Thatcher and Music Part 1: Get Rid Of Maggie

Thatcher and Music Part 1: Get Rid Of Maggie

Over 2020 and into 2021, I’ve been working on a book about protest music of the 2010s against austerity, and you can read extracts here. Part of this has made me look to the past and the protest music of the 1980s. As this week seems the anniversary of Thatcher’s death, here’s an edited extract:

On April 8th 2013, Baroness Thatcher passed away. Few other 20th century British figures have spearheaded such societal changes as Thatcher, and caused so much harm through destructive policies. Thatcherism's upheaval of the welfare state, demonisation and breaking of working class communities, de-regulation of the markets created a polarised and unrepentant response from musicians. You can find a Spotify plealist here.

Thatcher is overtly the subject of songs by The Beat (‘Stand Down Margaret’), Macka B (‘Get Rid Of Maggie’), Ewan McColl (‘The Grocer’), Morrissey (‘Margaret on the Guillotine’), UB40 (‘Madame Medusa’) and The Exploited (‘Maggie’) to name but a few. Her figure looms across the music of the era, Sinéad O’Connor’s ‘Black Boys on Mopeds’ opens with the line “Margaret Thatcher on TV”, whilst Pink Floyd refer to “Maggie” multiple times throughout their 1983 album The Final Cut.

In 1985, The Men They Couldn’t Hang released ‘Ironmasters’, which reached number 11 in the UK singles charts. Their record label insisted the release remove the line "and oh, that iron bastard, she still gets her way," a knowing reference to Thatcher as the Iron Lady. The Blow Monkeys’ 1987 album was dedicated to Thatcher, titled She Was Only a Grocer's Daughter and featured jibing songs like ‘The Grantham Grizzler’. Though intended as a protest against her, Thatcher was always proud of her middle class origins. During the election, the Blow Monkeys released a blue-eyed soul duet with Curtis Mayfield called ‘(Celebrate) The Day After You’, which was too political for the BBC to play during a general election and was banned. Crass’ 1982 anti-war single ‘How Does It Feel’ asked Thatcher “How does it feel to be the mother of a thousand dead?” Tory MP Timothy Eggar blustered on LBC Radio that the song went “beyond the acceptable bounds of freedom of speech, being the most vicious, scurrilous and obscene record that has ever been produced.” I guess by modern standards, he wanted to ‘cancel’ Crass.

‘Maggie Maggie Maggie / Out Out Out' was a familiar chant throughout the decade, and immortalised in song by The Larks, which was played by John Peel on his roadshows. On the sleeve notes to their 1986 debut album, The Communards dedicated their song ‘Reprise’ to Thatcher. ‘She’ll Have To Go’ by pop chart-toppers Simply Red declares “breaking our backs with slurs / And taking our tax for murdering / The only thing I know / She’ll have to go.” Elvis Costello goes further: on his cutting ‘Tramp The Dirt Down’, he hopes he’ll live on so that “when they finally put you in the ground / I'll stand on your grave and tramp the dirt down.”

Various bands, artists and comedians were part of Red Wedge, a collective hosting gigs and events from 1985-1990, primarily to oust the Tories in the 1987 election (pictured above). Author and radio presenter Stuart Maconie says that Thatcher‘s personality was encapsulated in the ideology Thatcherism, like Reagan’s Reaganomics. No one ever called it Nixonomics or Callahanism. So Thatcher “became more than just a person, she became sort of a shorthand for the ruthlessness, callousness, the disregard for working people.” Speaking to website NPR the week of her death, Maconie goes on to to say:

"It wasn't just a political response; it was a kind of gut emotional response. In the north of England, the effects of Thatcherism were quite visible: Factories closed down, mills closed down, mines closed down, and people were put out of work. And of course, you've got to argue, she was an easy person to become a figurehead. She even looked like she should be on the prow of a ship."

Since the rumbling of alternative pop music since the late 1950s, a tribal and scene-based culture had been brewing across the generations. Just look at The Young Ones, where a metalhead, a punk and a hippie squabble. Retrospect films and TV like This Is England show the power of subcultures defining themselves, and being defined by their music. Tracey Thorn of Marine Girls and Everything But The Girl wrote in her memoir: “politicisation seemed to be the norm, and would continue to do so well into the 1980s. Even as musical styles changed, and many of the old punk battles were left behind, for those of my age the ideals of the late 1970s remained a driving force.”

By the 1980s, a cultivation of colourful and vibrant network of punk, synth-pop, dub, post-punk, new wave, Oi!, power pop, goth, metal, psychobilly, ska genres danced alongside fashion styles and cultures like New Romantics, Mod and Ted revivalists, skinheads, casuals, rude boys and the adjacent LGBTQ+ scenes and the Rastafarian religious and cultural movement. With such a packed repertoire of scenes and styles challenging mainstream perceptions, this period of time was rife for an explosion of political music.

Thatcher was eventually defeated when the Poll Tax legislation was met with riots and resistance. Over 40 people collaborated on Punk Aide’s 1989 compilations Axe The Tax, Can’t Pay Won’t Pay and Fuck The Poll Tax. Oi Polloi and Chumbawamba released and toured an EP called Smash the Poll Tax. Crossover thrash punks The Exploited released ‘Don’t Pay the Poll Tax’ in 1990, featuring clips from news reports on the Poll Tax Riots that same year.

Thatcher and her government became the focal intersection for these movements. Whilst bands and their fans come through different routes, they find themselves arriving at the same destination. For example, Madness and The Specials criticise the Tories on ‘Blue Skinned Beast’ and ‘Maggie’s Farm’ respectively, inspired by the upstart rude boy style of Jamacian ska. Meanwhile Scottish band The Corries are part of a legacy of rebellious celtic working class folk music. But whatever the roots of the struggle, these genres, styles and cultural communities all found a common enemy in Thatcher.

Ed Vaizey, Conservative MP between 2005 to 2019, said: “It’s become a cliché, but Thatcher was one of those Marmite figures – you either loved her or you hated her. Even those who hated her had to acknowledge that she was an iconic figure, and as such she became a lightning rod for dissent.”

