How Orange Juice doffed their cap to their biggest inspiration with ‘Rip It Up’
A constant reminder of a time before the need to consider a band name’s “Google-ability”, Orange Juice were among the first to truly define what we mean by an indie band.
With his group’s mix of literate lyrics, winsome melodies and jangling guitars cribbed from the likes of The Byrds and The Velvet Underground, Edwyn Collins laid down a blueprint for British guitar music that the likes of The Smiths would ride to global infamy.
However, Orange Juice were more than just the first band to combine cheese-wire-strung guitars with yelping vocals. There was something deeper about them. Something that defined what the whole attitude of British Indie Rock would evolve into. While it can’t really be stated just how big a deal punk was after it broke in the late 1970s, its influence wasn’t in making people radical state-smashers with alarmingly dyed hair and spikes poking through every visible patch of skin. This is England we’re talking about, we’re not that cool.
Instead, the influence was more subtle than that. Weird from quite possibly the least subtle form of music imaginable, but hear me out: The big casualty of punk was the idea that music was something that a special sect of society made. That our rock heroes were a cut above us, sent from a different planet to brighten our meaningless lives. Punk broke that seal and let the country know that, yes, anyone could make music, and it could be as weird as we like.
Orange Juice were a perfect example of this. While blessed with boy-band good looks, Edwyn Collins didn’t look or sound like anyone from a different planet, unless you count Glasgow a different universe (I’m sure some people would agree). He was resolutely of our own universe and sang about things that occurred in our own universe. It would be this relatability that made the breakout single of Orange Juice, 1983’s ‘Rip It Up’ hit number eight on the UK singles charts.
What made ‘Rip It Up’ by Orange Juice so relatable?
If you wanted to be uncharitable, one of the things that must have chimed with the listening public of the UK is the particularly British level of cynicism running through it. This is, after all, a song that has a lyric as casually spiteful as “I hope to God you’re not as dumb as you make out” running through its very chorus. This cynicism sounds like it’s also running through the last line of the song’s middle eight, where Collins sings, “You know this scene is very humdrum / And my favourite song’s entitled ‘Boredom'”.
At first, this sounds like a streak that would run through a lot of British indie rock, where arch scenesters cast a withering eye upon the very scene that birthed them. The likes of Pulp, The Cribs and Art Brut were possibly taking notes when they heard this. Yet there’s another, slightly softer side to the lyric as well, one where Collins is, shockingly enough, being completely honest about what his favourite song is.
The ‘Boredom’ he’s referring to is an absolute banger by the Mancunian post-punk legends Buzzcocks. A band whose more personal, wryly charming take on punk rock makes them a fellow candidate for “first proper indie band”. Collins tops off this tribute to Pete Shelley and Howard Devoto’s band by playing the riff to ‘Boredom’ as a throwaway guitar solo after he sings that lyric.
Which makes ‘Rip It Up’ one of the forebears of British indie rock with an absolute bullet. A young man dressing up a scathing putdown of his peers with highly strung, punk-funk while also taking a moment to shout out one of his genuine idols? Genuinely, this song could have come out at any point in the last 40 years of British guitar music. That mix of timelessness and influence makes this not only a tribute to the inspirations of Edwyn Collins, but an inspiration worth paying tribute to by countless bands since.
