‘Anarchy in the UK’: The one punk song that defines the birth of the genre
The pogo dance was a move used by punks in a bid to mock people who they didn’t think were actually that interested in the punk movement.
The idea was that if there were people in the crowd who looked as though they weren’t actually that interested in punk music, and instead were just there to say they went to a punk gig and feel a part of a scene, other punks would start dancing eccentrically in a bid to mock these “posers”. Why am I telling you this? Well, because it’s important to note that since punk music’s inception, there has been difficulty working out how you actually fit into the movement.
No matter what iteration of punk you are looking at, you will always have people who point fingers and say, “They don’t really mean it” or “They’re just pretending”. We do it today, as the majority of punk artists you hear on BBC Radio 6 are all privately educated and are hardly the best voices to champion the working class. But this criticism is nothing new. Ever since the Sex Pistols first burst onto the scene and gave the punk movement form, there was finger pointing and an inability to define what champions of the genre actually looked like.
John Lydon famously used to criticise one of his punk counterparts, Joe Strummer, saying that he was merely imitating being working class as opposed to actually living it. “Have a picture taken outside council flats, you know, as if that equates integrity. No!” said Lydon, “It’s nothing personal. I liked Joe. But you can’t be a champagne socialist. You’ve got to be more honest with us than that.”
Punk as a genre can be a proper head-scratcher, and figuring out which song truly defines it isn’t exactly straightforward. You’ve got bands like Buzzcocks, The Clash, and the Ramones – all giants of the punk scene – but then there are artists who either came long before or well after, yet still fly the punk flag. Because the genre’s so layered, there are loads of ways to interpret what counts as “punk” and how different tracks feed into it. But if you’re after a quintessential punk anthem, whether you’re a fan or not, you’ve got to look at the Sex Pistols.
What the band managed to do was really bring form to a movement that had been gathering momentum for years prior. We had the eccentric performance style of people in the pub rock scene, and in the face of unwavering political opinions, said opinions were starting to bleed into music in a much more transparent way. The only thing that was needed was a band to come along and bring everything together, and that’s where the Sex Pistols came in.
Their song ‘Anarchy in the UK’ was a political anthem, and when the band played it they adopted the chaotic style that people had previously been obsessed with; however, there was a little bit more to it than that. They also shocked people with the song, as while the band members didn’t want all out anarchy, the suggestion of it was enough to get people listening to the disgruntled youth. And when all is said and done, that is the fundamental point of punk: it gives a voice to those who previously might not have been able to speak up for themselves.
We can debate the complicated nature of this genre all night long, as the term seems to be constantly evolving; however, when all is said and done, the true birth of punk came when John Lydon proclaimed he was an anarchist, and the youth backed him.
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