‘Better Decide Which Side You’re On’: Authenticity, Politics and Post-Punk in Thatcherite Britain Doctor of Philosophy (Music) 2014 Joseph O’Connell Joseph O’Connell Acknowledgements Acknowledgements I could not have completed this work without the support and encouragement of my supervisor: Dr Sarah Hill. Alongside your valuable insights and academic expertise, you were also supportive and understanding of a range of personal milestones which took place during the project. I would also like to extend my thanks to other members of the School of Music faculty who offered valuable insight during my research: Dr Kenneth Gloag; Dr Amanda Villepastour; and Prof. David Wyn Jones. My completion of this project would have been impossible without the support of my parents: Denise Arkell and John O’Connell. Without your understanding and backing it would have taken another five years to finish (and nobody wanted that). I would also like to thank my daughter Cecilia for her input during the final twelve months of the project. I look forward to making up for the periods of time we were apart while you allowed me to complete this work. Finally, I would like to thank my wife: Anne-Marie. You were with me every step of the way and remained understanding, supportive and caring throughout. We have been through a lot together during the time it took to complete this thesis, and I am looking forward to many years of looking back and laughing about it all. i Joseph O’Connell Contents Table of Contents Introduction 4 I. Theorizing Politics and Popular Music 1. Popular Music and Politics 13 Definitions 15 Popular music and the state 18 Political uses of popular music 24 Uses of popular music by politicians 36 Conclusions 41 2. Popular Music and Authenticity 44 Cultural background 48 Uses of authenticity in the music industries 53 Conclusions 69 II. Defining Punk and Post-Punk 71 3. Pre-Punk 75 Stadium rock 76 Pub rock 81 4. Punk 87 Opposition as definition 87 Punk: Style 99 Punk: Music 110 5. Case Studies: Three ‘Punk’ Bands 121 Sex Pistols 121 The Clash 127 The Jam 131 6. Post-Punk 135 Independence/independents 137 1 Joseph O’Connell Contents III. Musical Protest in the Post-Punk Era 7. Rock Against Racism 145 Race in British politics 1976-1979 148 Fascism in popular music 1976-1979 150 Establishment of RAR 155 8. Case Studies: Three ‘RAR’ Bands 162 The Tom Robinson Band 162 Sham 69 176 Alien Kulture 186 Conclusions 203 9. Live Aid 204 The influence of RAR 209 Band Aid, Live Aid and Thatcherism 222 Performers’ politics 226 Conclusions 233 10. Red Wedge 235 Background 237 Press response 244 Performers’ responses 251 Politicians’ responses 256 Conclusions 260 IV. Anti-Thatcherite Performers: Two Case Studies 263 11. Crass 266 Crass as ‘real punk’ 269 Crass vs. punk orthodoxy 277 Crass vs. the Falklands War 286 2 Joseph O’Connell Contents 12. Billy Bragg 299 Politics as music, music as politics 300 Bragg vs. pop 307 Authenticity as commerciality 312 Two anti-Thatcherite songs 319 Conclusions 325 Conclusions 327 Bibliography 337 Discography 352 Mediography 354 Webography 355 Appendix A: Alien Kulture Interview Transcript 366 Appendix B: Alien Kulture Interview Declarations 392 3 Joseph O’Connell Introduction Introduction Margaret Thatcher died on Monday 9 April 2013. The newspaper accounts of her life published the following morning served not only to demonstrate the divisive political impact of her time as prime minister of the United Kingdom (May 1979 to November 1990), 1 but also to contextualise her within the contemporary political atmosphere, characterised by austerity and polarised opinions o f the Conservative Party-led coalition government. The traditionally left-wing Daily Mirror and Guardian publ ished opinion pieces titled ‘There was nothing like her before and there’s been nothing like her since. Thank God!’ 2 and ‘She has a left a dark legacy that has still not disappeared’. 3 The Sun characterised her positively as a saviour of the country’s economy 4 and ‘the epitome of what feminism means: achieving equality with men’, 5 while the Daily Mail captioned her front cover portrait ‘The woman who saved Britain’. 6 In Wales, the Western Mail stated that ‘Her legacy lives on – in Welsh poverty’. 7 As this thesis will demonstrate, the politics of Thatcherite Britain led popular musicians to use their songwriting and performance platform to voice opposition to government policy, as well as to local and international social issues. Representations of the 1980s in popular discourse characterise the decade as a 1 For history and analysis of Thatcher’s time in office, see Stuart Hall & Martin Jacques (ed.), The Politics of Thatcherism (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1983); Graham Stewart, Bang! A History Of Britain In The 1980s (London: Atlantic Books, 2013); Margaret Thatcher, The Downing Street Years (London: Harper Press, 2011); Richard Vinen, Thatcher’s Britain (London: Simon & Schuster, 2009) 2 Paul Routledge, ‘There was nothing like her before and there’s been nothing like her since. Thank God! ’, Daily Mirror , 9 April 2013, pp. 10-11. 