February 13th –
“They say it’s gonna die but, honey, please let’s face it,
They just don’t know what’s-a gonna to replace it, uh-hu-hu…”
You're not allowed to read further until you can recall the
song, please...
Well done! Right, imagine, into your world of Bing, Frank and
the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, stampedes the likes of Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee
Lewis (clock the b/w video of him doing ‘Great Balls
of Fire’ then tell me you wouldn't look across at your teenage daughter bopping
along to it and go, “Uh-oh”). It’s no wonder rock ‘n’ roll got off to a bad
start with these gyrating sex-models, and when the very first movie about the
new craze, the shooting of which was completed on this day in 1957, was called,
‘Rock You Sinners’…? I mean, that film had Jackie Collins in it…!...yes, THAT
Jackie Collins…a mega sinner right there.
Now, as mentioned before (see 12th
January) we all know what the word ‘rock’ was a substitute for in most pop
songs, don’t we? So it was hardly surprising, with eight out of the fourteen
songs in the above movie having ‘that’ word in their title…and one other
bearing the title ‘Stop it (I like it)’…that the status quo said, as one; ‘Shut
up shop, boys, you’ll sell nothing here…’ No? Really?
In Great Britain
I think (and this is just me you
understand, I have been known to get it wrong; once, I think…April 15th 1971) I
think it may also have had something to do with the variants in industry and
the numbers of working class people per capita head in both countries. Post-war
we British were still living in a society built on privilege, nepotism and a
class structure that stretched back to forever (still are to a point) and this
meant that 80 to 90% of both land and wealth was held by around 15% of the
population; the rest worked for a living in industry and manufacturing; shitty,
dangerous jobs where the wage was low and the profit margins high...yup, just
like now really.
Not surprising, then, that the rise
of the Teddy Boy was on a Richter scale of change for the older generation.
Sartorial elegance wasn't just a D.J., dickie-bow and patent shoes now;
elegance could be found in a drape coat, drain pipe trousers and brothel
creepers. Just like those toffs who belonged to the Masonic Lodges we had our
own uniform our own set of rules and behaviours our own initiation ceremonies,
and while they spent their egos building monoliths for money, we spent our time
bopping… developing the footwork that would allow us to dodge the arm of
authority during the protests of the following decades.
My mum actually took me to see ‘Rock
Around the Clock’…took me! She also made most of my stage clothes when I was in
bands too, and pretty outlandish they were, so maybe a bit ahead of her time
and not prepared to be frightened by the changing times, and this change in the
structure of society was all-encompassing and became irreversible. Youth now
had their own tribal-music soundtrack to dance to and you know what, over the
years those steps gradually, slowly took us away from the idea that war was the
only permissible expression of disagreement; but now look where it’s got us?
Look around at the changes since
Thatcherism and stare into the bear-pit that is the Blairite revolution and
‘The City’… Time for another musical revolution methinks…and someone to make a
movie about it too. The film title of the Rock ‘n’ Roll era being ‘Rock You
Sinners’, my guess is the movie about this new musical revolution should have the
title:
‘Oi, Shit for Brains! Fuck Off Back
to the Waldorf and Snuffle up Your Last Bowl of Caviar, We’ll Sort this Lot Out
in Our Own Revolutionary Fashion By the Revolutionary Method of Sitting and
Talking to One Another and Coming to a Compromise…And When It’s Sorted it’s You
and Your Full Belly Up Against the Wall; Enjoy the Revolution!’
Title like that should have ‘em
boppin’ in the aisles.
No comments:
Post a Comment