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Home , Bubblegum music, End of the Century, In Love With Myself, Judy Is a Punk, Only Wanna Be with You, Pretty Vacant

Masaryk University Faculty of Arts

Department of English and American Studies

English Language and Literature

Jakub Kolář

Differences Between the American and the British First Wave of Punk Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis

Supervisor: doc. PhDr. Tomáš Pospíšil, Ph. D.

2017 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

…………………………………………….. Author’s signature I would like to thank my supervisor, doc. PhDr. Tomaš Pospišil, Ph. D. for his advice, encouragement, and willingness to work with a punk like me. Table of Contents

Introduction...... 1 1. The and Its Beginnings...... 3 2. Hooray for the USA...... 7 2. 1. The '70s Punk in America...... 7 2. 2. We Are the , and You've Heard It First...... 11 3. Anarchy in the UK...... 17 3. 1. The '70s Punk in Great Britain...... 17 3. 2. Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the ...... 21 4. The Differences between the American and the British Punk Scenes...... 27 4. 1. The Differences between the Ramones and the Sex Pistols...... 29 5. The Analysis of the Ramones and the Sex Pistols' Lyrics...... 32 5. 1. A Corpus Analysis...... 32 5. 2. A Subject Matter Analysis...... 34 5. 2. 1. Romantic and Sexual Relationships...... 36 5. 2. 2. The First Person Feelings...... 38 5. 2. 3. The Second and the Third Person...... 39 5. 2. 4. Social and Political Comment...... 40 5. 2. 5. Music and Dancing...... 40 Conclusion...... 42 Bibliography...... 44 Résumé (English)...... 47 Résumé (Czech)...... 48 Introduction

We knew how to get to the backstage window. And so when the Ramones were getting

ready to do their concert. I was there, Simo, Jonesy, some of the Sex Pistols. We were in

a back alley, and we threw a rock at the window. I think, stuck his head

out and went, “What?” And we went, “Hey, this is , and this is Pistols, and we

need to get in.” So they kind of formed a sort of human chain and pulled us up through

this window. And that was the first time we met them, and it was just a really great punk

rock moment. (Joe Strummer, the Clash's singer-guitarist, in )

The authors dealing with punk agree that its definition is problematic. This thesis will use the term in a wide sense of the complex of music, audience, and institutions (including ,1 record labels, clubs and shops) that “caused uproar and alarm among critics, politicians, media pundits, and record company executives”

(Laing, viii) in the second half of the . This sense also includes a wide range of music inspired by punk in later years. In the thesis, mainly the first wave of punk, that corresponds roughly to the years 1974-1978, is considered because this is a safe area, considering different opinions on punk. The authors usually agree that punk had originated in America and was imported to Britain where it bloomed. There were different epicenters of punk, but the scope of the thesis is narrowed to the scenes centered around the CBGB club in New York and the band Sex Pistols in .

The aim of this work is to summarize the differences between the two main epicenters mentioned above and their main protagonists the Ramones and the Sex

Pistols. The differences will be demonstrated on the lyrics of the from the debut of the two bands. The bands have been chosen as the main protagonists because

1 “[T]he small-scale, semi-underground publications of music enthusiasts” (Laing 13).

1 the Sex Pistols were the first group in Britain, inspiring other musicians, and the Ramones, being from the New York scene, where the most influential punk rock bands started simultaneously, are frequently listed as the best punk artists of all time

(“Fifteen Greatest Punk Bands of All Time”).

There were “considerable differences of musical approach between the various punk groups” (Laing 39), and, as Roger Sabin, the editor of Punk Rock: So What? The

Cultural Legacy of Punk, highlights, “subcultures themselves are constantly mutating, and [the] participants negotiate their own positions in them” (5). In consequence, nothing in the punk subculture is absolute, and even statements from inside punk are inconsistent. For that reason, the thesis is partly subjective, even if it tries to synthesize different opinions.

The first three chapters provide a background for the rest of the work by presenting the history of the punk subculture in general, the New York and the London scenes, the Ramones, and the Sex Pistols and putting it into the context of other music genres and subcultures. The fourth chapter is a summary of differences between the

American and the British '70s punk and a summary of the differences between the

Ramones and the Sex Pistols. The fifth chapter then presents two lyric analyses illustrating these differences. The first analysis is corpus based, executed using the

Sketch Engine. The corpora used consist of lyrics taken from the sleeve of the Ramones'

LP and from the Sex Pistols' official website and adjusted to correspond with the records. The second analysis analyzes the lyrics from the point of view of subject matter.

2 1. The Punk Subculture and Its Beginnings

Because the punk subculture started as a genre of music–in contrast to majority of other youth subcultures that adopted already existing genres (Laing xi)–it is not possible to separate the subculture from the genre. During the second half of the twentieth century, the word punk was used to describe many different bands, sometimes having a little in common, although some of them later influenced punk rock.

Subsequently, different groups of people listening to these bands started to call themselves punks. In the mid-1970s, appeared a new concept of punk, propagated by fanzines. The aim of these publications was to raise the alternative culture: first, by reminding its readers of some representatives of the (mainly the past popular music from the 1950s and the 1960s, some of them later to be called proto-punk) and criticizing others, and second, by propagating new artists. Some of the new artists would later become the leaders of the new punk subculture, including the

Sex Pistols (ibid 13) and the Ramones (ibid 23). This concept of punk “as a musical type and ideal” originated in America, where it emerged in the early 1970s as a reaction against progressive rock (ibid 13).

Punk in the current meaning came into existence mainly as a result of mutual influences between New York and London. Both the economic situation and the state of the music industry in the 1970s contributed to the emergence of the punk subculture.

New York was on a verge of bankruptcy, and whole Britain was experiencing a crisis

(“Blank Generation”). In the music industry, it was getting harder for new bands to become popular as recording technologies were increasingly sophisticated, and record companies were investing large sums into preparation and recording in the studio. In consequence, it was commonly believed that a good record equals an expensive one.

3 Therefore, the genre of progressive rock was steadily gaining popularity since the late

1960s. Progressive rock, with its large musical forms and concept albums, preferred recorded music to live performances, which were supposed to exactly recreate the recorded sound, requiring expensive equipment and additional musicians. This led to growing costs of the performances (Laing 3), increasing demands on musicians, and alienation of devotees from their idols. “People started overindulging with long solos, and you watched someone like or , and you felt like you'd have to practice for twenty years to be able to play [the] song,” said Johnny Ramone, the guitarist of the Ramones, about the late 1960s in the documentary

(see “Blank Generation” in the bibliography).

While some claim that punk was mainly about the return to the roots of , the return was predominantly in the area of rawness and simplicity (ibid) as the common instrumentation of a punk rock group was a strict and drums lineup. On the other hand, the '50s exploited a much wider range of instruments. The punk attitude accentuated “directness and repetition.” Dave Laing in his book One

Chord Wonders: Power and Meaning in Punk Rock even suggests that for the punks “to use more than three chords was self-indulgence” (12). Two contrasting principles were mixed. The first one emphasized purity and transparent music, free of limitative traditions and the premeditated intricacy of . Johnny Ramone used to say, “We're playing pure rock 'n roll.” The second one involved artifice, exaggeration and outrage. “The sounds were to be distorted, dirtied and destroyed, so that their meanings were mangled.” (Laing 26) Interestingly, the '70s punk rock artists often, although in different proportion, combined both principles.

In contrast to progressive rock and, most likely, the whole music industry of that

4 time, the '70s punk rockers emphasized live performance: new bands were promoting themselves primarily by playing frequently, slowly building their following, and the principal task of studio recordings was to capture the energy of a band in concert

(ibid 53). The participation of the supporters and their equality with the performers was also a crucial part of the punk attitude. This all is proved by an interview with Brian

James, the guitarist of the Damned, for Seven Ages of Rock:

It was a growing thing, … first of all there'd be like a few people, and you'd talk to them

after the gig, … [a]nd then, the next day you'd see them, and there'd be another couple.

And it would be the same out in the streets. There'd be maybe one punk amongst all this

sea of long hair. And then there'd be a few more. And then, it just gradually built and

built and built, and you'd see people making their own clothes, which was the cool

thing, and they made their own statements. … That was a very, very cool thing. The

audience [became] part of the whole show, [became] part of the whole event, you know,

the experience.

