The American History

In 1976, Patti Smith ended her rendition of The Who's "My Generation" with the declaration, "We created it; let's take it over!" She knew what she was talking about. Punk rock by birthright was an American creation, originated by New York City musicians during the mid 1960s, but the British version of punk was more famous. Punk was born with the Velvet Underground in New York City. Though the Velvets achieved cult status and eventually critical acclaim, such British bands as the Sex Pistols were better known. As a result, twenty years later, punk is falsely considered a British creation.

In an academic context, New York's punk rock is difficult to explain. It eludes blanket generalizations of content and philosophy and never became popular enough during its original inception to be incorporated into mass culture. New York punk's philosophy evolved out of necessity. Jon Savage captured the idea in his book, England's Dreaming: Anarchy,  Sex Pistols, and Beyond. For his book, Savage interviewed Richard Hell of the New York band Television, and established that Hell considered rock music to be "secret teenage news." (Savage 88). Punk was about youth; it borrowed the street and rebellion element from rock's origins, and promised individuality. The best way to describe punk is to say what it was not. In the imagination of rock music audiences, the pop charts of the late 1960s and early 1970s are saturated with rebellion and sexual revolution. In reality, the charts reflected a homogenized landscape of bland pop. Punk rock certainly did not crack the veneer of pop, but it expanded pop's boundaries.

The Top Ten of 1973 is a perfect example of punk's lack of influence on popular music. The number-one song of 1973 was "Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Ole Oak Tree" by Tony and Dawn. To be fare, Billboard is a representation of the popular music charts, rather than exclusively of rock music. However, if "Tie A Yellow Ribbon" was the number-one selling record of the year, popular music was completely alienated from rock music. Punk, on the other hand, kept the essence of rock rebellion and innocence alive. The mid-1970s, at least in the Billboard charts, have some parallels to the mid-1950s. Rock's first chart success happened in the mid-1950s, in the midst of Tin Pan Alley. Arnold Shaw's book, The Rockin' Fifties: The Decade That Transformed the Pop Music Scene, us Tin Pan Alley as an era of lush ballads designed to soothe a nation immediately after WWII (Shaw xv). The rock music that emerged in the 1950s was not calm balladry. Punk rock follows this pattern in that the mid-1970s, as reflected by the Billboard charts, was about maintaining calm. Punk, like the original rock in the 1950s, disrupted this order. Compare Barbra Streisand's melodramatic number- one record for 1974, the soundtrack for the film, "The Way We Were," to the New York Doll's "Personality Crisis" from 1973. Streisand's "misty water colored memories" from the Doll's "prima ballerina on a spring afternoon". Where Streisand tried to remain cool and reserved, the Dolls were pointed and deliberate. Punk revitalized rock music.

The difference between New York City punk and British punk was in its range of perspective and influence. Jon Savage described New York punk bands during the early 1970s as a mixture of styles incorporating the teen bubble gum pop of the girl groups with the harder aggression of the Rolling Stones(Savage 60). Savage's description of New York punk begins to define its sound and attitude. New York punk was aggressive 1970s rock music that recreated the power of rock's roots in the 1950s but didn't lose the power of introspection or a sense of humor. A large division emerged between the alternate forms of punk rock image and the music. Some New York bands as the Ramones acted the part of violent, drug-addicted street thugs; others such as the New York Doll's leader David JoHansen, fashioned themselves after French Symbolist poets like Rimbaud, and wrote songs about urban decay (Savage 58). Some punks such as Television, played the part of the introspective artists; others like the Velvet Underground exhibited strains of a self-destructive and hedonistic nature toward the band's end. In a press release from Mercury the Dolls' record company, JoHansen said,

Punk music followed this path as well. Some bands played at assaultingly high voltage and volume. The Ramones exploited the three-chord simplicity of 1950s rock music but took it one step beyond with ear-splitting volume and street-hoodlum apparel. Their songs averaged two minutes in duration and sounded like a subway train roaring out of the station. While Television's Tom Verlaine, who named himself after 19th century French Symbolist poet Paul Verlaine (Lazell 503), favored drawn-out guitar solos and cryptic poetic lyrics, others, such as Blondie focused on tight pop formations, avoiding the abrasive theatrics. All of these styles meshed together to become "punk" rock - a startling rebirth of old form rock'n'roll music with the new.

The seeds of the punk rock sound were planted in the 1950s with the early strains of American rock'n'roll. A direct imitation of the rebellious "race" music of the mid-1950s, rock enticed young listeners and offered alternatives to the drab music on the radio. In doing so, rock revitalized American music and established a pattern for rebellion. White rock stars such as Elvis captured the intensity of this early music and packaged it for other white listeners. The process of copying and reforming, long a tradition in rock format, was the essence of punk rock. In a sense, New York City punk was a game of finding the influence.

