WORD AND IMAGE. PERSONAL AND POLITICAL STATEMENTS: CAROLINE COON BOX SET 3

By the mid 1970s unrest was brewing throughout the United Kingdom. Chaos mounted as striking workers demanded better than “poverty pay”. In 1976, black youths accustomed to racist police harassment, rose up and rioted at the Notting Hill Carnival. Unemployment was reaching a 40-year high of 1.5 million. Young people were blamed for being work-shy benefit-scroungers. With Government out of reach and as complacent as the rich, it seemed to me that teenagers were existing in an emergency of helpless anomie and alienation.

The Sex Pistols explosion on to the scene was exactly the shock that was needed. Their name alone, the bellicose antithesis of hippy “Peace and Love” - like the “Hate and War” announcement that Joe Strummer painted on his back - heralded the new era. In fact, it seemed inevitable. Repeatedly fans expressed to me sentiments as anguished and happy as “I’ve been waiting for something to identify with”, “They’re the best bands around”, “They are playing the music of the people”, “There’s been nothing for years”, “I just want to be involved!”

As significant as punk’s music and protest song lyrics were in jolting teenagers out of culture’s stagnating rut, so were the words painted on their clothes. Effective political demonstrations take time to organise. As an urgent, immediate reaction to daily oppression, do-it- yourself t-shirts were meaningful, fast and cheap. Words and images on t-shirts, as if written on the body like a second skin, were punk’s personal and political statements. Signs and symbols turned each musician and fan into their own individual broadcasting company communicating with and to the world.

Caroline Coon, 2023