This unity against Thatcher was a reflection of her own, sweeping antagonism towards British culture. Her biographer John Campbell wrote: “to fuel the aggression that drove her career she had to find new antagonists all the time to be successively demonised, confronted and defeated… She viewed the world through Manichaean spectacles as a battleground of opposed forces - good and evil, freedom and tyranny, us against them.”

And this is exactly the energy that is being invoked right back at Thatcher. These are songs which hold no punches. They are often bitter and brash, cutting straight to the point and using personal insults as a way to attack the broader policies and structures of Thatcherism. Speaking to author and journalist Dorian Lynsky, Crass’ Penny Rimbaud said: "I think Thatcher was an absolute fairy godmother. Christ, you're an anarchist band trying to complain about the workings of capitalist society and you get someone like Thatcher. What a joy!"

♪ Yes we’re all in this together, us and Dave ♫: Conservative MPs in song

 I’m writing a book! About music, austerity and the 2010s. In my last blogpost (which you can read here) I talked about Cameron’s music tastes and who ‘owns’ protest music. The following is a chopped-up extract.

Like Thatcher in the 1980s, David Cameron became a lyrical device which summarised all the evils of the Coalition, the Conservative Party and austerity policies. His spearheading confidence and assurance in austerity, Big Society and that “we’re all in this together” became a target for song-writers to parody, lampoon and criticise as a way to rail against the wider Conservative ideology. Cameron had the ability to play a friendly and affable ‘Dave’ with the media, as well as turn on the firm voice of the government against protest. By being such a visible personality, as well as boasting the arch millionaire/Etonian/Bullingdon Club background, Cameron becomes the ever-recurring character and voice in protest music, a sort of inverted folk-devil. 

In the punk camp, Cameron is sampled on Magnificent Seven’s ‘Welfare Is A State’, Ravioli Me Away’s ‘Imagination’ and The Relitics’ ‘Whitewash’. Over in the hip-hop camp, Cameron is sampled in Novelist’s ‘Street Politician’ and Dave’s ‘Question Time’. The Smiley & The Underclass song ‘It’s All England’ opens with Smiley declaring “Now this one’s straight to the head of David Cameron and the Houses of Parliament, dedicated to the ones who struggle and suffer and can’t pay their rent.” On Old Radio’s ‘Our Contributions’, the skacore band sing “leaving scraps on the floor / fuck David Cameron / take the fight to the Number Ten door.”

The Skints’ ‘The Island’, written about fallout of the EU Referendum, asks: “Whose idea was this? / Cos I feel the joke is over / But he's only done a runner / And sold you down the river”. At this stage in the music video, a cartoon Cameron makes a Beano-escape dash offscreen. Cameron’s resignation after the referendum is the core of Half Bam Half Whisky’s song ‘A Pig Boy Did It And Ran Away.’ Cameron’s resignation is the crux of Throwing Stuff’s ferocious and undaunted ‘We Wrote This Song Before David Cameron Resigned’. In the song at the final lines screech at quicktime:

“Dodging questions like you know where I’ve been

That dirty smirk couldn’t hide a wedding ring

Tell me how it’s not black and white

Sounds like you gave up the fight

Time’s run out, growing indignation

Raising a toast to your resignation.”

I also think Throwing Stuff’s equally intense punk song ‘How Do You Sleep At Night?’ is about Cameron. I can’t help but think of the 2011 moment presenter Matt Baker asked the Prime Minister the question just as they were wrapping up an interview on The One Show. His co-host, Alex Jones, exclaims a gasp followed by an awkward laugh at the unscripted question. Cameron, to his credit, has a slight flustered moment before ploughing ahead and politely saying “I’ve always been able to sleep OK actually.”

Throwing Stuff’s snappy song opens with the lines “I’d rather be dead than a blue / You march the beat of a familiar tune / A scramble to the top, society’s divider / The bottom continues growing wider.” and concludes lyrically with a throat-wrenching verse: “I’m sick of your trickle down politics / Sick of your flawed free market logic”

To say that Theresa May was the prime minister for almost exactly three years, her role as Cameron’s successor, continuation of austerity policies and key part in the Hostile Environment made her a focal figure for songs in this brief window. Grace Petrie’s ‘Farewell To Welfare’ was written during May’s tenure as Home Secretary. May takes the brunt of this song as Grace foregrounds her queer identity railing against Section 28, searching for her own Harvey Milk and asking if May thinks “that honest people really should be turned away / From IVF and B&Bs just because they're gay.” Grace would perform, and rewrite, this song across the decade, and it gained even more pertinence when May became PM. 

May is sampled at the start of Wadeye’s ‘Welfare Warfare’, with a clip taken from her Brexit speech from March 2018. May’s speech is juxtaposed with the ‘Soviet March’ from real-time strategy video game Red Alert 3. In the same punk spirit, the Menstrual Cramps released their high-energy song ‘Tory Scum’ which highlights May’s terrible record for migrant rights, selling arms to Saudi Arabia and “kissing Donald’s ass” with the savage chorus: “we’re getting fucked by Tory scum / we’re getting fucked by Theresa May.” Cabinet of Millionaires released three singles and remixes of Theresa songs in January, May and June of 2019, referencing Grenfell, the Windrush scandal, the refugee crisis, the arms trade and calling on the PM to “give your austerity a rest / save our NHS.”

 Thumping electro-pop track ‘Theresa May (Bullshit)’ by duo Cherryade has a goading, childlike quality with the “na-na-na” refrain under a sugary-pop beat and and swaggering lyrics advising the listener to “hide your shit like Theresa May.” East London’s Farai released an affecting track in ‘This Is England.’ In beat poetry-style, she delivers an angry plea to Theresa May asking “Do you know how it feels to count hours and days until payday?” The static energy of producer TONE’s hive-like droning electronic music bristles beneath Farai’s savage howl. ‘This Is England’ is the perfect product of 2010s frustration where clearly nothing is getting better and our politicians not only are the cause, they don’t even care.

