to Now nor Then, but to a timeless (and nihilistic) zone that some term dyschronia. 

 

This is what No Future looks like ...         

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Sid Vicious speaking in an interview with John Ingham, Sounds (Oct 1976). 

[2] The Beatles, 'Now and Then', (Apple Records, 2023). To watch the official music video dir. Peter Jackson, click here. The video features never-before-seen film of the Beatles, including scenes filmed during the 1995 recording sessions for Anthology, home movie footage of Harrison, and new footage of McCartney and Starr performing.

[3] Dismissed by The Clash in their 1979 single 'London Calling' as phoney, Beatlemania is actually a genuine, well-researched and well-documented cultural phenomenon. 

      The term was coined by the British press in 1963 to describe the scenes of hysterical adulation accorded to the group - particularly by adolescent girls - whenever (and wherever) they performed or appeared in public. Commentators rightly compared this to religious fervour with a very obvious sexual component. As an international phenomenon, Beatlemania surpassed in intensity and scope any previous examples of fan worship - even Elvis didn't make the girls scream (and literally wet their knickers) like John, Paul, George and Ringo. The Daily Telegraph published a disapproving article in which the scenes of mass worship were likened to Hitler's Nuremberg Rallies. Questions were asked in Parliament - Beatlemania was becoming a police and public safety issue. Lennon wasn't wrong to claim that the Beatles had become by 1966 more popular than Jesus amongst the young.    

      Eventually, disenchanted by their own fame, the Beatles quit touring and as they mutated from a pop group into a progressive, psychedelic rock band, so their fan base changed and Beatlemania in its most frenzied and delirious form passed as quickly as it had arisen. Now, Beatlemaniacs were looked down upon by the group's more mature, more sophisticated audience interested in serious matters, serious music, and facial hair (man). 

      The last mass display of fan adulation took place at the world premiere of the Beatles' animated film Yellow Submarine (dir. George Dunning) held at the London Pavilion in Piccadilly Circus, on 17 July 1968. There was very little screaming, but traffic was brought to a standstill.

 

[4] John Lennon was murdered in December 1980; George Harrison died of cancer in 2001.   

[5] Readers who are interested in knowing the full-story of how the song came to be can click here to view a 12-minute documentary film, Now and Then - The Last Beatles Song (written and directed by Oliver Murray, 2023) on YouTube.

 

[6] Mark Fisher, 'The Slow Cancellation of the Future', in Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures, (Zero Books, 2014). 

Rioting: The Unbeatable High (With Reference to Current Events in France)

For a note on these images see [1] below

 

 

Probably there are quite a few songs about rioting and I suppose they might be classified as a sub-genre of what are known as protest songs (i.e., songs that in some way call for social change). 

 

Here, however, I wish to discuss only two: White Riot by the Clash [2] and Riot by the Dead Kennedys [3] ...   

 

 

A Riot of My Own

 

'White Riot' was released as the English punk band's first single in March 1977 (an earlier demo version was also included on their self-titled debut album released the following month). The song was written after singer Joe Strummer and bass player Paul Simonon were caught up in rioting at the Notting Hill Carnival in 1976. 

 

Ironically, some people misinterpreted the title as advocating race war, whereas, actually, the band were suggesting that white working class kids ignore what they were being taught in school and learn from black youth about the necessity of political violence (i.e., throwing a few bricks).     

 

According to Strummer, the oppressed, the alienated, and the disadvantaged had a right (and a duty) to oppose the System and its heavy-handed policing; to demand a riot of their own and seize some of the power held in the hands of "the people rich enough to buy it". It would be cowardly, suggested the bourgeois punk rebel in his Brigatte Rosse T-shirt, to passively accept one's position and refuse to rise up and fight back.  

 

There is no denying that 'White Riot' is a great single and call to arms; one which, as Strummer rightly says, knocks spots off all the other stuff on the radio at that time. However, it's also, of course, laughably naive in its political posturing and massively irresponsible in its advocacy of mindless violence [4]. To his credit, guitarist Mick Jones would later refuse to perform the song, considering it crude.     

