Yesterday a friend told me that I had too much politics on my blog even though not only is it election time in Armenia, but it’s also part of my work. Nevertheless, perhaps it’s time for a break if only for one post, and as music plays an important part in my life, what better a subject to cover and not least since in the past few months, the monotony of the type of music being produced in Armenia has really gotten to me.

With one or two exceptions, even the rock scene is mundane, predictable and lacking in any spirit. Music for the masses is just as bad, although many would argue that the same is true in the even more commercially-driven Western market. Still, what we do have in Europe and the U.S. is a more diverse selection and five decades of pop and rock music — some of which stands the test of time.

Of late, for example, I’ve rediscovered the Sex Pistols, England’s most notorious punk rock band of the 1970s. Arguably manufactured by music impresario Malcom McLaren, whatever people might think of the Sex Pistols, I remember that they turned the country upside down. Aged seven when they were formed, even now I can remember the shock and outrage that accompanied the very mention of their name in the British media.

Sex Pistols are an English punk rock band that formed in London in 1975. The band originally comprised vocalist Johnny Rotten, guitarist Steve Jones, drummer Paul Cook and bassist Glen Matlock (later replaced by Sid Vicious). Although their initial career lasted only three years and produced only four singles and one studio album, the Sex Pistols have been described by the BBC as “the definitive English punk rock band.” The Pistols are widely credited with initiating the punk movement in the United Kingdom and creating the first generation gap within rock and roll.

The Sex Pistols emerged as a response to what was perceived to be the “increasingly safe and bloated” progressive rock and manufactured pop music of the mid-1970s. The band created various controversies during their brief career which captivated Britain, but often eclipsed their music. Their shows and tours repeatedly faced difficulties from authorities, and public appearances often ended in disaster and riot. Their 1977 single, “God Save the Queen”, was widely regarded as an attack on the British monarchy and British nationalism.

In retrospect, while society with all of its safety-pinned and spiked hair punks might have seemed a little odd to a small kid growing up in middle-class England, a recent article published by Rolling Stone 30 years after the Sex Pistols exploded onto the scene adds a little irony to the almost mythical image of the band as one that shook the establishment to its foundations.

In their twenty-six-month public existence, the Sex Pistols managed one album, a handful of singles, a few dozen club gigs, one mildly profane TV appearance, several arrests, two sackings from record companies, some hasty local bans and one dance fad (the pogo, invented by Sid). When they were scaring the English public, three members lived with their mothers and one lived in a rehearsal space with no hot water because they couldn’t afford proper homes; Rotten wrote “God Save the Queen,” the band’s most notorious song, at his parents’ breakfast table, awaiting his baked beans. Their best-played shows drew a couple hundred people or fewer, and even for their last gig, at the cavernous Winterland, they split sixty-seven dollars. They were gone before any of them turned twenty-three.

No one managed to destroy more with less.

I remember 1977 well. It was the year England celebrated the Queen’s Silver Jubilee, and I was of all things singing in the choir of one of Portsmouth’s largest Cathedrals. Although I was aware of the “revolution” that punk was usherin in, albeit only a few years before society turned the opposite way and elected Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister, I don’t think I understood the true significance of what bands such as the Sex Pistols brought to contemporary music.

Perhaps they brought a new freedom for self-expression and freedom of speech, perhaps they really set a precedent for challenging the system, or perhaps they merely offered a refreshing and liberating alternative to the apathetic and clinically monotonous disco and progressive or adult-orientated progressive rock that otherwise filled the charts at the time. Whichever it was, God Save The Queen is a damn fine track even now.

“God Save the Queen” […] was the second single released by the punk rock band Sex Pistols. It was released during Queen Elizabeth II’s Silver Jubilee in 1977 and reached number two in the British charts. Its lyrics were particularly controversial at the time and was banned by the BBC. The single’s cover was considered very controversal at the time.

The single was released on 27 May 1977, and was regarded by much of the general public to be an assault on Queen Elizabeth II and the monarchy. The title is taken directly from “God Save the Queen”, the British national anthem. At the time it was highly controversial, firstly for its equation of the Queen with a “fascist regime”, and secondly for the apparent claim that England had “no future”.

[…]

Rolling Stone ranked “God Save the Queen” number 173 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, one of the group’s two songs on the list along with “Anarchy in the U.K.”. Sounds magazine made it their Single of the Year in 1977. In 1989 it was 18th in the list of NME writers all time top 150 singles[3]. Q Magazine in 2002 ranked it first on their list as “The 50 Most Exciting Tunes Ever…” and 3rd in their list of “100 Songs That Changed The World” in 2003. […]

Another blogger who was around the same age as I was when the Sex Pistols appeared also offers an opinion on the impact and legacy of the band.

I’m not going to pretend The Sex Pistols had a tremendous influence on my life, but neither will I dispute that maybe in a way they did, unconsciously.

I still see images of them flailing around a stage singing “Anarchy in the U.K.” on my television screen. I was 7 or 8 at the time and had no idea what in the fuck I was watching, but I knew, “me like”.

To say much has been written and said about The Sex Pistols is an understatement. Love them or hate them, anyone who knows music knows The Sex Pistols. They were “Punk”. At least they were for a short time.

[…]

The Sex Pistols were the result of the displeasure many urban, white youth felt not just with music, but with life and what was going in the world. Much of their anger, awkwardness, and alienation was embodied in the music and insane antics of The Sex Pistols.