The quotation also reveals the desire to make punk a style made by the punks themselves. To accomplish their aims, the punk rockers were establishing

“do-it-yourself” counter-institutions, including independent labels or, already mentioned, fanzines. One of the most important British fanzines was Sniffin' Glue edited by Mark P. (Laing 13), and, easily, the most important American was Punk created by and Legs McNeil (Heylin 241).

Clinton Heylin, the author of books on both the American and the British punk, claims, “[T]he New York and London scenes shared similar antecedents, reflecting a common disenchantment with the rock & roll status quo” (xi). Generally speaking, punk's main influences were the American 1960s rock bands like the Velvet

Underground, the MC5, , and the that were probably the

5 biggest influence for both the American and the British punk. These bands were of key importance for the punk style “replete with effects based on distortion or feedback” (Laing 60). Many punk bands like , who were part of the New York punk scene, too, or the Clash were also influenced by reggae (ibid 32). Other influences of the American and the British groups differed, and both branches of the subculture developed in slightly different ways.

The end of the first wave of punk came around 1978. Some connect it with the

Sex Pistols' gradual disbanding and 's, the band's second bass guitarist and an iconic punk figure, death by a heroin overdose in 1978. In any case, towards the end of the 1970s, the mainstream music industry slowly started to incorporate features of punk rock and legitimized it as a subgenre of rock music. In consequence, the scene of artists with different styles, taking their inspiration from different sources, began to disintegrate (ibid 40). In later years, the genre evolved into a number of subgenres–for example, hardcore, pop punk, and gothic rock–connected to varying degrees to the punk subculture. Many of the first wave bands continue to perform and record to these days.

6 2. Hooray for the USA2

2. 1. The '70s Punk in America

In the 1970s, New York was experiencing not only the crisis mentioned in the first chapter but also an outflow of inhabitants. Equally, the situation in culture was not much better. The Ramones' drummer says, “During the early '70s, there was the doldrums. The spirit of rock and roll sort of went away,” and McNeil adds,

“Everybody was nice. Everything just seemed so mediocre and tedious. It was just awful” (End of the Century). Considering music itself, the Americans felt the general fact already mentioned in the previous chapter–the 1960s era of hippies and drugs brought overindulgence and experiment resulting in the alienation of performers from the audience.

On the other hand, although the American punk rockers complained about the state of the music industry, there is a long tradition of independent music in America, and the punk musicians were consciously continuing it, taking inspiration from the past

(Heylin xiv). Among the greatest influences were the '50s girl groups and the pop-oriented surf and of the early 1960s. The early '60s culture was connected with “the teenager” myth of entertainment and consumption that arose from the post-war economic boom and the social changes in white middle class suburbs. This concept of the American teenage life was both celebrated and parodied by the representatives of the American '70s punk rock (Sabin 156-158).

The prosperity of white middle class helped a range of new youth subcultures to come to existence. Influenced by the rock and roll guitar sound, surf rock arose in

California, with its main exponent Dick Dale (ibid 158). The surf rock guitar style was 2 From the lyrics of the Ramones' song “Havana Affair.”

7 characterized by heavy reverb and had an undeniable influence on punk guitarists.

Johnny Ramone's official website lists Dick Dale as the fifth of his ten favorite guitarists

(“Johnny Ramone’s All-Time Top Ten Lists”). Young surf rock groups were coming to prominence by the help of independent record production. Otherwise, and in contrast to punk, surf rock also enjoyed considerable radio airplay and some television broadcast

(Sabin 158).

In the mid-1960s, surf rock was replaced by the groups like the

Beatles and . Nevertheless, garage bands continued in the legacy of surf rock with their distorted guitar sound. Only few of these garage bands were successful during their careers. One of these exceptions was with their hit song “Surfing Bird,” later covered by the Ramones on their third . These bands were sometimes called “garage punk bands” (ibid 159), directly linked to future punk rock in this way. On the other hand, the American punk bands of the 1970s were openly influenced by the British invasion, too.

Towards the end of the 1960s, progressive rock, and counter-culture came into spotlight, but the surf-garage legacy was taken by the “bubble-gum” pop bands celebrating the purest manifestations of the American teenage aesthetics– cartoons, comic book romance and bubblegums–with their “pumping dance beat and simple but catchy chorus hooks and instrumental riffs” (ibid). The teenage aesthetics were later taken by the fanzine Punk that not only propagated punk music, including

“any & roll“ (Heylin 242) but also completed the pastiche of the teenager myth by parodying magazines for teenagers (Sabin 162).

Paraphrasing the opinion of Heylin, Bill Osgerby claims in his chapter on the

American punk that there were three waves of punk in America: the first wave includes

8 the MC5, the Stooges, and ; the Ramones belong to the second one together with artists like the Television, the Blondie and ; examples of the third wave are the (ibid 155), the , the Hearbreakers, the

Voidoids, and . It can be said that the second wave was the peak. The members of the first wave bands later participated in the second wave as solo artists

(Heylin 241). An example of this is the university graduate of the Velvet

Underground (ibid 4). The third wave, then, includes bands that were either inspired by the second one (the Dead Boys and the Talking Heads), formed by former members of influential groups like the New York Dolls and the Television ( and the

Voidoids respectively), or bands that originally predated the second wave but bloomed only after punk started to thrive in CBGB. An example of the last category is the

Dictators (ibid xii).

Although the first wave is often called proto-punk because these groups were not called punk then and differ considerably from it, it is convenient to include them under the umbrella of punk as the representatives of the wave were later important participants in the punk scene. These bands also share many features with punk rock proper. They were all underground because, although highly influential, they had limited commercial success (ibid). This was, most likely, caused by their raw sound. In consequence, towards the ends of their careers they tried to commercialize their sound in spite of their former unwillingness to compromise. All of them also built their image and following on extraordinary live performances often requiring the participation of the audience, and they shared the tendency to improvise or virtually rehearse on stage. , the singer of the Stooges, greatly influenced the punk subculture with his wild stage acrobatics as well. The guitar sound of these bands was also more or less characterized

9 by heavy delay and distortion in different stages of their development. On the other hand, the Velvet Underground with its art-rock was far from the notion of punk, and both the MC5 and the Stooges combined their raw rock and roll with free resulting in a tendency to indulgence. All these bands also disintegrated prior to punk's emergence (ibid 3-42).

Closer to the notion of punk were the glam rockers New York Dolls. This group of “teenage hedonists,” “college drop-out[s],” and “bombed-out suburbanities” shared their influences with punk and, “intend[ing] to play high-energy, sluttish Manhattan

Rock'n'Roll,” introduced a sound “so awful that it crashed through into the other side, into magnificence” (Savage 59-62). Their career also overlaps with the birth of punk as they disbanded in the consequence of the emergence of a new strong generation of musicians in CBGB on the , New York (ibid 88).

CBGB OMFUG (usually shortened to CBGB) was a bar owned by , where the future punk groups learned in public by playing there every week (ibid 90). In those days, it was, most likely, the only place where a young band could play their own music. McNeil shares his memories of that time: “You didn't go to a bar and see an original band … You went to a stadium to see some big band. And when you went to a bar, they'd play cover tunes” (End of the Century).

The first group to play this venue, formerly not designed to be a punk rock club– as CBGB stands for “Country, Blue Grass and ” (Heyilin xi)–was the Television.

Richard Hell, the band's bass guitarist, said they were inspired by “the self-conscious, twisted aestheticism of the French 19th century,” and with the singer-guitarist Tom

Verlaine, they were former students of a boarding school who wanted to overthrow rock stars with the aid of their “trebly songs of teenage rejection with guitars clanging like

10 a fire engine.” Considering their visual representation, they combined the '50s beat generation with the French poète maudit and the British mods. This style bore the connotations of “danger, … refusal, … sexuality and violence” and “was the origin of what would become the Punk style” (Savage 88-89).