Stormzy’s 2019 song ‘Vossi Bop’ became the rapper’s first number one single. The line “I could never die / I’m Chuck Norris / Fuck the Government / Fuck Boris” was adopted by the internet with the hashtag #FuckBoris. Captain SKA collaborated with Rubi Dan and used this term for their 2019 collaboration ‘Fuck Boris’: “Lying and dishonest / This racist idiotic / Things are getting toxic / That's why we hashtag - fuck Boris!” Commie Faggots go through a list of Johnson’s racist language on ‘Boris Johnson Is A Racist,’ a list also featured in samples on dance-rock band Cabinet of Millionaires’ ‘Stop The Coup,’ a song released in protest to Johnson’s illegal proroguing of Parliament.

Other MPs were immortalised in music. Grace Petrie’s MP Song neatly takes it in turns to poke fun at members of the cabinet like they are a sitcom cast. For George Osborne, Petrie sings: “austerity’s working wonders so onwards we will forge / before we sink this ship, take a tip from double dip / No the smart money’s not on George.” This is a reference to GDP shrinking again in 2012 by 0.2%, the first double dip downturn since the 1970s. Ian Duncan Smith and Jeremy Hunt all have verses alongside Liberal Democrat leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg.

Captain SKA reworked 2010’s ‘Liar Liar’ for the 2015 general election, this time targeting Farage and Osborne and sampling their speeches. In 2017, the focus was on Theresa May as ‘Liar Liar GE2017’. The BBC refused to play the song, a representative stating: "we do not ban songs or artists, however our editorial guidelines require us to remain impartial and the UK is currently in an election period so we will not be playing the song." The song was again retooled for Boris Johnson in 2019 as ‘Liar Liar GE2019’. An updated ‘Liar Liar’ track to coincide with a general election became something of a tradition across the 2010s!

 

Composer Kim Halliday loops piano and samples for ‘2010 George Osborne’, making the intertwining of “decades of debt” and increasingly spiralling figures seem all meaningless and abstract. Half Bam Half Whisky’s ‘The George Osborne Stance’ is a comic take about the bizarre way Osborne posed at the 2015 Conservative Party conference, apparently trying to ape an impressive power stance. Danimal Crackers’ ‘The George Osborne Song’ on accordion is reminiscent of rude, raucous knees-up London musical hall numbers. It pulls no punches finding inventive rhymes to call the Chancellor a cunt.

On the similarly-titled ‘The Jacob Rees Mogg Song’ Barnaby Griffins encourages listeners to “check out his voting record on theyworkforyou.com / To see the true cloth that he's cut from.” Even Michael Gove gets a rare mention on Griffins’ disturbing track ‘Torypede’. Gove, alongside Osborne and May, are described as part of a hideous Human Centipede. Not a track to listen to whilst eating.

‘He’s A Tory’ by Fight Rosa Fight starts as a jangly poppy indie-punk account of a friend who changed and aligned himself to the Right. Then the song bursts into a Riot Grrrl call response “Fuck you” for various Right-wingers, including Cameron, Johnson and Osborne. It might be the only song to reference Conservative MPs David Willetts and Eric Pickles, who stood down in the 2015 and 2017 elections respectively.  As we’ll see, Ian Duncan Smith has numerous songs written about him for his part in the cruel reforms to welfare, and Andrew Lansly and Jeremy Hunt both represent the Conservative’s underfunding and dismantling of the NHS.

 

Whilst musicians of the 1980s targeted Thatcher, protest music of the early 2010s ran further with a varied armoury of songs naming, parodying, referencing, highlighting, lampooning and attacking individual Conservative MPs. This plethora of name-checking helped challenge the austerity narrative in two ways. Firstly, the Conservative Government tactically passed the blame to others. As The Skapones neatly summarise at the end of their track ‘Benefit Street’:

“Blame the immigrants and blame the weak

Blame the job that’s getting 64 quid a week

You can blame single mothers and the mentally ill

EU workers till you’ve had your fill”

Punk band Ariel Salad are also conscious of this scapegoating from Cameron, who is name-checked on their scathing track ‘Conservative Thinking’. Even though the song was released in 2017, a year after Cameron’s resignation, it’s still important for the band to highlight his role in this blame culture:

“Cameron’s fingers getting too long now it seems

A raise of hands for everybody’s broken dreams

I don’t see the working class like I use to see it

So you blame the doctors and the teachers,

Blame the poor, blame the homeless, blame the preachers,

As the working cash paychecks don't pay the rent.”

American singer-songwriter, story-teller and activist Utah Phillips once said: “The earth is not dying, it is being killed, and those who are killing it have names and addresses.” The reason for Britain’s issues was specific politicians in specific roles doing specific, ideologically-driven, jobs. The celebrity nature of the cabinet suggested each MP had their strategic task, and therefore became the figurehead, and target, for songs which refused to accept the legitimacy of austerity.

The Conservative’s hit the decade with a solid mission. Reflecting behind a paywall in The Times in 2019, former PM Cameron would ruminate on austerity:

“I have always thought that the most important job for a prime minister is to do their duty - to tackle the most urgent task in front of them, whatever that might be. In 2010 there was absolutely no doubt what that was: to rescue our economy.” 

 This Churchillian sense of ‘duty’ implies that the Coalition were not the architects of poverty, but merely enacting what was necessary, like an undaunted surgeon cutting off a wounded limb. The suggestion is, one cannot take the blame for the negative aspects of ones actions if you were merely a vessel for the duty.

Cameron would go on to add: “For me there wasn’t any doubt about how that could be achieved.” A tough, unavoidable medicine to prioritise ‘saving’ the economy, and therefore (by Cameron’s estimation) the country. Musicians constantly challenged this narrative in both unyielding anger and teasing lyrics. As Grace Petrie sings in the MP Song:

“But I’m primarily concerned with Mr Cameron

He seems to have the story wrong

Well Labour didn’t take Britain’s money after all!

It was in the spare rooms of council houses all along

And if we can just squeeze you all a little tighter

Every penny we must save

Oh but old boys, do relax

We wouldn’t think of a mansion tax!

Yes we’re all in this together, us and Dave.”

♫ This Charming Man ♪: Cameron's music tastes and the dawn of austerity 2005-2010.

 I’m writing a book! It’s about Arts & Austerity between 2010-2019!

And I wanted to share part of the music chapter.

This Charming Man: Cameron's music tastes and the dawn of austerity 2005-2010.