3 Hugo Young, ‘She has a left a dark legacy that has still not disappeared’, The Guardian , 9 April 2013, pp. 2-3. 4 Trevor Kavanagh, ‘Economic revolution dragged UK out of dark ages’, The Sun , 9 April 2013, pp. 8-9. 5 Jane Moore, ‘She showed a generation of women what we can achieve’, The Sun , 9 April 2013, pp. 12-13 (p. 12). 6 Daily Mail , 9 April 2013, p. 1. 7 Martin Shipton, ‘Her legacy lives on – in Welsh poverty’, Western Mail , 9 April 2013, p. 7. 4 Joseph O’Connell Introduction period in which popular culture was, in part, defined by radical protest. 8 This can be interpreted as a result of punk’s dominance of underground popular culture in the latter half of the Seventies, which occurred against a public discourse rich in the rhetoric of ‘crisis’. 9 This also played a role in the initial election of Thatcher’s Conservatives. As her time in office wore on, popular musicians continued to be influenced by various facets of punk culture, interpreting their performances as not only oppositional to mainstream cultural hegemony, but as a constructive mode of encouraging democratic action against the government. Upon her death, members of the public sought to commemorate Thatcher’s passing with a further ‘musical’ protest. On 14 April 2013, ‘Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead’ – a 51-second long song from the 1939 motion picture The Wizard of Oz – charted at number two in the UK’s Official Singles Chart following a much publicised online campaign aiming to elevate the song to the number one position. 10 While most media outlets opined that the campaign was ‘distasteful’, 11 the focus of the controversy centred on whether the song should be included on BBC Radio 1’s Sunday evening programme The Official Chart , which, in theory, plays every song charting in the top 40 that week. On the preceding Friday, the controller of Radio 1, Ben Cooper, posted a blog outlining his decision: On one side there is the understandable anger of large numbers of people who are appalled by this campaign. On the other there is the question of 8 See Chris He ard, ‘Rocking Against Thatcher’, BBC News , 4 May 2004 <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/3682281.stm> [accessed 21 June 2014]; Alex Needham, ‘“Thatcher out” style of political satire is in again’, The Guardian , 6 January 2012 <http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2012/jan/06/thatcher-out-political-satire-comedy> [accessed 21 June 2014]. 9 Dave Laing, One Chord Wonders: Power and Meaning in Punk Rock (Milton Keynes & Philadelphia: Open University Press, 1985), p. 30. 10 It ultimately sold 52,605 copies. ‘Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead enters chart at two’, BBC News , 14 April 2013 <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-22145306> [accessed 21 June 2014]. 11 Ben Cooper, ‘Why we’re playing “Ding Dong The Witch is Dead” on Radio 1’s Sunday 14 April 2013 Ch art Show’, BBC – Blogs , 12 April 2013 <http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/aboutthebbc/posts/Statement-regarding-Radio-1s-Chart-Show- 14-April-2013> [accessed 21 June 2014]. 5 Joseph O’Connell Introduction whether the chart show – which has run since the birth of Radio 1 in 1967 – can ignore a high new entry which clearly reflects the views of a big enough portion of the record buying public to propel it up the charts. 12 The decision addressed questions of freedom of speech: for Guardian writer Dorian Lynskey, the campaign was ‘freedom, democracy and market forces in action’, all of which are closely associated with the politics of ‘Thatcherism.’ 13 Cooper ultimately decided that ‘a brief excerpt’ of the song would be played ‘in a short news report during the show which explains to our audience why a 70-year-old song is at the top of the charts.’ 14 His response suggests that the singles chart is an inappropriate channel for the expression of political protest of this nature; after all, Radio 1’s target demographic is 15-29 year olds, 15 of which roughly 35% would have been born during Thatcher’s time in office, and none of whom – having been five years old at most upon her resignation – would have been politically aware before her departure from 10 Downing Street. This point was elaborated in mainstream analysis of the event. For the Daily Telegraph ’s chief pop and rock music critic, Neil McCormick , Ding Dong! belonged on Newsnight , not in the chart rundown. It was a chart- jacking, the old folks invading their kids’ territory to make a political point.