Two of England's great punk perverts: D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930)
and Malcolm McLaren (1946-2010)
At number 7 on Malcolm McLaren's top 10 books of the moment - as compiled by the man himself in February 2000 for The Guardian - is Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence, which he describes as: "The most melancholic and blissfully romantic novel I have recently re-read." [1]
And so, it's not entirely unreasonabe to ask the question first raised by Paul Gorman [2]: do the letters D. H. on the right hand side of the 'You're Gonna Wake Up One Morning ...' shirt refer to the author of English literature's most scandalous novel?
The fact that McLaren had "recently re-read" Lady C. in 2000 and still responded so positively to it, would suggest that he was a longtime fan of the work and we can probably assume he admired Lawrence for confronting the English with the one thing which, in McLaren's view, really scares them: sex.
Of course, Lawrence would have hated McLaren and the Sex Pistols, but then Lawrence pretty much hated everyone and there's no denying that in his willingness to provoke and outrage and challenge the moral and political authority of the Establishment, Lawrence had an attitude which those who later idenified as punk rockers would very much recognise as similar to their own.
Rather strangely, if there's one person who forms a kind of bridge between Lawrence and McLaren its the author and broadcaster Melvyn Bragg.
For not only did the latter openly admire Lawrence and his writings, even at a time when it was not fashionable to do so, but he was on friendly terms with McLaren whom he famously referred to as the Diaghilev of punk [3] at the opening of an episode of The South Bank Show devoted to the latter [4].
Notes
[1] 'Malcolm McLaren's top 10 books of the moment', The Guardian (21 Feb 2000): click here.
[2] See Gorman's blog post on paulgormanis.com: click here. Or click here for a revised and updated version of this post with fresh links.
[3] Whether he coined this phrase, I don't know; but it makes a nice change from the usual description of McLaren as the Svengali of punk.
[4] See the post 'When Melvyn Met Malcolm (A Brief Reflection on The South Bank Show Episode 178)' published on Torpedo the Ark on 10 April 2023: click here.