 

 

Playing Right Into Their Hands

 

Whilst he's undoubtedly a bit of a jerk himself, Jello Biafra is a lot smarter and politically astute than Joe Strummer. He's also a superior lyricist. So, no surprise that the Dead Kennedys track 'Riot' is a far more sophisticated take on the subject.

 

Acknowledging the visceral excitement involved in smashing windows, torching cars, looting stores, throwing bricks at the police, etc., Biafra is nevertheless quick to point out that rioters inevitably play into the hands of the authorities and end by burning their own neighbourhoods to the ground. 

 

The song closes with the repeated refrain: "Tomorrow you're homeless / Tonight it's a blast", the latter speaker sounding increasingly distraught as they slowly realise the consequences of their actions.    

 

Perhaps those rioting in France at the moment [5] might like to consider this ... 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] The picture of charging police officers, by Rocco Macauly, was taken during a riot at the Notting Hill Carnival in 1976. It featured on the back cover of the eponymous debut album by The Clash (CBS 1977). 

      As for the grainy black-and-white image of a row of burning police cars, this was taken in San Francisco in May 1979 during the so-called White Night Riots; a series of violent events sparked by the lenient sentencing of (former policeman) Dan White for the assassinations of George Moscone and Harvey Milk. It featured on the front cover of the Dead Kennedys' debut album Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables (Cherry Red Records, 1980).

 

[2] The Clash, 'White Riot', single released March 1977 (CBS): click here. Or, alternatively, click here to listen to the album version and watch the official video (with footage filmed by Don Letts).  

 

[3] Dead Kennedys, 'Riot', from the album Plastic Surgery Disasters, (Alternative Tentacles, 1982): click here.  For a live performance of the song from 1983, click here.

 

[4] Strummer's terroristic fascination with political violence is also displayed in the B-side of 'White Riot' on a track called '1977'. In this charming punk ditty in which he announces the death of the rock 'n' roll establishment - "No Elvis, Beatles or the Rolling Stones, in 1977" - he also fantasises how it won't be so lucky to be rich when there's "Sten guns in Knightsbridge".

 

[5] On 27 June 2023, Nahel Merzouk, a 17-year-old French youth of Maghrebi Algerian descent, who was driving without licence, was shot and killed by a police officer following a car chase in Nanterre, a suburb of Paris. Despite the officer who shot Merzouk being arrested and charged on suspicion of 'voluntary homicide by a person in authority', the incident led to widespread protests and riots in which symbols of the state such as town halls, schools, and police stations - as well as retail outlets - were attacked and over a 1000 vehicles set on fire.

 

Poor Little Jimmy (All He Wanted to Do Was Be a Sex Pistol)

The Sham Pistols: Jimmy Pursey, Steve Jones, Dave Treganna, and Paul Cook

Photo by Paul Slattery (July 1979)

 

 

James Timothy Pursey - or Jimmy Pursey as he likes to be known - is the founder and frontman of British punk band Sham 69. 

 

Although initially inspired by the Ramones, Jimmy always wanted to be a Clash City Rocker; he even dreamed of one day becoming a Sex Pistol ...

 

For despite the fact that Sham 69 were one of the most commercially successful punk groups - achieving five Top 20 singles and making regular appearances on Top of the Pops - Jimmy lacked that one thing he truly desired - credibility and the respect of his punk superiors.     

 

Thus, imagine his joy when, on 30 April 1978, Jimmy was invited on stage at Victoria Park in East London, to perform alongside Joe and Mick, belting out 'White Riot' in his own inimitable mockney style, in front of a 100,000 people: click here.

 

And imagine his still greater excitement when, the following year, having kicked Rotten out of their band, Steve Jones and Paul Cook invited Jimmy to become the new voice and face of the Sex Pistols - or, more precisely, the Sham Pistols as they were (possibly) going to be known.

 

Alas, it wasn't to be ... 

 

For although Cook and Jones found Jimmy amiable enough at first and things seemed to be progressing well in the studio - in July 1979, the singer informed the NME they had recorded 10 songs and would be ready to tour by September that year - Sham 69 were still contractually bound to Polydor whilst Cook and Jones were signed to Virgin.