 David Cameron was a different sort of Conservative leader to his predecessors. He was young by politician standards, having only served as an MP for four years before becoming Leader of his party in 2005. He claimed that the Conservatives would pursue a green agenda and had less of the stuffy traditionalism of his grey precursors. In his Leadership victory speech, Cameron argued “we have to change in order for people to trust us.”

 In 2006 when Cameron guested on the BBC’s Desert Island Discs programme, one of his choices was ‘This Charming Man’ by The Smiths. He said that Morrisey appearing on Top of the Pops with an NHS hearing aid was an “iconic moment for people of my generation.” Cameron is the grandson of Sir William Mount, who was a baronetcy and High Sheriff of Berkshire, and his father was a stockbroker and his mother a former Justice of the Peace. Still, something about The Smiths’ kitchen sink style chimed inside the young man. Like countless teenagers of the 1980s, Cameron fell for their forlorn songs of working class life and Morrisey’s both mournful and mocking lyrics. In 2013, The Smiths’ guitarist Johnny Marr commented "I do forbid him to like it. He shouldn't like us because we're not his kind of people."

 A young Baby Boomer, Cameron wasn’t shy about his love for 1970s-80s pop and rock. He highlighted ‘Eton Rifles’ by The Jam as one of his favourite songs. Released in 1979 a few weeks after Cameron’s 13th birthday, ‘Eton Rifles’ presents a class war against the rugby-playing Etonians, armed with “loaded guns” and “untamed wit”. Ironically at age 13, Cameron started at Eton College following in his father and brother’s footsteps. In the song, The Jam’s Paul Weller sneers "what chance do you have against a tie and a crest?" in reference to the cronyism and class power bestowed by the boys-only boarding school.

 Cameron insisted: “It meant a lot, some of those early Jam albums we used to listen to. I don’t see why the Left should be the only ones allowed to listen to protest songs.” Like Marr, Weller (who campaigned against the 1980s Conservative governments) criticised Cameron, saying “Which bit [of ‘Eton Rifles’] didn’t you get? It wasn’t intended as a fucking jolly drinking song for the cadet corp.”  Weller added “It's a shame really that someone didn't listen to that song and get something else from it and become a socialist leader instead. I was a bit disappointed really." The Jam’s sharp, socially conscious youthful power pop kicking up against a system would be the exact same music I would listen to when heading off on demos against Cameron’s government.

On the 8th December 2010, before the vote to uncap Tuition Fees, Labour MP Kerry McCarthy ribbed Cameron during PMQs about Morrisey and Marr banning Cameron from liking their music. “If he wins tomorrow’s vote” she put to the Speaker, “what songs does he think students will be listening to, ‘Miserable Lie’, ‘I Don’t Owe You Anything’ or ‘Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now’?” Cameron leans against the dispatch box like it’s a Westminster bar, and confidently retorts that if he did turn up, he probably wouldn’t get ‘This Charming Man’ to the amusement of the House.

 Why should the political and cultural Left claim tribal ownership of protest songs? Why are musicians, and fans, quick to act as gatekeepers to their music and say “this is not for you?” I genuinely believe if The Smiths and The Jam clicked with Cameron on some level, it’s impossible for me to deny his emotional connection to their songs. However in terms of these songs polarised as protest music, I think Cameron cannot lay claim to their unmuddied message. A protest song has a target. This could be a straightforward attack on a specific individual or policy. Or it could be more symbolic, an attack on a concept or ideology. In this instance, The Jam’s ‘Eton Rifles’ is a little of both. The target is, on a superficial level, the literal attendees of Eton. But it’s also a swipe at the institutions of power and the clique of privilege which Eton represents. Eton is a handy short-hand for summarising the centuries-old ideology of a ruling, upper crust.

 And this is what gives a protest song it’s identity, and perhaps why Weller and Marr are quick to deny Cameron claim to their music. Protest music may have a broad appeal, and anyone can enjoy a piece of music, but I think we must acknowledge genuine sense of ownership over a piece of music. Cameron can listen to his copy of The Jam’s Setting Sons album, but fundamentally he is ensuring oppressive systems stay in place.

The anti-austerity music of the 2010s tried to be explicit in the targets. It pulled no punches in it’s message. It was not for the young Etonian, inspired by Cameron, May and Johnson, plotting their own career trajectory. It was not for racists blaming budget cuts on immigrant communities. Musicians ensured no Conservative MP, councillor or even voter could ever hold claim to these impassioned songs as theirs.

This was music for those tired of the power and privilege that money, Eton and Oxbrigde affords. Music for people sick of life at the bottom and angry at economic and class injustice. Music for those frustrated by millionaire politicians making decisions which affected the poorest in society, the same politicians who have never suffered a day in their lives. We are not, to invoke Johnny Marr, their kind of people.

As rapper Dave states on his 2017 track ‘Question Time’:

“You brought the heart of the nation to its knees

Underpaid, understaffed, overworked

And overseen by people who can't ever understand

How it feels to live life like you and me.”

New poem: Does That Make ME The Snowflake?!

Manchester Punk (Poetry) Festival

I discovered punk and poetry around the same time.  John Cooper Clarke’s scattergun verse is where the Venn diagram intersects. But I soon discovered a scene of performance poetry beyond the Bard of Salford, and punk music beyond the 1970s.

Mid-2000s I went to local gigs to see local bands.  And touring bands like Random Hand and Sonic Boom Six became my favourite bands.  And the more I wrote poems, the more the poetry scene became a poetry community with nights, hubs and friendly pals in cities across the UK.  In 2015 me and Bridget Hart toured the UK to poetry and punk venues, in 2018 my theatre company toured our show about punk to theatre venues and DIY spaces.  Seems JCC isn’t the only place where the Venn diagram intersects.

I’ve done a few gigs with punk bands, and when I used to put on music gigs I’d always get a poet to do a set.  Punk’s not always been about just guitars.  80s gigs used to feature cabaret acts, comedians, story-tellers and all kinds of spoken word artists such as Joolz Deby, Attila The Stockbroker, Porky The Poet (aka Phil Jupitus) and Craig Charles.