When you read the lyrics to The Sex Pistol’s songs you see immediately they weren’t screaming about killing their mommy or doing drugs. They were screaming about social issues; war, poverty, prejudice, hypocrisy. In other words, they had something to say, and they were saying it in a way no one had ever heard.

[…]

Until Punk arrived with its guitars blazing, music was rarely overtly political. Notwithstanding the “Hippies”, who more often than not camouflaged their politics with silly metaphors and drug induced noodling. (By the time the 15 minute guitar solo is over, no one remembers what the damn song is about. You know who your noodley asses are). Even when they did come out and say it, it was never “in your face” like Punk. […]

Punk smashed people in the face with its message, sometimes literally. The songs were often too short to build extended metaphors, it was “fuck you”, and just in case you didn’t understand, “FUCK YOU!”

They certainly covered sensitive and taboo subjects such as abortion although they probably didn’t know realize what they were doing at the time. Even today when looking at the clip below of Bodies performed live nearly 30 years ago, it’s hard to imagine many other bands with the ability to perform with such energy and yes, anger. Even today the subject matter as well as the lyrics might cause offense, but in 1970s England…

“Bodies” is a Sex Pistols song about abortion from the 1977 album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols. It has a large amount of profanity for the time, with one couplet largely composed of the word “fuck”.

The song was written by the entire band. It is mostly about a fan named Pauline, who was (as the song states) from Birmingham. She had been in a mental institution, where she had apparently gotten pregnant from one of the male nurses. When she was released, she travelled to London, where she became a punk rock fan. She had several abortions. According to legend, she showed up once at John Lydon’s door wearing nothing but a clear plastic bag and holding an aborted fetus in a plastic bag as well.

Fast forward to 2007 and it would be refreshing to hear bands and musicians in Armenia sing about such issues given that abortion remains the main form of birth control in the country. Regardless, Bad Subjects wrote in 2001 that the Sex Pistols’ Bodies “remains the most important song to deal with abortion.”

She was a girl from Birmingham
She just had an abortion
She was a case of insanity

I assumed the next line “Her name was Pauline, she lived in a tree” was just a throwaway, and nowadays can’t help but think of eco-radical pinup Julia “Butterfly” Hill perched high atop the Headwaters forest. Yet in his 1994 Autobiography Rotten, John Lydon, known as Johnny Rotten when he was the Sex Pistols’ singer, remembered that Pauline “actually had a treehouse on the estate of this nuthouse. The nurses couldn’t get her down, she’d be up there for days”.

He continued, “She turned up at my door once wearing a see-through plastic bag. She did the rounds in London and ended up at everybody’s door…Like most insane people, she was very promiscuous.”

[…]

Dragged on a table in a factory
Illegitimate place to be
In a packet in a lavatory
Die little baby screaming
Screaming fucking bloody mess
It’s not an animal, it’s an abortion

“The fetus thing is what got me.” said Lydon. “She’d tell me about getting pregnant by the male nurses at the asylum or whatever.”

[…]

I believe “Bodies” remains the most important song to deal with abortion, a major political issue of the 1970s when it was written. The fundamental women’s right that was fought for then had been a part of women’s lives for centuries — for as long as there have been women — before being discussed in mixed company and won in the public arena. Three decades later abortion rights remain embattled, though I don’t believe John Lydon nor any of the Sex Pistols were out to curtail them. Beyond simplistic (albeit powerful) propoganda like the churchyard or campus installations, deceptively simple art like the choppy, frenetic multivoiced “Bodies” is one way to deal with the contradictions and difficulties of serious issues.

Still, while I lament the lack of real freedom of expression here in Armenia, we do at least have one band with the energy and cynicism to react against the establishment here. We’re not talking about something as simple and ultimately false as those who say they are against the system but ultimately represent the other side of the same coin, we’re talking about real rebellion and a direct attack on traditional values which limit personal freedom and actually exist in a self-enforced vaccum.

If Anush’s post over at The Armenian Patchwork is anything to go by, real underground rock acts like Bambir might at least provide us with something alternative in Armenia. Sure, it’s unable to really shake society into action or even wake up the majority of Armenian youth who seem only obsessed with the ringtones on their mobile phones, but perhaps it’s a start. While not as angry as the Sex Pistols, in the Armenian context they’re certainly different.

[…] Here’s what Narek Bambir says about his ideas and what he concentrates on lately when writing the songs:

“Some songs, like the ‘Imitate’, are about the fact that being from Caucasus, we have always imitated strong nations next to us, like Georgia has imitated Byzantines and Armenia has imitated Iran. Other songs are about how a person can be spoiled by nationalism, or how he can be affected by his society. The society can not only be useful but also damaging.”

Having missed direct participation with the punk revolution of the 1970s, perhaps this time I’ll at least get to see something, but contrary to the intentions of those hoping rock music can be used to mobilize a small group of youth against the government in support of the “radical opposition,” real freedom probably means speaking out against both as they’re part of the same system that truly needs to be assaulted by images, music and words.

I’d love Bambir to write a song for election year. Serzh Sarkisian, Levon Ter Petrosian, Artur Baghdasarian, whoever. Many young Armenians consider them to be the same — hypocritical, unaccountable and dishonest — and believe that nothing would change whoever comes to power. As a result, many won’t vote, and apathy prevails when perhaps it’s time for that disillusionment to transform itself into anger, protest and rebellion in social and cultural rather than political terms.

Just like the Sex Pistols did thirty years ago.