 

Apart from this legal issue, relations were also beginning to sour on a personal level between Jimmy and the two former Sex Pistols, coming to a head on 19 August, when the latter walked out of a recording session and Jones hilariously declared: It's worse than working with Rotten.

 

Elaborating in an interview at the time, Jones described how an overly emotional Jimmy kept crying and stuff like that. Worse, he and Cook had come to the conclusion that although Jimmy could talk the talk, when push came to shove, he couldn't walk the walk: All he wanted to do was be a Sex Pistol.   

 

Recalling events in his autobiography, almost 40 years later, Jones writes: 

 

"When me and Cookie gave Jimmy a try, it was never going to be the Sex Pistols in our minds, we always thought of it as a new group. The odd thing about it was that we liked him, but when we got together to try and write some songs in a studio out in the country, he couldn't fucking come up with anything. His cover was blown - he didn't have the talents or intelligence that Rotten did, nowhere near". 

- Steve Jones, Lonely Boy: Tales from a Sex Pistol (Windmill Books, 2017), p. 221.

 

After the dissolution of the embryonic new band, Cook and Jones went on to form The Professionals and poor little Jimmy moved on to solo projects, later reforming Sham 69, with whom he still performs today, aged 68. 

 

 

Musical bonus: 'Natural Born Killer', a track by the Sham Pistols recorded in June 1979 (later reworked with new lyrics by Cook and Jones as 'Kick Down the Doors'): click here. 

 

Thanks to Sophie S. for her help fact checking this post. 

 

For a related post to this one, on Johnny Rotten Vs Jimmy Pursey, click here.

 

 

How Do I Understand the Flies?

Joe Strummer, lead singer of the Clash, looking pensive and posing a question 

that has intrigued punks, philosophers and entomologists alike

 

I. 

 

Someone writes to say that my Insectopunk post was misleading insofar as I "neglected to mention the true character and importance of punk as a socio-political movement, primarily concerned with fighting for freedom and defending truth - not simply with writing inane songs about bugs". 

 

They close their criticism by suggesting that I should "stop listening to arty pop-punk bands and try the real thing, i.e., the only band that matters - the Clash".       

 

 

II.

 

Such idealism is always amusing and often, as in this case, betrays a mix of ignorance and naivety. 

 

Firstly, let us remind ourselves that this (hyperbolic and hubristic) tag line - the only band that matters - was one coined by American musician Gary Lucas [1] whilst employed as a copywriter in the creative services department at CBS Records. Although widely adopted by fans and journalists, one suspects it was something the band always felt secretly embarrassed by; a boast impossible to live up to and impossible to live down.

 

Secondly, it appears my overearnest correspondent has forgotten (or is unaware of the fact) that the Clash also wrote and performed a song about insects; the never officially released How Do I Understand the Flies? [2]. 

 

In this short ditty, Joe doesn't bemoan the state of the nation, but simply expresses his bemusement (and irritation) with the flies buzzing round his head in his basement bedroom, thereby preventing him from sleeping: 

 

In the summer ... the flies buzzing round my head / Every night, I don't understand the flies buzzing round my head.

 

It's not the greatest song in the world and by the end of 1976 it had been dropped from the band's live set and subsequently forgotten about. 

 

As a cultural entomologist, however, I'm really happy to know this song exists and I like to imagine that Strummer was having an existentialist moment inspired by Jean-Paul Sartre who was also troubled by flies - and insects generally [3] - as this passage from Les Mots nicely illustrates: 

 

"I go to the window, I spot a fly under the curtain, I corner it in a muslin trap and move a murderous forefinger toward it. [...] Since I'm refused a man's destiny, I'll be the destiny of a fly. I don't rush matters, I'm letting it have time enough to become aware of the giant bending over it. I move my finger forward, the fly bursts, I'm foiled! Good God, I shouldn't have killed it! It was the only being in all creation that feared me; I no longer mean anything to anyone. I, the insecticide, take the victim's place and become an insect myself. I'm a fly, I've always been one. This time I've touched bottom." [4]

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Lucas discusses this in a short 2013 interview available on YouTube: click here.  