Manchester Punk Festival are doing some really exciting and diverse work.  Their festival is a passion project from a consortium of gig promoters who showcase not just shouty punk, but international bands, folk-punk, ska, indie-punk and queer and female representation, and spaces for films, podcasts and ethical food.  I like how they re-think how you manage a large-scale festival, how you approach that structure in a DIY, non-profit driven pro-inclusive model.  They have defined a brand which feels professional, but also DIY and inclusive.  Last year they started a Comedy Stage, so I approached them to see whether they would be interested in running a Poetry Stage.

So after what seemed an eternity of plotting and planning and play-list-making, my line-up for the three days was born.  Something I really noticed at MPF over the weekend were bands really appreciating people coming to support them.  I guess normally punk bands play in the small venues, so pooling everyone together can feel an epic gig.  Kermes played a gloriously sweaty fun set, Whoanows were charmingly fresh, Nervus celebratory, Cherym a fistful of fury, Martha stormed through banger-after-banger-after-banger Perkie was intimate and soulful to name but a few.

And it got me thinking about punk and punk poetry.  Poets often play to smaller crowds, and often present more personal and individual work.  Bridget Hart’s Saturday set was a loveletter to the people in her life.  Martin Appleby told little stories and insights of the scene.  Suky Goodfellow directly interacted with her audience in a Choose Your Own Adventure-style poetry set.  Cynthia Rodriguez took the mic out into the space for her anti-borders banter.  Kit Rayne showed a slice of her tattooed nerdy queer heart.  Simon Widdop juggled stories of home.  Genevieve Walsh was in her natural environment of back-room pub pal-packed poetry.  People hopped up for the open mic.

And I?  I was the first person to perform at Manchester Punk Festival in slippers.  Because if I can’t have comfy feet, it’s not my revolution.

Punk tried to tear down that barrier between audience and performer.  No rock star pomp, we are you, you are us, get a guitar, make a zine, write a poem and join in.

We want that connection with the performer and audience.

The last act I saw at the festival was Perkie.  She played a song called Werewolves which I’d never heard before.  She said it was about this punk community.  I had a little cry.

Punk should be more than just music; it’s a culture, which includes Comedy and Poetry (and film too!).  I’m glad that poetry could be part of the DNA of the Festival.  Up The Poetry Punks!

Hold on for your life: Punk & Confidence Part 6

Hold on for your life:  Punk & Confidence Part 6

♫ Dalia never showed me nothing but kindness
She would say: “I know how sad you get."
And some days, I still get that way
But it gets better
Sweetie, it gets better, I promise you
And she'd tell me
Your heart is a muscle the size of your fist
Keep on loving. Keep on fighting
And hold on, hold on
Hold on for your life ♪

-Your Heart Is A Muscle The Size Of Your Fist, Ramshackle Glory

Throughout these blogs, I’ve enjoyed looking at punk’s relationship to confidence.  I’ve briefly looked at the way punkfashion inspires an aesthetic confidence, the way that punk songs give us the courageto fight racism and fascism and the natureof intelligence and knowledge in punk circles.

My last blog looked at self-deprecatingpunk ideology, the way that many punk songs celebrate being a loser, a freak, a weirdo or an outsider.  Inevitably, this self-deprecation links to wider conversations around mental health.  So from here on in, content note for suicide, depression, anxiety and general negative mental health issues.  But also some proper bangin’ tunes.

Mental health issues have always been part of the DNA of punk rock.  The initial colourful wave of punk spirit turned darker when key figures Ian Curtis and Sid Vicious died by suicide.  Kurt Cobain of course will forever remain a famous icon of grunge and punk.  Plasmatics singer Wendy O Williams also took her own life in 1998.  A great inspiration to me, Erik Petersen of Mischief Brew, died in 2016. Over in the nu-metal camp, we lost Chester Bennington from Linken Park in 2017 and indie rock band Frightened Rabbit, Scott Hutchinson, died earlier this. 

Of course, mental health problems don’t just affect punk musicians, it affects all of us.  But in this blog I want to explore some punk (and punk-inspired) lyrics and ideas that have tackled and talked about mental health issues.

The first time I heard musicians openly talking about mental health were ONSIND from Pity Me, Durham.  ONSIND’s album, Anesthesiology, is a concept album based around growing up working class queer.  The protagonist, Chelsea, deals with bullies at school, an abusive father who discovers religion, and struggles with their own mental health.  It came out in 2013, a very difficult year for me mental health-wise and the album boasts the much-necessary song Dissatisfactions which assures the listener to “take it day by day by day”.  Anesthesiology means the care of patients before, after and during surgery, a fitting title for an album dealing with a timeline of our character.

Members of ONSIND also perform in indie-punkers Martha, and naturally all their songs deal with anxiety and loneliness in some form, but their B-side Six Men Getting Sick Six Times (Mendable) is a very beautiful song with the lines “There’s a world outside where I feel so broken / But you make me feel mendable.” 

The indie-punk scene has wealth of shy and supportive people who have open conversations around mental health issues not only in songs, but in how they build safe scenes offstage.  Potentially because these indie-punk bands are home to LBGTQ+ people whose experiences of being a marginalised group mean they experience more negative mental health issues. 

“Tell yourself you’re not the anxious type” – Shit Present, Anxious Type.  Spook School sing “I said let's pretend the world's alright / Let's pretend we’re doing fine For fifteen seconds at a time And I won't cry if you won't cry” -  Alright (Sometimes).  Muncie Girls’ latest release features Clinic:  “I’m scared; I’ve never felt like this before/ The only way I can stop from crying it to take deep breaths and sit on the floor”.  Jesus & His Judgemental Father sing “There was too much in my head, I couldn't stand it I don't feel good, I don't feel safe, I don't feel right” on Lunartick.  Also check out T-Shirt Weather, Haters, Happy Accidents, Skull Puppies, Camp Cope, Fresh, Nervus and Spoonboy.

On a folkier side of punk, I want to give a shout out to Elly Kingdon whose discography has a wealth of lyrics about dealing with mental health issues.  Crywank, Me Rex and Chuck SJ all worth looking into.  Suicide Hotline by The Prettiots is a darkly comic tune.  Pop-punk’s Eat Defeat’s album I Think We’ll Be OK does a splendid overarching job.  Ducking Punches song Six Years is about a friend’s death.

