Abstract
There is an expansive literature on the Sex Pistols and punk rock.1 Historians tend to place the group at the centre of a particular period of ‘crisis’ in British society (1976/77) or alternatively seek to underplay punk’s significance.2 This chapter weaves between the two positions by focusing on responses to the Sex Pistols Anarchy Tour of December 1976. It presents a particular image of England in which a sense of ‘crisis’ was articulated through a range of political/social organisations and media outlets.3 The Sex Pistols were symbolic of particular shifts within popular music and youth culture. Class identity, experience and rhetoric were core features of punk rock and its attempt to challenge existing political and social orthodoxies through sound, attitude and style.
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Notes
see J. Savage, England’s Dreaming Sex Pistols and Punk Rock (London, 1981)
J. Moran, ‘Stand Up and Be Counted: Hughie Green, the 1970s and Popular Memory’, History Workshop Journal 70, (2010), 173–198.
In many ways the response to the Sex Pistols was a classic case of ‘moral panic’. The seminal work on moral panic remains S. Cohen, Folk Devils and Moral Panics (London, 2002).
see A. Hunt, ‘Moral Panic and Moral Language in the Media’, British Journal of Sociology, 28, 4 (1997), 629–48.
see A. Bartie, ‘Moral Panics and Glasgow Gangs: Exploring “the New Wave of Glasgow Hooliganism”, 1965–1970’, Contemporary British History, 24, 3 (2010), 385–408.
For a critical survey of the ‘meaning’ of punk, see D. Simonelli, ‘Anarchy, Pop and Violence: Punk Rock Subculture and the Rhetoric of Class, 1976–8’, Contemporary British History, 16, 2 (2002), 121–44.
D. Laing, One Chord Wonders: Power and Meaning in Punk Rock (London, 1985)
D. Hebdige, Subculture: The Meaning of Style (London, 1979)
B. Osgerby, Youth in Britain since 1945 (London, 1988)
S. Home, Cranked Up Really High: Genre Theory and Punk Rock (Hove, 1995)
R. Sabin (ed.), Punk Rock: So What?: The Cultural Legacy of Punk (London, 1999)
see M. Worley, ‘Shot By Both Sides: Punk, Politics and the End of ‘Consensus’, Contemporary British History, 26, 3 (September 2012), 333–54.
The ‘foundation myth’ of punk is based on a clear connection between economic decline, radical politics and a challenge to the perceived inertia of the music industry. The attempt to pitch the Sex Pistols as a manifestation of Situationist politics has also been surprisingly influential. For example, see G. Marcus, Lipstick Traces. A Secret History of the Twentieth Century (London, 1997).
For the history of ‘moral panics’ in English society, see J. Springhall, Youth, Popular Culture and Moral Panics: Penny Gaffs to Gangsta—Rap, 1830–1996 (London, 1998)
G. Pearson, Hooligan: A History of Respectable Fears (London, 1983).
See A. McRobbie and S. L. Thornton, ‘Rethinking ‘Moral Panic’ for Multi-Mediated Social Worlds’, British Journal of Sociology, 46, 4 (1995), 559–74.
See S. Thornton, ‘Moral Panic, The Media and British Rave Culture’, in A. Ross and T. Rose’ (eds), Microphone Fiends: Youth Music and Youth Culture (London, 1994), pp. 176–92.
Birmingham Evening Mail, 4 December 1976. For a sense of Lydon’s view on England in the 1970s, see the early chapters of his autobiography. J. Lydon, Rotten: No, Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs (New York, 1994).
For narratives of these events, see D. Sandbrook, Seasons in the Sun: The Battle for Britain, 1974–1979 (London, 2012).
G. Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn. Socialism and the English Genius (Harmondsworth, 1982), p. 52.
For Grundy’s account, see C. Bromberg, The Wicked Ways of Malcolm McLaren (New York, 1989), pp. 114–116.
M. Glucksmann, Women Assemble: Women Workers and the New Industries in Inter-War Britain (London, 1990), p. 117.
For women and the trade union movement in this period, see C. Wrigley, ‘Women in the Labour Market and Unions’, in J. McIlroy, N. Fishman and A. Campbell (eds), The High Tide of British Trade Unionism. Trade Unions and Industrial Politics, 1964–79 (Monmouth, 2007), pp. 43–69.
For Bowie’s flirtation with Fascist imagery and discourse, see P. Doggett, The Man Who Sold the World: David Bowie and the 1970s (London, 2011), pp. 254–6.
For Whitehouse and the milieu in which she operated, see B. Thompson, Ban This Filth!: Letters From the Mary Whitehouse Archive (London, 2012)
M. Whitehouse, Quite Contrary: An Autobiography (London, 1984)
L. Black, ‘There Was Something About Mary: Social Movement Theory and the National and Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association in Sixties Britain’, in N. Crowson, M. Hilton and J. McKay (eds), NGOs in Contemporary Britain: Non-State Actors in Society and Politics Since 1945 (Basingstoke, 2009), pp. 182–200.
For cinema in this period, see A. Walker, National Heroes: British Cinema in the Seventies and Eighties (London, 1985)
L. Hunt, British Low Culture: From Safari Suits to Sexploitation (London, 1998), chapters 7–10.
Mrs Lydon quoted in F. and J. Vermorel, Sex Pistols: The Inside Story (London, 1978), p. 41.
G. Matlock, I Was A Teenage Sex Pistol (London, 1990) p. 158.
For a detailed analysis of corruption in labour politics in Newcastle, see R. Fitzwalter and D. Taylor, Web of Corruption: The Story of John Poulson and T. Dan Smith (London, 1981)
Lindsay Anderson’s film O’Lucky Man (1973).
see D. Nolan, I Swear I Was There: The Gig That Changed the World (Church Stretton, 2006)
D. Haslam, Manchester England: The Story of the Pop Cult City (London, 1999), chapter 5.
see J. Hill, Ken Loach: The Politics of Film and Television (London, 2011), pp. 161–3.
For industrial disputes and class conflict in the South Wales coalfields, see R. P. Arnot, South Wales Miners: A History of the South Wales Miners’ Federation, 1898–1914 (London, 1967)
H. Francis and D. Smith, The Fed: A History of the South Wales Miners in the Twentieth Century (London, 1980).
The best critical narrative of class, politics and social change in this period is A. Beckett, When the Lights Went Out: Britain in the Seventies (London, 2009).
For film footage of the response of Brook—Partridge and other politicians to the Sex Pistols Anarchy Tour and punk rock more generally, see Julien Temple, The Filth and the Fury (2000).
For an excellent collection of interviews with punk musicians from across England, see J. Robb, Punk Rock: An Oral History (London, 2006).
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© 2013 Keith Gildart
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Gildart, K. (2013). Darkness over England: Punk Rock and the Sex Pistols Anarchy Tour 1976. In: Images of England through Popular Music. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137384256_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137384256_10
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