[2] This song - also known as 'For the Flies', or simply 'Flies', was written in the summer of 1976 and first performed at the Screen on the Green on 29 August 1976. Click here to listen to a bootleg recording made at the Roundhouse on 5 September 1976. 

[3] Indeed, for Sartre, all nature was de trop - an undifferetiated and threatening substratum of non-human and inhuman existence for which he feels not only contempt but a visceral disgust, as readers of La Nausée will recall. 

      For an interesting essay on this, see Shannon Mussett, 'Nature as Threat and Escape in the Philosophies of Sartre and Beauvoir', in The Sartrean Mind, ed. Matthew C. Eshleman and Constance L. Mui, (Routledge, 2020), pp. 515-527. Click here to read this essay online.

 

[4] Jean-Paul Sartre, The Words, trans. Bernard Frechtman, (George Braziller, New York, 1964), p. 247.   

 

 

This post is for KV who kindly reminded me of this little known song by the Clash and for Sophie Stas, the patron saint of flies.   

Screamin' Jay Hawkins: He'll Put a Spell on You

Because you're mine ...

I.

Never a favourite with the NAACP, Screamin' Jay Hawkins played with black racial stereotypes and white racial fears just as he experimented with music and performance, producing a unique sound and look that would later influence shock rockers from Arthur Brown and Alice Cooper to Marilyn Manson.

The above - and many others - were inspired by his mock-satanism and penchant for macabre stage accessories (including smoking skulls, rubber snakes, and shrunken heads).  

II.

A former champion boxer and Korean war veteran, Hawkins decided to try his luck as a rhythm and blues singer. After an 18 month spell fronting a band, he left to develop a solo career. His big moment came in 1955, when he recorded an astounding - and drunken - version of his composition entitled I Put a Spell On You, for a black music label owned by Columbia Records. 

The grunts, groans and screams that Hawkins added to what was otherwise a fairly standard pop ballard were deemed to be so disturbing that the record was immediately banned from the radio. Nevertheless, it was a huge hit, selling more than a million copies and secured Hawkins a place in the rock 'n' roll hall of fame. 

It also ensured he would be typecast as a performer, whose talents as a singer, songwriter and musician, became increasingly irrelevant; people wanted the outrageously dressed madman with a bone through his nose, taking to the stage in a satin-lined coffin and giving his best impression of the voodoo priest Baron Samedi.*    

As much as his grotesque persona delighted and amused white audiences - not only in the US, but also in the UK and France - it deeply offended many African Americans. Hawkins, however, was unapologetic, explaining that he was simply an entertainer looking to make a few dollars; not a role model, spokesman for the black community, or a civil rights activist.    

Although he had a number of other hit songs - including Constipation Blues (1969); a track about real pain, not merely heartbreak and loneliness - his star was well and truly beginning to fade by the 1970s, although he continued to work up until his death, aged 70, in February 2000, appearing, for example, alongside Joe Strummer in the 1989 cult movie Mystery Train (dir. Jim Jarmusch).  

Since his death, I Put a Spell on You has continued to be covered by a wide variety of artists, most of whom treat the song very seriously; very few have been brave (or foolish) enough to attempt to replicate - or better - the unique performance given by Hawkins himself ...**

Notes

* Hawkins did sometimes express his unhappiness with this; in a 1973 interview, for example, he bemoaned the fact that whilst James Brown did an awful lot of screaming, he wasn't given the name of Screamin' James Brown and nobody expected him to play the fool or questioned the sincerity of his performance. I'm not overly sympathetic with Hawkins, however, who voluntarily sold his soul to the devil.  

** Artists who have covered this song include Nina Simone, Bryan Ferry, Marilyn Manson, and even Bonnie Tyler.

Play: Screamin' Jay Hawkins, I Put a Spell On You, (Okeh Records, 1956): click here. 

And for a live TV performance of the song, click here.