Mental health problems can occur when playing in bands because of the intense pressure to dress a certain way, to adopt a characterful swagger or to bustle your way to the top of the bill.  To be so present and visible is not always healthy.  Playing at gigs where criticism comes readily, bad venues don’t support you, audiences are disrespectful, sexual predators are dismissed as banter and you lose a load of money.  That’s why the indie-punk scene has to find its own supportive and anti-bullish network.

However, the more I dug around in the discography of punk, the more you can find heavier bands from punk’s canon talking about these mental health tribulations.  Descendants, Bad Religion, Dead Kennedys, Blag Flag, Rise Against, Screeching Weasel, Choking Victim, Pennywise, Butthole Surfers, Leftover Crack, The Replacements all bands I associate with a more heavier, confident and male-dominated scene.  You can find some of these songs here:  https://www.ranker.com/list/punk-songs-about-suicide/ranker-music

Suicidal Tendencies and The Suicide Machines are two American bands that directly highlight suicide in their very names.

“They stuck me in an institution
Said it was the only solution
To give me the needed professional help
To protect me from the enemy, myself” - Suicidal Tendencies, Institutionalized

These bands, on the surface, have a boisterous energy that exhumes a guttural and noisy confidence.  A far cry from these introverted indie-punk bands.  But still under this banner of DIY, anti-authority and honest punk rock.

I have three theories:

1.  Punks rethink spaces, from houseshows to squats to independent venues.  Partly due to necessity (who wants punks moshing or queers in your nice venue), and partly due to DIY encouraging bands to become their own boss.  In doing this, punks also rethink how people feel secure in this space and how you welcome and support one another.

2.  Anti-authority means punks reject the normalised approach to ‘manning up’ and ‘just dealing with it’ society enforces, or the narrow frame for women to play specific patriarchy-enforced roles.  Especially for men, to be the punk outsider is to reject the macho expectations.  Obviously macho bullshit exists in punk and I’d direct them to this pin.

3.  Punks glorying in, and glorifying, the ugliness of punk highlight the darker shades of our world by sharply digging at ‘truth’.  Rooted in the world around them, punks sing about their lives and existence rather than, for example, disco which limits itself to upbeat love, or goth and metal with its obsessions with the otherworld.  (Both are still valid ways of dealing with mental health, of course).

I’ve had self-esteem issues for a long time.  I’ve had anxiety, panic attacks, imposter syndrome and sometimes I’ve self-harmed.  Since I was about 10, I’ve thought, sometimes fantasised, about not wanting to exist.  I’d like to think I explore this in my poems and songs.  The first time I felt I had a language to talk about this was, in part, by going to punk gigs where bands were singing and talking about mental health issues.  Normalizing those experience, sharing those stories, and creating a soundtrack within these spaces as well as a supportive network is something to celebrate.

It sounds so cheesy to type, but so many songs give me the confidence to carry on.  Thank you.  Thank you friends.

Art is always an excellent coping mechanism for negative mental health, and punk is a wide spectrum that can make space if you’re struggling for a voice.  The Government slash mental health services the provision for support has decreased.  As this has decreased, I believe an understanding of mental health has increased where there are much more public discussions around mental health.  There is a mental health crisis in this country, and in our communities.  All we have is each other.

Thank you to everyone who suggested songs, I’m sorry I couldn’t name them all here!  Feel free to comment with any songs or coping strategies or general thoughts (or criticism of this blog).

We're pretty vacant and we don't care: Punk & Confidence Part 5

♫ I'm not a good person / Ask anyone who knows me ♪”- Pat The Bunny, I’m Not A Good Person

There’s a conflation between being simple, stripped down and straight-to-the-point and being shit.  The prog bands were known for their technical skill, and so the punk response was strip rock back to three chords.  If these prog bands were being overblown with intellectual concept albums then punk would present their views in 3 mins or less with a gutter view of the world.  But does this philosophy mean that punk was a poor man’s rock?

Sure as a genre, punks and the punk scene were spat on by the establishment because the gobby kids spat back.  But it was originally a haven for the misfits and the outsiders who were told they were worthless.  In the industrial degradation of 1970s Britain (to the backdrop of black bin bags piling in the streets) British youth felt like garbage.

This despondency has been knitted into the lining of punk across the decades.  Across the pond, The Replacements named themselves to imply they were a B-class band, drummer Chris Mars saying it was “accurately describing our collective ‘secondary’ esteem”.  The Cramps sang “I've got a garbage brain” on Human Fly and years later Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong would question his sanity on the pop-punk hit Basket Case.  A huge proportion of The Ramones’ back catalogue is about being a weirdo outsider (Cretin Hop, I Wanna Be Well, Bad Brain, Now I Wanna Be A Good Boy) or directly referencing being mentally unwell (Teenage Lobotomy, Shock Treatment, Psycho Therapy and I Wanna Be Sedated).

Some songs oxymoronically revel in being ‘wrong’.  Nirvana’s Dumb has Kurt declare “I think I'm dumb” and yet he concedes at the end “But I'm having fun”.  The classic Sex Pistols song Pretty Vacant has Rotten declare “And we don’t care!”, surely the victory cry for 77’s snotty teens.

Some bands pin this crisis of confidence on the system.  Gang of Four’s post-punk masterpiece Entertainment! is about commodification of humans.  On Damaged Goods they state “Damaged goods, send them back / I can't work, I can't achieve, send me back.”  On the same album The Clash moan about career opportunities Strummer also questions “What the hell is wrong with me?” via What’s My Name.

I want to highlight three songs which have really stuck with me.

The first is by The Menzingers.  Masters at an uplifting anthem, Obituaries is no exception to their discography.  However the earworm chorus stamps “I will fuck this up / I fucking know it” over and over again.  It feels like failure is an energy.  Not deflated, but destructive and that confident outburst makes it seem like the outcome, “I am just freaking out, yeah I'll be fine” is worth fighting for.  I Don’t Wanna be An Asshole anymore is another Menzinger’s song with a light at the end of a shitty tunnel.