At first, CBGB had only few attenders and majority of them played in some of the bands performing there but, by the summer of 1975, the club became “crowded”

(End of the Century). On the other hand, the musicians still struggled to draw the attention of the music industry, even though, along with bands like the Television, there played more pop-oriented groups like the Blondie. But even these bands, in spite of their orientation, did not meet the expectations of the mainstream. Only the singer-poetess Patti Smith was already drawing attention of the established music industry (Savage 90-91). McNeil suggests that while in England the popularity of punk was growing fast, in America “nothing['d] changed,” and , the first manager of the Ramones, goes even further, claiming that the American punks were hurt by the negative image of their British counterparts. Although they were not decent either, they did not like the negative image of the Sex Pistols. The media also devoted their attention to the outrageous British instead of the American scene (End of the

Century).

2. 2. We Are the Ramones, and You've Heard It First3

The Ramones were a part of the second wave of the '70s punk in America and regular performers in CBGB. They all lived in Forest Hills, a neighborhood in ,

New York, and remember that they belonged to a group of “outcasts” who befriended

3 A phrase used by to introduce their concerts (“The Ramones - Full Concert (Live at U.S Festival 1982)”).

11 each other thanks to a common taste for music. They liked the Stooges, the MC5, Alice

Cooper, and glam bands like the New York Dolls, who inspired them to form a band.

The band was formed by Douglas Colvin and John Cummings (ibid).

Cummings was born in 1948 as the only son of a mechanical constructor. He loved baseball from childhood but decided to start playing the guitar because he wanted long hair (True 11). As a teenager he was a delinquent but claims to have “grew out of that stuff … by the time [he] was twenty,” and he was very disciplined for the rest of his life (End of the Century). His interest in music was kindled by , but he also liked . At high school, he played the bass guitar in a band with the future

Ramones' drummer Tommy Erdelyi. On the other hand, he was disenchanted with his own poor ability to play until he heard the New York Dolls (True 12-13).

Colvin, a son of a soldier, was born in 1952 in Virginia but grew up in West

Germany because his mother was German. During that time, his parents divorced and he experimented with drugs. When he was twelve, he became a big fan of the Beatles and other British groups. Gloria Nicholl, the future regional PR for , remembers that they used to listen to the '60s surf and garage rock together when he came back to America. He knew the Californian surf culture from his own experience as he claims to have spent some time there. Colvin was also a fan of the bubblegum groups like the Bay City Rollers. He was interested in war history as well

(ibid 15-17).

Colvin and Cummings were advised by Erdelyi, who was born in 1949 in

Budapest, Hungary, and came to America when he was around six. He says he had

“a regular childhood” spending some time in the country. He was a music enthusiast from an early age and a fan of the Beatles, too. At first, he played the guitar, and, after

12 school, he became a recording engineer, working even for stars like Jimi Hendrix. He claims he introduced Cummings to the music of the Stooges (ibid 18-19). It was him who persuaded Colvin and Cummings to accept Jeffrey Hyman to their band (End of the Century).

Hyman was born in 1951 to “a reasonably well-off [but dysfunctional] Jewish family” living in Forest Hills. His father owned a trucking company, and his mother owned a gallery (True 7). She admits her son was “a slow student,” and he suffered from an obsessive-compulsive disorder (End of the Century). As a child, Hyman started playing the drums. His drumming idol was Keith Moon of . He was from a musical family and shared his interest with his younger brother Mickey Leigh. Both were supported by their mother who later said, “Forest Hills is a very conservative, conventional place. I think we were the black-sheep household of our street” (True 7).

Hyman was “a rock and roll fanatic” (End of the Century), and he claimed it was his

“salvation.” As the rest of the Ramones, he was a big fan of the Beatles, but he also loved the Rolling Stones and among others. Although having problems at school, he was interested in English and the English culture. As a teenager, he experimented with drugs, too. Around the time he met other Ramones, he sang with a glam band called Sniper (True 8-10).

At first, Colvin was the singer and the bass guitarist, Cummings was the guitarist, and Hyman was the drummer, but, after some time, the band's lineup changed because Colvin was not able to play and sing at the same time. Erdelyi convinced them to make Hyman a singer, and he himself became the band's drummer. To create “a sense of unity,” they all adopted the surname Ramone (End of the Century), inspired by the used by Paul McCartney (True 15), and their band became the Ramones.

13 From that point, Hyman was Joey Ramone, Colvin was , Cummings was Johnny Ramone, and Erdelyi–Tommy Ramone.

In the summer of 1974, the Ramones started playing in CBGB. They played very fast and short songs, making almost no pauses between them, and they were so intense and serious that the witnesses claim they were even funny (“Blank Generation”).

Their early shows often turned into chaos as they were virtually rehearsing on stage.

McNeil remembers:

[T]hey counted off the song, and they started playing different songs … And it was just

this wall of noise. And they threw down their guitars in disgust and walked off the stage

… This was something completely new, and the noise of it … just hit you. And then two

minutes later, they came back, and Dee Dee counted off: one, two, three, four, and they

went into . (End of the Century)

This makes a stark contrast with the visual representation of the band, “wryly

[echoing] the twee uniforms favoured by the Beatles [and] the Beach Boys” (Sabin

163-164). They were all dressed in the “uniform” of black leather motorcycle jackets and ragged blue jeans. Chris Stein of the Blondie claims the Ramones looked very organized in consequence (End of the Century). They were a band of contradiction altogether. In the documentary Seven Ages of Rock, Johnny claims there was no

“conscious effort” to play punk as they wanted to play at first. Their sound definitely shared the simplicity and the catchiness with the bubblegum groups, but, otherwise, their sound was a crude, barre chord (“Blank

Generation”).

On the top of that, their lyrics were affected by their common sense of dark humor. In consequence, the lyrics often dealt with “cheap drugs, delinquency, side-show freaks and lurid horror comics” (Sabin 164). Johnny clarifies it in the documentary

14 series Rock Family Trees, “We wanted to write songs about cars and girls – but none of us had a car and no girls wanted to go out with us. So we wrote about freaks and mental illness instead” (qtd in Sabin 164). The Ramones also often dealt with their experiences from the streets of New York or Dee Dee's life in Germany, but they always added a great deal of fantasy into it (End of the Century). This created what Osgerby calls

“a playfully ironic pastiche of suburban adolescence” (Sabin 156). They often took an established subject matter of the mainstream music and adjusted it to fit their sense of humor. Joey, for example, claims, “ʻI Don't Wanna Walk Around with Youʼ is a love song. Dee Dee wrote it about his girlfriend at the time” (End of the Century).

In 1976, the Ramones recorded their eponymous debut album. Tommy Ramone remembers it was done quickly which suited their way of working because they were impatient (“Blank Generation”). The Ramones album was released by Sire Records, but it did not sell as well as the band hoped. It was a general problem of the young New

York artists at that time, but, in contrast to others, the Ramones never managed to become commercially viable (End of the Century).

In CBGB, Kristal told them, “Nobody's gonna like you guys, but I'll have you back” (ibid). On the other hand, , the drummer of the Blondie, who later played two concerts with the Ramones as Elvis Ramone (True 223), says their chaotic but enthusiastic shows were “pretty endearing.” This contrast characterizes their whole career. While they gained a fervent following, they were never fully appreciated by the mainstream music industry, although they tried to be accepted by it. In following years they worked with different producers, trying to move their sound towards pop but never achieved commercial success, and they returned to their original sound in the second half of their career (End of the Century).

15 The members of the Ramones had different approaches to life and contrasting political views. As a consequence of their different personalities and “power struggle,” the band experienced four changes in the lineup. In 1978, Tommy left the band and was replaced by , who also later left the band and was replaced by Richie

Ramone for four years, but then, he returned. In 1989, Dee Dee left the band, too, and

C. J. Ramone became the band's bass player until the end. On the other hand, the mentioned “sense of unity” was so strong that both Tommy and Dee Dee remained involved in the band after their departures. Tommy remained as the band's adviser and, later, a producer, and Dee Dee kept writing songs for them, being an author of a great proportion of the new material (ibid).

The Ramones disbanded in 1996, managing to release fourteen studio recordings, and inspiring many young musicians (ibid). Joey died of a in 2001.

In 2002, two months after the band's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,

Dee Dee died of a heroin overdose (ibid). Johnny died in 2004 (Devenish), and Tommy, the last original member living, died in 2014 (Coleman). Both died of a cancer. A street in New York was named after Joey (End of the Century).

