‘Oh Shit!’: the other punk single wimpy EMI workers refused to release
It’s easy to forget just how treasonous much of British society viewed punk when it first landed on the music underground over 50 years ago.
Tabloid fury, radio bans, retail boycotts, gig cancellations, and the ever-present threat of physical attacks dogged the Sex Pistols during their 1976 heyday. Not that they weren’t inviting controversy. Provocation was punk’s raison d’être during the latter end of the decade, eager to shock a stultified rock scene out of its complacency and express its countercultural seethe amid the era’s economic and social malaise.
Such dissatisfaction would fuel the Pistols’ ‘Anarchy in the UK’ debut and the ensuing swears on their infamous Today appearance, tanking producer Bill Grundy’s career overnight while immortalising their infamy. Public pressure would finally get the better of their EMI label, who kicked them off their roster not long after the Today shenanigans, before briefly singing to A&M for less than a week and ultimately saved by Virgin Records. Such a kicking from the industry would eventually inspire the ‘EMI’ diss-track that closed their sole Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols LP the following year.
Once under Virgin’s care, the Sex Pistols faced further issues when the packers and workers at the EMI Hayes pressing plant decided to down tools in protest of their next single. Queen Elizabeth II’s Silver Jubilee was on the horizon, and royalist feeling was in the air, so naturally, the Pistols were ready to unleash the monarchy-bashing ‘God Save the Queen’ to twist establishment knickers even further. The song had actually been sketched out without the national celebrations in mind, but a rushed Virgin pulled all the stops to ensure a timely release ahead of the celebratory bank holiday in June.
It was touch and go. EMI came back to haunt the Sex Pistols, as Virgin lacked its own pressing plant and contracted the manufacturing to the former’s factory in West London. However, offended by ‘God Save the Queen’s heretical attack on the Crown and aghast at Jamie Reid’s disrespectful single artwork, the outraged plant workers refused to handle the new release just when Virgin needed them for the scheduled Jubilee timing. After much negotiation, workers reluctantly carried out their duties and oversaw the seditious single’s eventual manufacture.
This wouldn’t be the last time the EMI Hayes workforce would kick against the punk revolution. Spearheading the new wave up in Manchester, Buzzcocks weren’t long behind their ‘Orgasm Addict’ debut single when ‘What Do I Get?’ was ready for a January 1978 issue. There was seemingly nothing as inflammatory as the Sex Pistols, in both artwork and song content, and so United Artists sought EMI Hayes’ pressing services for the Buzzcocks’ anticipated sophomore single.
This time, however, what got up the plant’s nose was the B-side. Tacked as the flip to ‘What Do I Get?’ was the explosive ‘Oh Shit!’, an expletive garage stomper scoring the sudden demise of a relationship, pushing the swear as a key lyrical refrain as well as pushing gratuitously into its title.
It seems quaint now, but swearing was still pretty shocking at the tail-end of the 1970s, enough for the dispute to last several weeks and delay Buzzcocks’ second single by an extra month. The band didn’t budge lyrically or with its title, and after a resolution between EMI management and United Artists, ‘What Do I Get?’ saw its official light of day in February with the ‘Oh Shit!’ B-side firmly intact.
Curiously enough, the former ‘Orgasm Addict’ never encountered any pressing issues, despite its sexually arresting title and was bludgeoned with an internal ban by the BBC, heeded across all radio playlists except BBC Radio 1’s John Peel, who spun the Buzzcocks’ saucy cut on his late-night show regardless.
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