New York City punk rock, unlike its British imitation, did not claim to be the end of established rock music. While British punk claimed to be completely new and without previous influence, the New Yorkers paid close attention to their influences. British punk bands such as the Sex Pistols and their manager, Malcolm McLaren, promised that their punk rock was the be-all-end-all of rock. The British borrowed from the influences across the water and exaggerated them until the fashion and sound fit the anger and hopelessness of their own socio-political environment. For this reason, New York City punk was inherently different from British punk. But the most obvious of the differences stemmed from their respective economies.

British punks were mostly unemployed and facing a lagging economy. Their anger was exemplified by such songs as the Sex Pistols' "No Future" and the Clash's "London's Burning." The bitterness expressed in British songs was blatant. The New Yorkers expressed anger and frustration as well, but their themes were more concerned with the arts and literature. While the Sex Pistols named themselves Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious, Tom Verlaine paid homage to his literary influences. The British were more apocalyptic, attempting to be ahistorical with such declarations as the Sex Pistols' "No Future." New York punks researched history and borrowed from the fertile building ground American rock'n'roll had left behind. On her first album in 1975, Patti Smith recorded a version of Van Morrisson's late 1960s hit, "Gloria," thus perpetuating rock's legacy into punk. Unlike its New York influence, British punk not only claimed that there was no future, but in the words of British rock critics Julie Burchill and Tony Parsons, in the title of their book on the subject, punk was the "obituary of rock'n'roll.""The Boy Looked At Johnny": The Obituary of Rock`n'Roll, though overly British in focus took its title from a Patti Smith song. Even in criticism punk was an American creation.

Before British punks even breathed the words "no future," punk rock was carving out its history in Manhattan. Enter the players of the New York City scene in the mid-1960s. They weren't interested in writing rock'n'roll's obituary; they were in love with rock music and paid homage to their influences while creating new sounds. Their sounds were varied, but the themes about teenagers and rock'n'roll and the streets were generally the same. By the early 1970s, the rock'n'roll world was populated by distant pop stars in limousines. Rock radio was reflective of such established bands as the Rolling Stones, who in their success had lost the street element and awareness that had once made them vital. Their image, which had once been youthful and demanding, like 1965's "Satisfaction," had been transformed into the chic jet-setting disco of 1978's "Miss You." In contrast, New York City punkers were a part of the street element. Punk music in both countries was about relevance. The simplicity of the Ramones' "Beat On The Brat" made light of the Ramones' street thug image by poking fun at violence.

"Beat on the Brat
Beat on the Brat
Beat on the brat with
a baseball bat"

"We fell in love down at the pier
You were sunbathing I was around
Soon we were sharing our beer
We fell in love at the pier"

To understand New York City punk and its significance, it is important to note the influences on the musicians who participated in the original punk movement. The punk movement's cultural influences spanned generations, from the American literary expatriates who left the country for Paris during the 1930s to bands formed during the late 1960s in New York City and Detroit. The original punks considered themselves as lost as the 1930s' "lost generation," but they found an emerging voice in their own generation. New York punk was rock music, which became a highly stylized adaptation of literature for the post WWI "lost" American expatriates and the beatniks of the late 1940s and mid 1950s (Savage 90). The music unified an entire group of people, giving them an identifying code.

What was to become New York punk evolved from various backgrounds. New York's seminal punk band, the Velvet Underground, was made up of three classically trained musicians who created the most assaulting and unique rock music to date. Bands on the opposite end of the musical spectrum were equally influential. The Shangri-Las and their girl group peers combined teen-angst theatrics with tight harmonies and a smart pop sense. The group's "Leader of the Pack," released in 1964, capitalized on a generation of parental scare tactics. The song told the tale of teen romance without parental consent, started in the candy store and ending in a fatal motorcycle accident. Although completely different in visual and audio package from the Velvet Underground, the girl group style had its own unique place in punk style.

The rumblings of this new American music were heard in different areas of the country, as well. The Detroit sound, while often thought of as exclusively Motown's combined perfection of pop and soul, began to show more underground leanings. Among the Detroit punk groups to stake their claim to individual rock music were the Stooges, led by the 1960s' version of the lovable idiot, Iggy Stooge (later Pop), and a garage band turned social activist choir named MC5.

The Stooges created rock music sprinkled with the inner dialogue of a juvenile delinquent's diary. A song on their first album, "I Wanna Be Your Dog," created a sound and an aesthetic that was to be emulated for years to come. By 1969, the release of the Velvet Underground's third album and the Stooges' and the MC5's first albums had a direct influence on a new generation of music fans and potential performers. The seeds of punk rock had been planted on American soil. For the next ten years new music emerged from urban America that would create punk rock.