16 3. Anarchy in the UK

3. 1. The '70s Punk in Great Britain

In the 1970s, Great Britain was going through a recession, a collapse of credit boom (Savage 77), strikes, a political crisis, the IRA bombings, and a fascist revival which resulted in an apocalyptic tone in the public discourse. On the other hand, the popular music of that time reflected the desperate situation only partly (Laing 29-30).

As , the author of a praised book on the British punk, considering the late

'60s , claims, “the Bohemian, if not revolutionary attitudes of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones … were bankrolled by multi-national corporations” (35). The role of recording companies and the hard situation of young artists is already discussed in the first chapter. In spite of that, a new genre called pub rock emerged around 1972

(Laing 7).

Upholders of pub rock were not content with the direction rock was going at that time. They were against the loss of the importance of singing and lyrics and against the alienation of performers from their audience. Taking inspiration from the American

'50s rock and roll and and the British '60s groups like the Beatles or the Rolling Stones, they wanted to return to the roots of rock, to its “basic simplicity.”

As the name of the genre suggests, they performed in small places, claiming these pubs had “a bit of magic in the air.” Pub rock shared its values with punk rock, but it lacked punk's dynamism (ibid 7-8).

For the future punk subculture, the biggest merit of pub rock lays in the fact that it opened independent space for performing and recording (ibid 9). In Britain, independent labels virtually did not exist prior to pub rock. There were some

17 independently owned labels before, but their owners were people already established in the music industry (ibid 16). Pub rock introduced the practice of independent recording, and its labels later released records by the early punk groups like the Damned

(ibid 9-11).

The connection with the more distant past (and with the contemporary American scene) was personified by the Sex Pistols' manager Malcolm McLaren. Since 1971, he owned a shop with clothes and records on 430 King's Road, London (Savage 8), where future punks would meet (ibid 78). The boutique's assortment was changing frequently together with McLaren's taste. It started as a '50s rock and roll shop, and the main clientage were the members of a subculture called the teddy boys. The teddy boys were predominantly working class devotees of rock and roll who manifested themselves mainly by their outfits of “drape[s] with black velvet trim[s], … waistcoat[s] and slim-jim tie[s], … drainies, … crêpes and … striped nylon socks” (ibid 45-49).

After seeing the MC5 in 1872, McLaren started to part his way with the teddy boys. The assortment of his shop changed, introducing a “strong biker element”–leather jackets and studs. Although the new assortment remained connected with rock and roll, the teddy boys “had proved themselves to be ideologically unsound and had to be excluded.” The new milieu centered around the shop included Jews, Americans, blacks, and intellectuals (ibid 50-54). Nevertheless, as Savage writes, McLaren himself was not always open-minded and did not pay much attention to what would become punk at that time:

As far as [he] could see from the musicians who came into the shop – ,

Marianne Faithfull, – there was little that was genuinely new in a pop culture

that was, after all, miming the same vein of nostalgia. If there were harbingers of a new

age, or even musicians who harked back to pop's first intensity, then neither McLaren

18 nor the culture at large noticed them. When Iggy Pop and James Williamson, in the

middle of recording Raw Power, visited 430, McLaren disdained them as untidy

hippies.” (55)

In 1973, McLaren, however, visited America and met the New York Dolls (ibid

57-59). Upon his return to London, he changed the assortment of his shop, now called

Sex, once again. Sex started to sell fetish inspired street clothes covered in slogans taken from various activists, thinkers, and writers, including Valerie Solanas4 or Jean-Jacques

Rousseau (ibid 66-67). This is connected with the fact that McLaren belonged to a “circle of drop-outs, art students and intellectuals” (Laing 126) and was involved in political activism in his school days (Savage 34).

In Britain, punk formed relatively quickly between 1976 and 1977. It was, of course, a result of the tendencies mentioned above, but the future participants of the subculture did not know each other until around 1976 (ibid 3). In 1974, McLaren went to New York again, and witnessed the thriving culture in CBGB (ibid 83-88). With that impression, he steered the future Sex Pistols towards punk rock (ibid 92), and, in the summer of 1976, they caused an “explosion of creativity” in London and elsewhere.

Punk was becoming well-know. People were coming to the concerts in bigger and bigger numbers, sporting clothes they made themselves (“Blank Generation”).

The Sex Pistols' concerts involved violence that would intensify the experience of it. Savage claims it was a life-changing experience to see the Sex Pistols' concert, and they really inspired many people to form a group. According to Mick Jones, the Clash's guitarist, Strummer decided to form a punk rock band after the Sex Pistols performed as a support of his former pub rock group, and their chaotic show overshadowed his own performance (ibid). Another important impulse gave the Ramones by playing a sold out

4 The feminist who attempted to murder Warhol in 1968 (Savage 34)

19 concert in London in July 1976. Captain Sensible, the bass guitarist of the Damned, remembers:

Everyone … who was gonna be in one of the UK punk bands was there .

I think, there must have been sixty people in the audience, which is … nobody, but

everyone formed a band. They kickstarted the thing in a big way. , the

Pistols, and the Clash, the Damned. (End of the Century)

The participants of the punk subculture also brought with them their own influences. These included, apart from the general punk influences discussed in the first chapter, the Small Faces or the '60s teenage rock band Who. The sound of these artists was generally “heavily rhythmic and richly chorded, guitar based with assertive vocals presented . . . with a white rock intonation.” It is necessary to mention that this sound was not very far from a part of the mainstream music of that time, represented, for example, by (Laing 22). Besides, other contemporary bands, including the

T. Rex, a group hated by the Sex Pistols (), produced records with re-emphasized rhythm and guitar. What differentiated the punk groups from the mainstream artists was an “extremism of attitude.” Another figure of key importance was , who tried to unite “frivolous pop” with “serious rock,” and introduced a vocal accent that “had not been imported from America” (Laing 22-26).

The “artificial, trebly shriek” used on his album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars also “deliberately alienated the older hippie audience”

(Savage 76). Considering stage behavior, Alice Cooper was the biggest influence

(Laing 23).

The British punk bands represented “a deliberately anti-intellectual stance, refuting any awareness of, or influence from, previous exponents of [rock and roll]”

(Heylin xiii). Although there was a great degree of divergence in the strategy used, in

20 Britain, punk lyrics were often “designed to satirize figures of authority and raise the spirits of those struggling against the system” (Laing 29-31). The Clash made punk even

“a kind of protest music”. The writer Viv Goldman points to the fact that, while “Johnny

Rotten had a rage against the system, Joe Strummer had a more evolved, more finely tuned sort of political awareness” (“Blank Generation”). The british punk rockers were also ironical, sarcastic and outrageous (Laing 110). Aiming to shock the audience by the song lyrics, they introduced “pornography” and “obscenity,” excluded not only from the popular music but also from the public discourse as a whole (ibid 75-76).

From the point of view of visual representation, they were inspired by

McLaren's shop, usually wearing ragged versions of the shop's assortment from different stages of its development. The clothes were important because, in England's

“highly static society, with a strongly defined ruling class and a narrow definition of acceptable,” clothes can be very politicized, even “act of class warfare” (Savage 10-12).

In Britain, punk caused a great commotion, and protests against it took place

(The Filth and the Fury). However, by 1978, many British punk bands were accepted by the mainstream music industry (Laing 32). The Sex Pistols were one of the exceptions as their music was “designed to be dissonant with” the norms of mainstream music too much (ibid 39).

3. 2. Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols

The Sex Pistols were formed by and with the help of

Malcolm McLaren. Jones was born in 1955 in Shepherd's Bush, London (Savage 71).

He was from a broken home and, in his own words, “didn't feel wanted as a child,” living in a basement apartment with his mother and his stepfather (The Filth and the

Fury). Despite his “considerable quick-wittedness” Jones was a problem child

21 (Savage 71) and never paid attention in school (The Filth and the Fury). He was a hyperactive kleptomaniac obsessed with sex and a football hooligan (Savage 72).

Paul Cook grew up in the same working class area as Jones. “Jones was headstrong and fearless, but Paul Cook represented a bedrock.” His father was a carpenter and a joiner. Their family was stable, and he himself was “hard-working,

ʻquiet and conscientiousʼ” until eleven when he met Jones at school. They both listened to reggae at that time, and around the age of fifteen, they moved in together. At school, they also met Warwick Nightingale who convinced them to start a band. With Jones being an experienced thief, they obtained their equipment through robbery.

