England's Dreaming by Jon Savage

Author:Jon Savage [Savage, Jon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Music, Genres & Styles, Rock, Punk, Pop Vocal, Non-Fiction
ISBN: 9780571261192
Google: xNbgOXwwWhQC
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2011-02-17T00:00:00+00:00

John Lydon outside number 430, summer 1977 (© Bob Gruen)

23

Youth, after all, is not a permanent condition, and a clash of generations is not so fundamentally dangerous to the art of government as would be a clash between rulers and ruled.

Reverse of ‘White Riot’ sleeve (March 1977)

Can’t we envision, isn’t it encumbent upon us to imagine what an intensive life would be? Being alive means to be lively, to be quick. Being lively means being-speed, being quickness. Being-liveliness. All these terms challenge us. There is a struggle, which I tried to bring to light, between metabolic speed, the speed of the living, and techological speed, the speed of death which already exists in cars, telephones, the media, missiles.

Paul Virilio and Sylvere Lotringer: Pure War (1983)

On the Friday that the Daily Mirror put the Sex Pistols on their front cover once again – ‘Punk group’s £75,000 for nothing’ – the other main story was ‘Jim’s Showdown’: ‘Now the Government is fighting for its life.’ The IMF gamble looked set to fail: left-wing Labour MPs and ministers refused to accept the Government White Paper which outlined the IMF cuts. In Parliament Mrs Thatcher called for a vote of confidence which, if the Government lost, would result in a general election.

That particular crisis was ducked by the Government but their power to command a majority, and thus, effectively, to govern, was only retained through a last resort: a pact of convenience with the thirteen MPs of the Liberal Party. The political and social order seemed to be breaking up, and nothing symbolized this more than the Punk Rockers now visible on the streets of large urban centres. Through a mixture of conjuring and existential truth, Punk insinuated itself into the national psyche as the true face of England.

Throughout the spring, Punk hardened fast as the Burroughsian spiral took effect: record; instant playback; fast-forward. The scapegoating of December had had two results: a theatrical amplification of the ‘outsider’ role, and an increasingly extravagant rhetoric. With the Sex Pistols out of control, and countless groups snapping at their heels, it seemed as though Punk was crashing through barrier after barrier, that anything was possible.

‘Malcolm and Vivienne focussed things so cleverly and so clearly,’ says Jordan, ‘it was their clarity that got it going. Clean lines, hard edges, bright colours.’ Nowhere were the changes within Punk more visible than on the street which had given it birth, two years before. The King’s Road was now attracting international attention as the Punk centre: apart from Seditionaries, a slew of new outlets marked the six-month changeover from the retro styles of the 1970s to something more in tune with the new age.

Sartorial control of Punk slipped away from McLaren and Westwood as the floodgates opened. In April, Zandra Rhodes unveiled a collection ‘inspired by Punk Rock’, featuring ‘torn clothes, chains and safety-pins’. ‘We had a period at the beginning where it was lovely and peaceful,’ says Debbie Wilson, ‘it was quite upmarket, then we’d have these working-class lads

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