The second is by Pat The Bunny.  Loads of his Wingnut Dishwasher Union songs have this destructive quality, but I especially love the lyrics of I’m Not A Good Person that go “I'm not a good person / Ask anyone who knows me / I'm mean and bitter / And a failure at everything that I say I believe”.  Also check out the full album Probably Nothing, Possibly Everything.  The way Pat sings his lyrics seems so fucking bitterly honest.  His chords and his voice are drenched in a venom that it far removed from a pop-punk grumpiness.

Thirdly I recently came across a band from Leeds called Daves.  In The Menzinger’s style, they have a track on their EP called Change which shouts loud “I’m not ready to admit / I think I’m a piece of shit”.

https://wearedaves.bandcamp.com/track/change

So why do I listen to these self-deprecating songs?  When it’s so easy for me to believe that I am rubbish.  I can’t remember a time I didn’t think I was a Bad Person because of some drilled-in sense of binary Good/Bad.  And this sense of Badness gets conflated with being wrong, getting things wrong, or not doing things right.  This guilt leads me to think I’m worthless, useless, inadequate and better off not being around.  To quote Martha, “to tell the truth I’m struggling today/Why’s it gotta feel so sad?”  Thoughts are not facts, and yet it seems one central tenant of the Universe I am shit, the one cosmic certainty I can hang my life upon.  That’s because, in a kind of Cartesian solipsism, I can only rely on this within my head.

So I think it helps, like all art, to find someone that feels the same, and is sharing.  I do worry that this self-deprecating is influential.  It just helps dig the negative grooves in my brain, reinforces the pillars that prop up my personality.  It doesn’t feel that healthy.

But a friend of mine said, whether you say something negative, you need to say the opposite.  You need to counteract the strangling voice in your head that whispers, dominates and demands.  And yes, I do listen to raised-fist-victory-to-us songs.  But also maybe these self-destructive songs are healthy too.  Because they prove someone has taken stock of their world.  Wrote it down.  Wrapped some chords around it.  It’s identifiable, it exists and it can be sung about.  My anxieties are a thought in chords, and they can be sung out.

All I know is that I don't know nothing: Punk & Confidence part 4

♫ Drinking beer on the kerb with all the punks
Read the free fanzine from back to front
Even chatted in the queue to Babar Luck ♫ - Keep On Believing, Sonic Boom Six

I have the kind of brain/personality that loves to hoard information.  As a kid, on the nerdy side of my spectrum, I loved to know all about Spider-Man, Star Wars and Pokémon.  I’m the kid that bought those Encyclopaedia books and poured over recycled facts of whole worlds.

Getting into punk was much the same.  I would buy books, magazines, read CD liner notes and trawl through the internet.  I wanted to pick off every band.  If they were mentioned highly in the chronicles of punk, I’d make sure they were added to my repertoire.  I think this could be the result of a neurodiverse brain, or potentially being an Only Child, or coming of age around the Millennium with Wikipedia, YouTube and a book-end to the 20th century.  Or a combination.

I have a copy of a Mojo Special Edition from 2005, which I bought in my first year of College aged 16.  The magazine covers The Ramones, The Stranglers, The Clash, Sex Pistols and features a handy year-by-year breakdown between 76-79.  It is the perfect starter kit to move from a fan of the sound to a fan of the punk world.  Albeit, of course, a punk world presented as pretty male and pretty white and pretty straight.  This magazine was one of the many used as a prop in my theatre company’s production Whatever Happened To Vandal Raptor?

The magazine has a ‘Punk Smashers’ section where all the classic punk albums are listed so a young Henry could tick them off, band-by-band.  Looking back, it must have been so exciting to have this whole world open up and explore-able within the shelves of HMV and the realms of YouTube.

Around this time I was well-thumbing my copy of Mojo, I’d go see a local punk band called The Mighty Booze who had a song called ‘Best Mates’ all about an old punk who claimed to have met Sid Vicious and Joe Strummer and kissed Debbie Harry.  The protagonist of the song doesn’t believe the drunk punk, but will pretend to be his “best mate” as long as the bullshitter is buying the drinks.  Behold, the power of the internet and Myspace:  I found the song here!

As much as certain sections of society want to kick-back against ‘experts’, I believe we still have a hierarchy of knowledge.  When it comes to things like comics or music, knowledge can become a dick-measuring mechanism.

Punk demands that you care.  The Sex Pistols’ nihilism may have been fashionable for a brief period, but it was soon eclipsed by passion.

In this battle for knowledge, I have been guilty of searching out the most obscure bands (and genres) across Bandcamp or line-ups.  Even within the underground scene, we try and seek out the outsiders amongst the outsiders. 

Maybe this is part of punk’s need to prove it’s ‘Not Dead’ and evolve from punk to hardcore, hardcore to riot grrrl, from folk-punk to thrashgrass, from ska to ska-punk to skacore to hip-hop/ska/punk fusions.

Maybe this is part of punk’s need to constant search deeper and deeper below the surface of rock.  To take a page from Crass’ grimy book when Steve sang “Punk became a movement cos we all felt lost, but the leaders sold out and now we all pay the cost.”  So we reject those leaders and movements so we don’t end up “staring up a superstar’s arse”.

Maybe this is part of the arrogance of punk, the confidence mutated into a gobby swagger.

But naturally when we talk about knowledge, we have to acknowledge the song Knowledge by Operation Ivy.  When Jesse Michael’s sings “you can't get the top off from the bottom of the barrel” this seems a lovely image to accompany this idea that punks are all trying to prove themselves the most well-equipped about their genre and subculture, despite the fact we’re all stuck within this tight narrow genre and subculture.  Jesse’s magnificent chorus barks over and over “All I know is that I don't know all I know is that I don't know nothing”.  It doesn’t sound too self-deprecating, the repetition is a call-to-arms.  And finally the song ends with the simple, effective and honest rest-assurance that “that’s fine.”

I glory in knowledge, because I glory in learning.  I love a good hard natter in the pub about punk and music, as well as films, politics and Pokémon.  I think though, in always learning, we should never allow this confidence we know our genre goes beyond a celebration into an arrogance.  Because that’s the pomp that punk strove to tear down in the first place.