Interestingly, their victims were the same as their idols, including Rod Steward, the

Rolling Stones, and David Bowie. (ibid 72-75)

Around 1974, Jones and Cook's favorite bands were a mixture of “lads' Rock” with glam:

Despite the fact that the Sex Pistols were later presented as a radical break with all of

pop's past, Glam's cadences are always lurking in the rhythm section of guitar and

drums, whether in Jones' stolen Mud riffs or Cook walloping his kit like his hero, Paul

Thompson of . (ibid 77)

Jones also admitted he was influenced by the New York Dolls' guitarist Johnny

Thunders very much, imitating his stage moves (The Filth and the Fury).

Jones used to spend time in McLaren's boutique. He claims he would steal clothes there. However, he became friends with McLaren, who had contacts in the music industry (ibid), and he managed to persuade him to arrange a rehearsal room for the band after some time (Savage 78). “[Pop's] history is full of interactions between middle class … entrepreneurs and working-class, male performers.” The performer “can often act out what the manager himself is unable to do, because of either age or

22 inhibition.” Being obsessed with “the myth of the working-class, barely articulate Rock star,” McLaren was aware of that (ibid 71), and he was interested in the future Sex

Pistols on the condition that they dispose of Nightingale, and Jones plays guitar instead of singing (The Filth and the Fury). For the post of a bass guitarist, he recommended

Glen Matlock, who worked in his shop.

Matlock was born in 1956, and, while he was from a working class area like the others, Savage claims he “might have come from a different world.” He was a dutiful student of a secondary grammar school and “got on well with his parents.” Another difference between him and the rest of the band was that he had “some musical expertise” (Savage 79) and was more pop-oriented as he liked the Beatles (The Filth and the Fury) and the Bay City Rollers (Savage 110). This made him the band's outsider.

After McLaren went to America for the second time and discovered punk rock, he presented the band with the Television as their model (“Blank Generation”). He also came with a name for the band as he claims in The Filth and the Fury: “[T]he idea of the name Sex Pistols was sexy young assassins. meaning a gun, and, then, pistol meaning a kind of penis.” In 1975, they recruited Johnny Rotten as the band's singer, and the Sex Pistols were complete.

Johnny Rotten (born John Lydon) was born in 1956. His parents were Irish immigrants. The family was poor and moved from place to place (Savage 115-116).

Around the age of seven, he contracted meningitis and was in a coma for a year. Apart from that, he had problems in school because of “question[ing] everything” and having long hair (The Filth and the Fury). He also claims his relationship with the rest of the family was bad. In 1972, he came to see the Stooges in London and was pleased by

23 them (Savage 115-116). As an audition for the Sex Pistols he mimed to “Eighteen” by

Alice Cooper, who he also liked. Jones claims that Rotten was “more of an intellectual” in comparison to him and Cook. Around the time he joined the band, Rotten would dress into “trash” as a response to the “garbage strike” that took place then because he hated the “escapism” of the post-hippie mainstream culture (The Filth and the Fury).

Even though they all claim they could not play at that time (ibid), they started rehearsing together, and, in 1976, they performed their first chaotic concerts, slowly attracting larger and larger audience. Their first concert took place at an art school because Matlock was interested in art at that time. On the other hand, the band complained about the art students in the audience (ibid). As it was already mentioned, their shows were aggressive and involved violence.

From the lyrical point of view, the songs often dealt with the British society.

Rotten would say, “Don't accept the old order. Get rid of it.” On the other hand, it was already suggested that they were not interested in politics. The lyrics also involved sarcasm which Rotten claims is typical for the English (ibid). They took the nihilistic idea of the Television's “Blank Generation” and transferred it into the British settings.

Musically, they were, surprisingly, also influenced by as Matlock remembers he took inspiration from the ABBA (“Blank Generation”). The rest of the band would deny it though, and, when interviewed, Rotten claims, “I don't have any heroes. They're all useless. There is no bands around, is there? None. None that are accessible” (The

Filth and the Fury).

In 1976, the representatives of the music industry started to go to the Sex Pistols' concerts. The band signed a contract with EMI, and was invited to a television show with the host , who provoked them into swearing, causing a scandal. After

24 this affair, the recording contract was cancelled, and they were constantly followed by journalists (ibid). About two thirds of their tour with the Clash were cancelled, too

(“Blank Generation”). Apart from growing problems with concert venues, there was a growing antipathy between Rotten and Matlock. Matlock accused Rotten for being too outrageous, and Rotten, in his turn, accused Matlock for being too decent (The Filth and the Fury). Consequently, Matlock was replaced by Rotten's friend Sid Vicious.

Many claim that this was the creative end of the band. The writer and publicist Charles

Shaar Murray puts it:

Sid was the perfect cartoon punk in terms of standing there in his leather jacket, pulling

comic aggro faces in photographs. After they got rid of Glen, they had some great

photos taken, but they never again wrote a decent song. (“Blank Generation”)

On the top of that, Nick Kent, formerly of New Musical Express, highlights the fact that Sid was on drugs and very aggressive (The Filth and the Fury).

The Sex Pistols signed a contract with A&M, but it was cancelled the next day.

In spite of that, the band managed to secure a record deal with Virgin Records, recording a single called for the occasion of queen's jubilee.

Although it was commercially successful, the media refused to include it in the charts, and the concert problems were still growing, generating an antipathy between the band and McLaren. Although struggling with Vicious's inaptitude, they also managed to record their debut album Never Mind the Bollocks Here's the Sex Pistols in 1977 (ibid).

Because of the problems in England, the Sex Pistols went to America in 1978, but, in consequence of their negative publicity, the concerts there usually turned into chaos, with the audience often attacking them. Vicious's drug problem worsened and with it the relationships in the band. Considering this, Jones claims, “Well, he wasn't even playing at the end. You know, he could barely play anyway. Half the time, he

25 wasn't even plugged in.” It all resulted in a concert in San Francisco after which the band virtually disbanded. Rotten left the band, and the Sex Pistols gradually ceased to exist. Sid Vicious died of a drug overdose in February 1979 (ibid). Years later, the Sex

Pistols reunited with Matlock on bass guitar for few concerts. When inducted to the

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006, they called it “a piss stain” and refused to come to the ceremony (Sprague).

Discussing the Sex Pistols, the role of Malcolm McLaren is very important.

Opinions about his involvement vary greatly, and it is hard to say what came from the band itself and what was McLaren's idea. Savage suggests McLaren saw himself as “the creator, the thinker” (Savage 24), and Ted Caroll, another rock and roll shop owner from

London, claims that he “was an opportunist and always keen to make a buck” (ibid 49).

Besides, McLaren himself sometimes admitted that his aim was profit (for example, in a letter qtd in Savage 39). He learned much about trade and subcultures during the years he owned the shop on 430 King's Road (ibid 69), and he claims he created the Sex

Pistols by manipulation. On the other hand, it was Jones's idea to have McLaren as a manager, and Rotten argues McLaren was only stealing their ideas (The Filth and the

Fury).

26 4. The Differences between the American and the British

Punk Scenes

It is beyond doubt that there were differences between the first waves of punk in

America and in Britain. The punk subculture originated in America and was imported to

Britain, so the British punks were inevitably influenced by their older American counterparts. Nevertheless, they created their own scene with its distinct features.

The distinctiveness is, undoubtedly, rooted in the British nature and society.

When McLaren came to America he was astonished by it. Savage claims that to

Malcolm, New York “seemed boundless, unfolding a series of freedoms – from class, from stasis, from puritanism – that seemed a distant dream in England” (62). The british punk rockers transferred the American model to the British settings that they were familiar with.

The biggest difference can be seen in the song lyrics. While the American musicians dealt with a wide range of topics, the main subject matter for the British bands was society and its criticism. It is also important to mention that they mainly dealt with the British society. Considerable difference were also in the approach to the subject-matter. Whereas the feeling of American punk lyrics may be gloomy but at the same time usually playful and colored by parody, the British songs were serious, politicized, and often sarcastic. Their obvious aim was to persuade and change the listener. Sabin claims that “the ʻqualityʼ of the experience in America” proper was

“much less politicized” and adds that “the New York bands, in contrast to their British counterparts, generally dealt in outrage for art's sake” (Sabin 3).

The contrast between the position of art in the British punk scene and its position

27 in the American one is also important. The British were much less intellectual, which is, indeed, connected with their social background. While the New York scene was replete with university graduates, students (often students of art schools), and former students, the London punks were often of working class origins, and, easily, the only educated people were the theorists like McLaren. Rotten struggled with the first lyrics for the Sex

Pistols (The Filth and the Fury). On the contrary, Patti Smith and the members of the

Television were not only musicians but also poets. In London, the influence of the educated theorists manifested itself mainly in the clothes sported by punk rockers as they were designed by McLaren and his partner Vivienne Westwood. The clothes were commonly more extravagant than those wore by the Americans, and, being covered in revolutionary phrases, more politicized. In America, clothes were, probably, much less significant as it is claimed by Sylvain Sylvain of the New York Dolls: “[I]n America nobody gives a shit about clothing, but in Europe, somebody will go ʻWhat the fuck are you doing with those crazy pantsʼ. That might get you to be cool” (Savage 59).

It shows that the British punk rockers were both more extreme in their music and more radical in their view of the world. They were also more radical in their view of the history of music. Whereas the Americans were devotees of many past musicians, the

British, at least in the first years, disclaimed all influences. One of the manifestations of the American approach is the American fanzines praising past musicians with punk attitude. The American punks had the sense of continuing the legacy of rock and roll, and they also had more precedents of independent music to follow. On the contrary, the

British denied any continuity, even if it was there. The Americans were also more concerned with becoming mainstream.

On one hand, the extremism of the British punk scene was, probably, the reason

28 why the scene developed much faster and drew much more attention than the American one. On the other hand, it was, most likely, also the reason why it disintegrated earlier. It also caused an antagonism between these the two scenes in the end. These days, for example, Hell despises the British punk for getting more attention even though, in 1974, when there was already “thriving culture” in CBGB, punk have not emerged in England yet (ibid 90).

4. 1. The Differences between the Ramones and the Sex Pistols

When comparing the Ramones and the Sex Pistols, a clear difference between them can be seen already in the choice of the name. While the Sex Pistols is a shocking name, the Ramones is not shocking at all. Moreover, it relates the band to the mainstream music of the past as it is inspired by the Beatles and it reminds listeners of popular family groups like the Jackson Five.

The Ramones started about a year earlier than the Sex Pistols. Even then, they were older at the time they started. While the Sex Pistols were nineteen on average at the time the band formed, the Ramones were twenty-four. The Ramones, with the exception of Dee Dee, had some experience with music and performing, too, and

Tommy even worked in the music industry. On the top of that, before they even started, they already had friends who would work in record companies. On the contrary, the Sex

Pistols started from nothing.

Considering the social background, the Ramones were from more or less dysfunctional families. Nevertheless, for example, Joey was supported by his mother, and Tommy remembers his “regular childhood” of spending time on playgrounds and in the country (True 18). They had a middle class background, with Joey's parent being even wealthy. They would cause trouble when they were young, even experimenting

29 with drugs, but, by the time they formed the Ramones, only Dee Dee was making problems worth mentioning. On the contrary, the Sex Pistols, coming from poor, working class areas, were outrageous all of their career, with the exception of Matlock, who was, reportedly, dismissed for “always washing himself” (The Filth and the Fury).

With Vicious, the band's outrageousness even came to the point of being dangerous.

It was Matlock who shared his favorite bands from the ranks of pop music with the Ramones, and again, his liking of the Beatles and other popular groups is another reason mentioned to be behind his dismissal. The Ramones were dissatisfied with the rock music's status quo as well but still confessed a wide range of favorite music. An important issue is the bands' relationship towards the hippie subculture. Both McLaren and the Sex Pistols hated hippies. Rotten would complain about their later escapism, and when he saw the Patti Smith Group in 1976, he publicly defamed them for being

“hippies” (“Blank Generation”). Even McLaren, the British “discoverer” of punk, was misled by the image of the Stooges before he came to New York and witnessed the scene around CBGB. Conversely, the Ramones even recorded cover of ' song

“Take It As It Comes” (True 275). McLaren also criticized the hippie subculture for their “false” claims “to have changed the world” (Savage 9). This introduces another difference: while the Sex Pistols, with their songs of social criticism, wanted to change the world, the Ramones as a band would be content with changing the direction of rock music.

The Ramones would not agree on the form of changing the world anyway as not only the Sex Pistols were calling “each other cunts” (The Filth and the Fury). It was already mentioned that the Ramones were famous for their arguments, and, towards the end of their career, the tension in the band was unbelievable (End of the Century).

30 Surprisingly, their career still lasted twenty-two years, making a stark contrast with the three years of the Sex Pistols' career. It confirms once again that the latter were wilder.

31 5. The Analysis of the Ramones and the Sex Pistols' Song

Lyrics

While it is, undoubtedly, the result of all the differences mentioned above, easily, the biggest difference between the Ramones and the Sex Pistols lays in their song lyrics.

5. 1. A Corpus Analysis

When listening to the lyrics of the Ramones and the Sex Pistols' debut albums, it can be observed that both bands utter similar amount of words. The Ramones utter

2,255 words, and the Sex Pistols, whose album is ten minutes longer–2,578 words.

Further examination of the two corpora reveals that while the Sex Pistols utilize

520 different words, the Ramones use only 268 different words. This disproportion is caused by the fact that the Ramones, in contrast to the Sex Pistols, usually repeat one or two stanzas several times in a song. On the assumption that repetition is typical for punk artists, the outcome of this observation is that the Sex Pistols tend to repeat single key words rather than whole stanzas.

When exploring fifteen most frequently used words that can serve as lexical words, it shows that the Ramones often use verbs like wanna and let, interjections like oh and yeah, and the noun baby. This makes obvious link between them and the '50s rock and roll songs like “Tutti Frutti” by or “Baby, Let's Play House” by

Elvis Presley. This also links them to the '70s popular music including “I Only Wanna

Be with You” by the Bay City Rollers. On the contrary, the Sex Pistols' lyrics make no such link, being dominated by nouns like problem, future, reason, animal or wall. These nouns definitely suggest social criticism, whereas the fifteen words that the Ramones use most often suggest the topics of love and entertainment.

32 Table 1

The Most Frequently Used Words in the Lyrics of the Ramones and the Sex Pistols and Their Number of

Occurence

Ramones Sex Pistols 1. wanna 62 problem 51 2. oh 49 pretty 27 3. baby 36 all 24 4. yeah 31 lie 21 5. let 31 future 20 6. well 30 reason 20 7. around 25 animal 19 8. hey 25 wall 19 9 walk 24 wanna 19 10. there 24 know 18 11. go 24 down 18 12. dance 23 EMI 17 13. time 20 now 17 14. next 20 there 15 15. beat 18 cause 14

As it was mentioned that punk introduced obscenity into lyrics, the corpus analysis reveals an interesting fact about the lyrics of the Ramones–they include only three derogatory words and no vulgar ones. The derogatory words are brat, runt, and punk. On the top of that, it is not clear whether punk is used in a derogatory sense or to describe a member of the punk subculture. On the other hand, Holmstrom, speaking about his fanzine, reveals that the word punk was “controversial” or even “dirty” at the time (Heylin 242). It is necessary to mention that the word brat is used sixteen times.

However, it is not so strong, and the Sex Pistols' lyrics, on the contrary, include sixteen instances of vulgar words plus four instances of offensive and derogatory words. For all the vulgar, offensive, and derogatory words used by the Sex Pistols see a table below.

33 Table 2

The Vulgar, Offensive, and Derogatory Words Used in the Lyrics of the Sex Pistols and Their Numbers of

Occurence

Vulgar Offensive Derogatory 1. sod 5 faggot 2 tart 1 2. fuck 4 brat 1 3. shit 2 4. fucking 2 5. bullshit 1 6. pissed 1 7. piss 1 Total 16 2 2

5. 2. A Subject Matter Analysis

The corpus analysis gives condensed and clear data, but it has its shortcomings.