The Right Wing Never Sleeps So Nor Do We: Punk and confidence part 3

♫ You still think swastikas look cool

The real Nazis run your schools ♪

-Nazi Punks Fuck Off Dead Kennedys

On Saturday the Scarborough & Whitby branch of the English Defence League held a ‘protest’ to free Tommy Robinson, a man jailed for jeopardising a court case which could have led to a grooming gang go free.  The EDL believe themselves defenders of an England, and any opposition to their patriotism (see:  nationalism) is an attack on free speech.  Really, the EDL ubiquitously criticise, and subsequently demonise people of colour which leads them to attack and call for segregation/deportation/genocide.

York's antifascists came out to oppose them, a combination of the local Stand Up To Racism group, York Anti-Fascist network and many random people who either left the main Pride march to keep an eye on the EDL, or were curious about what was occurring and decided to stay to offer solidarity.

Whilst the Branch could only muster a small handful of 8-12 people on the 9^th, many more gathered in London, marched peacefully for the cameras and then, unprovoked, began to try and storm Downing Street, smash up a tourism bus and assault Police.  The EDL’s claim they are not racist is difficult to swallow when they have persistently failed to root out, and thus embrace, seig heiling neo-nazis.

Punk briefly flirted with fascist imagery 76-77, though I believe this was messy of shock tactics from certain corners to appear rebellious and monstrous which soon fizzled out.  Examples include the very name Joy Division, Siouxise Sioux’s swastika or the name London SS as a potential and name.  The Ramones’ song Today Your Love, Tomorrow Your World is uncomfortable listening in 2018.   There is absolutely no excuse for flirting with this fascist iconography, and, like all corners of society, all the corners of punk have wrestled with racist elements, both for and against.  After this initial way, most punk bands at least rejected the right-wing ideology, some maybe could have done more to challenge it.

There’s a circuit of of Oi! bands embracing a blood-soaked flag and obviously there’s bands like Skrewdriver who birthed a wave of racist and neo-nazi punk under the banner Rock Against Communism and Blood & Honour.

There are many decent examples of anti-fascism in the early history of punk.  This has been well-documented with white bands like The Clash, Stiff Little Fingers and Tom Robinson Band playing Rock Against Racism, and of course the variety of punks of colour in Death, Bad Brains, Dead Kennedys, X-Ray Spex.

So in this series of blogs, I want to touch on the confidence that comes from anti-fascist punk music.

I don’t do enough to fight fascism.  It scares me.  I don’t like confrontation at the best of times, I’m a scrawny guy and never been in a proper scrap in my life.  But I know that this is something we need to oppose, and we need to find the confidence.

Facing the right-wing is a scary prospect.  They have a history of murdering, from the New Cross massacre to Blair Peach to the vile activities of Combat 18.  MP Jess Phillips received over 600 death threats in a single night, MP Josie Cooper was the target of National Action and of course MP Jo Cox was murdered by a man shouting “Britain first!”  Often their protests are male jumped with adrenaline, toxic masculine energy, the lessons learnt from football hooliganism and (sometimes illegal) substances.  Though Red Watch is very much out of date, the right-wing use spotters, cameras and social media to monitor and track not only those that oppose them directly, but Trade Unions, anti-cuts groups, refugee support networks and even environmental groups.

So punk songs need to inspire a confidence to face this evil down, and do so in many ways.

There are the simplest form of anti-fascist song which boils down to:  Fuck them.

Here’s just a small handful of songs from recent years:

Fuck The EDL by Lab Rats,

Picket Fence by Atterkop

British Nazi Parade by Stand Out Riot

The Right Wing Never Sleeps by Crazy Arm

Milk by Random Hand

No Pasaran by Joe Solo

This article on the Guardian is useful for some American anti-Trump hardcore.

Other songs are a slight more pointed about nationalism and the language of borders and nations. ONSIND’s BA77 tells the story of Jimmy Mubenga murdered by G4S, and their song Pigs In The Green Room is about an encounter with racists at a service station.  Loyalty Festers from their latest album dissects the grimy violence of patriotism.  KINKY’s Legal Fucking Murder is about state violence in the name of border control, and Efa Supertramp has written about detention centres, whilst Petrol Girls’ song Treading Water has cutting imagery of water, waves and refugees.  Propagandi’s Fuck The Border does exactly what it says on the tin, as does Downtown Boys' timely A Wall.

There are other songs which posit historical moments, WEGROWBEARDS are experts at this, and one of my favourite anti-fascist songs is The Ghosts of Cable Street by the Men They Couldn’t Hang.  On The Day The Nazi Died by Chumbawamba is the band’s response to the death of Rudolph Hess.

What is rarer are songs which, rather than being on the offensive, do celebrate what we have and should defend.  Kids of the Multiculture by Sonic Boom Six is one, I can’t really think or others but please let me know others.

The right wing have an alchemy of privilege:  white, western and mostly male.  This evolution from patriotic pride to nationalist zeal to white power ideology gives the right a huge bulk of confidence.  They employ the romanticised notion of Empire, as well as nonsense like eugenics and blood purity, to empower their chants and violence (though cans of Fosters does help too).

So that’s why we need to make these songs:  To nurture and empower our own confidence. Whether with a blunt and simple message which reinforces the need for anti-fascist thoughts and action or something more complex to allow us to unpack the racism in our heads and deconstruct the state-sponsored borders, both physical and sociological.

Let’s not forget the punk scene is mostly white, and us white punks need to challenge our own preconceptions, assumptions and in-built prejudices.  This article talks about those experiences  much better than I could ever articulate.

This is an amazing zine, apparently sold out but maybe messaging the (sadly split up) band Fight Rosa Fight you might be able to find a copy or PDF

Today, bands like The Tuts, Shopping, Screaming Toenail, Big Joannie are challenging these conceptions alongside Decolonise Fest, Afropunk and the Latinx punk scene.  Little Fists and Fight Rosa Fight have recently split up, but two amazing bands to check out. 

Some further reading about worldwide anti-fascist punk here.

10 Black punk bands to check out

Oh, and if you’re reading this and are someone of the right-wing disposition, and you haven’t been convinced to give up your racist ways then I recommend giving this song a good, hard listen.