Laing, who presents an analysis of the British punk bands' lyrics in comparison with the lyrics of the British bestselling singles of 1976 in his book, argues that “[a]ttention to individual words as an indicator of difference in song lyrics can, however, be misleading, since the centre of meaning of the word is dependant on its context” (73).

On the top of that, it is already mentioned in the previous chapters that the '70s punk song-writers tend to “twist” meanings and deal with topics in their own special way.

Because of that, a subject matter analysis is presented in this part. It is based on Laing's analysis, using the categories used by him–romantic and sexual relationships, sexuality, the first person feelings, social and political comments, the second and the third person, music and dancing, novelties, and instrumentals. On the other hand, his analysis does not take into account different approaches towards the topics. Thus “No Feelings” is labelled “the first person feelings” in his analysis, on the contrary, here, it is considered a love song because it deals with an egoistical love to oneself (27-28). However, as

34 Laing himself suggests, there is “no ʻcorrectʼ way” to hear punk lyrics. Broadcasting of some punk songs was even denied because the censors could not understand the sense of the lyrics (67). Besides, songs have often features of two or more categories, and the choice of the dominant category is sometimes subjective.

Laing also highlights that there are no novelties or instrumentals in the British

'70s punk (32). This is true for the Sex Pistols, on the other hand, all the punk songs were novel to some degree, and some of the Ramones' “playful” pastiches are more novelties than any other category. These are “Havana Affair” and “Today Your Love,

Tomorrow the World.” Both make fun of politics, but they are not straightforwardly critical. Still, the Ramones have no instrumentals either. Surprisingly enough, neither the Ramones, nor the Sex Pistols have any lyrics predominantly dealing with sexuality.

It was claimed that the Ramones openly took their inspiration from popular music and the conception of middle class teenage life. This opinion is supported by the fact that on their debut album they have four songs about romantic relationships which makes it the most significant category on the album. This also applies to the popular music of that time, in which this category is also the most significant (Laing 27). On the contrary, the Sex Pistols have only two love songs, thus it is one of the least significant categories for them. In contrast to the Sex Pistols, the Ramones also have two songs about music and dancing. This is another evidence for the assumption that their music deals with the joys of teenage life, and, in consequence, the Ramones utilized all of the three categories constituting the majority of popular songs–romantic and sexual relationships, music and dancing, and novelty (ibid 28).

Moreover, if the Ramones criticize someone, it is their peers as it is the case in

“Loudmouth” and “.” Whereas, the Sex Pistols have much wider range

35 of targets for critique, including the state (“God Save the Queen”) and the music industry (“EMI”). This shows the more politicized and socially critical nature of the

British punk rockers and differentiates them from the contemporary mainstream music.

On the contrary, the Ramones have no songs of social or political comment on their debut album as their playful approach to the lyrics offer little space for a serious reaction to the social or the political situation. They attack the status quo of the music industry they approach the subject matter and music. Whereas the Sex

Pistols undermine the status quo by their choice of the subject matter and words.

Table 3

The Songs by the Ramones and the Sex Pistols Sorted by the Subject Matter

Ramones Sex Pistols Romantic I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend No Feelings and sexual Chain Saw Submission relationships Listen to My Heart I Don't Wanna Walk Around with You The first Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue Holiday in the Sun person feelings I Don't Wanna Go Down to the Basement Seventeen Fifty-Third and Third Anarchy in the UK The second Beat On the Brat Liar and the third Problems person Loudmouth Social and X Bodies political God Save the Queen comment New York EMI Music Blitzkrieg Bop X and dancing Let's Dance Novelty Havana Affair X Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World

5. 2. 1. Romantic and Sexual Relationships

In a stark contrast to the Sex Pistols, the Ramones were enthusiastic about love songs, and there are four love songs on their debut–“I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend,”

36 “Chain Saw,” “Listen to My Heart,” and “I Don't Wanna Walk Around with You.” It is definitely caused by their influences from the ranks of pop music. Besides, Joey is said to be a romantic. McNeil, for example, claims, “Joey was very romantic, … hence all those love songs. And I think he really idealized love, … wanted to have this one girl … to hold hands with and live happily ever after” (End of the Century). On the other hand, as it is mentioned in the second chapter, they were outsiders. In combination with their dark sense of humor, it resulted in many of the love songs being twisted. This is the case with the tribute to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (True 15)–“Chain Saw.” While dealing with a girl being massacred with a chain saw, with the lines “Ooh, now I know

I'm so much in love / 'Cause she's the only girl that I'm ever thinking of,” it has a strong overtone of a twisted love song. “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend” and “Listen to My

Heart” are obviously typical songs dealing with romantic relationships, with the latter mourning an unfortunate love. On the other hand, “I Don't Wanna Walk Around with

You” is atypical, however, as it is already stated in the third chapter, Dee Dee wrote it as a love song for his girlfriend.

Surprisingly enough, even the Sex Pistols have two love songs. These are “No

Feelings” and “Submission.” “No Feelings” is less surprising as it is an egoistic praise with the lines:

You better understand

I'm in love with myself

Myself

My beautiful self

“Submission” is more interesting. Although, with its line “I'm on a submarine mission for you, baby,” it is not really a typical song about a romantic relationship, it explores one of the topics typical for love songs. However, it was written out of spite.

37 Because of the fetishistic assortment of his shop, McLaren wanted the band to write a song about sadomasochism and they wrote “a slow, almost mystical song to the unattainable woman” (Savage 128-129).

5. 2. 2. The First Person Feelings

The Ramones have two songs obviously dealing with the first person feelings as their main contents are the first person desires. These are “Now I Wanna Sniff Some

Glue” and “I Don't Wanna Go Down to the Basement.” Fifty-Third and Third” is also in this category because it deals with Dee Dee's “experience” from the streets of New

York. The song is about being hired as a male prostitute but killing the client. Although part of the song is, undoubtedly, a fantasy because Dee Dee was never prosecuted for murder, part of it may be true. Seymour Stein from Sire Records claims, “You could have been walking down on the corner of fifty-third and third, and really seen Dee Dee

Ramone, you know, hustling” (End of the Century).

The Sex Pistols' songs dealing with the first person feelings are “Holiday in the

Sun,” “Seventeen,” “Anarchy in the UK,” and “Pretty Vacant.” “Holiday in the Sun” may seem like social or political criticism, but it mainly deals with Rotten's impression of the mayhem of in the second half of the 1970s (Savage 409-413). Similarly,

“Anarchy in the UK” may deal with politics, but it presents Rotten's own feelings more than political criticism or any political doctrine:

How many ways to get what you want

I use the best

I use the rest

I use the enemy

I use anarchy

38 Cause I

Wanna be

Anarchy

“Seventeen” and “Pretty Vacant” deal with the feelings of the “blank” generation. “Pretty Vacant” is even said to be the British version of the Television's song

(“Blank Generation”).

5. 2. 3. The Second and the Third Person

The boundary between the category of the second and the third person and the category of social comment is a blurred one. A social comment usually criticizes a general problem of society and points at an institution or a group of people. On the contrary, while the lyrics from the category of the second and the third person often criticize as well, the target is usually one person and the problem is limited to him. As examples of this category, Laing presents the Sex Pistols' songs “Liar” and “Problems.”

He says that “the topic is a person other than the vocalist, and not a lover,” and adds that

“in punk rock, these lyrics are finger-pointing exercises” (31-32).

The Ramones' songs that belong to this category are “Loudmouth,”Beat On the

Brat,” and “Judy Is a Punk.” “You're such a loudmouth baby / You better shut it up” is an obvious case. It's the “finger-pointing exercise,” criticizing one person, who is the topic of the song. In “Beat On the Brat,” the second person is the addressee, who gets advice on what to do with “a brat like that.” On the other hand, “Judy Is a Punk” is not criticism. The song is a story about two fans of the Ramones (True 60), thus it deals with the third person.

39 5. 2. 4. Social and Political Comment

Social and political comment is one of the main topics for the Sex Pistols.

“Bodies” is a very naturalistic song about abortion. It starts with “She was a girl from

Birmingham / She just had an abortion / She was a case of insanity,” and goes into an outrageous outburst of:

Die little baby screaming

Body

Screaming fucking bloody mess

Not an animal

It's an abortion

“God Save the Queen” in an open critique of the royalty from the beginning:

God save the queen

The fascist regime

It made you a moron

Potential H bomb

It also introduced one of the most famous catchphrases of the British punk–“No future.” “New York” and “EMI,” then, both criticize the music industry. The target of the first one are “hippie tarts hero[es]” and of the latter–major record companies. Both are rather social comment than songs of the second or the third person as they aim at a group of people and institutions respectively.

5. 2. 5. Music and Dancing

The Ramones have two songs about music and dancing–“Let's Dance” and

“Blitzkrieg Bop.” “Let's Dance” is a cover, but already its choice reveals the band's preferences. “Blitzkrieg Bop,” containing the rallying call of “Hey ho, let's go,” that

40 became the Ramones' most recognized catchphrase, conveys the atmosphere of a punk concert, with “bop” meaning dancing, and “blitzkrieg” highlighting the fast tempo of punk music:

They're forming in a straight line

They're going through a tight wind

The kids are losing their minds

The blitzkrieg bop

They're piling in the back seat

They're generating steam heat

Pulsating to the back beat

The blitzkrieg bop

Later, there is the line “Shoot 'em in the back now” that complicates this reading, but it was added later to reinforce the idea of blitzkrieg. The original line was “They're shouting in the back now,” arguing for the presented reading (ibid 59).

41 Conclusion

There were great differences between the representatives of the '70s punk subculture, and general tendencies differentiating the American and the British punk rock scenes can be observed as well. The genre of punk originated in America, but, in

Britain, it evolved into a distinctly British genre. This is the result of the differences between the American and the British societies. The differences manifested themselves in various forms and one of the most important are lyrics. While the Americans tend to write rather playful and parodical lyrics, the British favored politicized criticism and sarcasm. This is caused by various reasons including the social background, the age, and the education.

The American punk rockers were often of the middle class origins, older, and more educated. In consequence, they were subjected to a wider range of influences from which they drew their inspiration, deliberately continuing the legacy of rock and roll music. They wanted to change the status quo of the music industry from within. On the contrary, the British punks tended to be from working class areas, uneducated, and young, advised by older, middle class former students. In Britain, influences from the past were usually manifested in clothes but denied in music.

Because of the differences, the Ramones' lyrics tend to be a revised content of rock and roll and popular music with romantic relationships as the main subject matter.

Whereas the Sex Pistols preferred lyrics of the first person feelings or social and political comment. The British scene also tended to be more extreme and outrageous.

This can be demonstrated on the fact that, while the Ramones used only derogatory words, the Sex Pistols used not only derogatory words but also offensive ones as well as a wide range of vulgar words. In consequence of the extremism, the British scene

42 developed faster and received greater publicity. On the other hand, the Ramones' career lasted incomparably longer that the Sex Pistols'.

43 Bibliography

Books

Laing, Dave. One Chord Wonders: Power and Meaning in Punk Rock. Milton Keynes:

Open UP, 1985. Print.

True, Everett. Hey Ho Let's Go: The Story of the Ramones. Updated ed. London:

Omnibus Press, 2005. Print.

Sabin, Roger, ed. Punk Rock: So What? The Cultural Legacy of Punk. London:

Routledge, 1999. Print

Savage, Jon. England's Dreaming: Sex Pistols and Punk Rock. London: Faber and

Faber, 1991. Print.

Heylin, Clinton. From the Velvets to the Voidoids: The Birth of American Punk Rock.

Updated ed. Chicago: A Cappella Books. 2015. Print.

Documentaries and Videos

“Bay City Rollers - I Only Wanna Be with You - 16:9 ( Alta Calidad ) HD.” Largarife2.

Youtube, 4 Jan. 2015. Youtube. Web. 22 Apr. 2017.

watch?v=Y_k8HAxNoAY>

“Blank Generation.” Seven Ages of Rock. BBC, 2007. Web. 22 Mar. 2017.

End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones. Dir. Michael Gramaglia, Jim Fields.

Magnolia Pictures, 2004. Film.

The Filth and the Fury. Dir. Julian Temple. Film Four, 2000. Film.

44 “The Ramones - Full Concert (Live at U.S Festival 1982).” User666. Youtube,

28 Sept. 2016. Youtube. Web. 15 Apr. 2017.

watch?v=QQXr2qUZa-A>

Records

Little Richard. Rock ʻnʼ Roll Legends. Concord Records, 2008. CD.

Presley, Elvis. It's Now or Never. PolyGram, 1994. CD.

Ramones. Ramones. Sire Records, 1976. LP.

Sex Pistols. Never Mind the Bollocks Here's the Sex Pistols. Virgin Records, 1986. CD.

Articles

Coleman, Miriam. “Tommy Ramone Dead at 65.” . Rolling Stone,

12 July 2014. Web. 13 Apr. 2017.

tommy-ramone-dead-at-65-20140712>

Devenish, Colin. “Johnny Ramone Dead.” Rolling Stone. Rolling Stone, 16 Sept. 2004.

Web. 13 Apr. 2017.

johnny-ramone-dead-20040916>

“Fifteen Greatest Punk Bands of All Time.” Loudwire. Diffuser Network, n.d. Web.

7 Oct. 2016.

“Johnny Ramone’s All-Time Top Ten Lists.” Johnny Ramone. Johnny Ramone Army,

8 Jan. 2015. Web. 13 Apr. 2017.

johnny-ramones-all-time-top-ten-lists/>

45 Sprague, David. “Sex Pistols Flip Off Hall of Fame.” Rolling Stone. Rolling Stone,

24 Feb. 2006. Web. 19 Apr. 2017.

sex-pistols-flip-off-hall-of-fame-20060224>

Websites

Sketch Engine. Sketch Engine, n.d. Web. 21 Apr. 2017.

Oxford Dictionaries. Oxford University Press, 2017. Web. 21 Apr. 2017.

46 Résumé (English)

This thesis deals with the differences between the first wave of punk in America and the first wave of punk in Great Britain and illustrates them on the lyrics of the

Ramones' eponymous debut album and the Sex Pistols debut Never Mind the Bollocks

Here's the Sex Pistols.

The first chapter provides general notions about punk and its history, the second one provides a brief history of the'70s punk in New York and the biography of the

Ramones, and the third one–the history of the first wave of punk in London and the biography of the Sex Pistols. A special emphasis is placed on the context of mainstream music. The fourth chapter summarizes the differences between both the New York and the London scenes and its main protagonists–the Ramones and the Sex Pistols. The last chapter presents analyses of the lyrics by the two bands. First, a corpus based analysis, and second, an analysis of the subject matter of the songs.

To summarize the findings, the differences, often laying in the approach to the mainstream music industry, were caused mainly by a different social background and manifested themselves in an appearance, music, and lyrics. While both scenes wanted to change the status quo of the music industry, the British '70s punk rockers tended to be radical apostates, on the other hand, the Americans only wanted to regulate the direction of popular music and continue the legacy of rock and roll.

47 Résumé (Czech)

Tato práce se zabývá rozdíly mezi první vlnou punku v USA a ve Velké Británii a představuje je na textech stejnojmenného debuty kapely Ramones a prvního alba kapely Sex Pistols s názvem Never Mind the Bollocks Here's the Sex Pistols.

První kapitola podává základní informace o punku a jeho historii, druhá přináší stručnou historii punku v New Yorku v 70. letech a biografii Ramones a třetí kapitola– historii první vlny punku v Londýně a biografii Sex Pistols. Čtvrtá kapitola poté shrnuje rozdíly jak mezi scénou v New Yorku a v Londýně, tak mezi jejich hlavními představiteli–Ramones a Sex Pistols. V poslední kapitole se prezentují analýzy písňových textů těchto dvou kapel, nejprve korpusová analýza a poté analýza tématické náplně písní.

Výsledky práce ukazují, že časté rozdíly byly v přístupu k hlavnímu hudebnímu proudu a že byly z větší části způsobeny vlivem společenského prostředí. Rozdíly se nejvíce projevovaly ve vzhledu, v hudbě a v textech. Přestože obě scény chtěly narušit status quo hudebního průmyslu, britští punk rockeři byli spíše radikální odpadlíci, zatímco američtí punkeři chtěli pouze pozměnit kurz populární hudby a pokračovat v odkazu rockové hudby.

48