Start Date
4-18-2018 12:30 PM
End Date
4-18-2018 1:45 PM
Disciplines
European History | Music | Social History
Subjects
Punk rock music -- Social aspects -- Great Britain, Punk rock music -- Great Britain, Popular music -- Great Britain -- History and criticism
Abstract
In the seventies, Great Britain was crippled by a widespread recession during which more than a million people were out of work and the inflation rate rose to above 18 percent, a stark contrast with the generally prosperous economy of the sixties. The conditions of this difficult decade would result in lasting social and cultural developments — including, of course, punk rock in all its loud, cynical, and spiky-haired glory. This paper examines the economic origins of the punk movement and argues that it was, at heart, the unique product of a generation raised in times of hardship and scarce opportunity. As the members of the Clash said themselves in a 1976 interview with The Times: “If there were jobs, we’d be singing about love and kisses.”
Rights
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Persistent Identifier
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/35796
Included in
European History Commons, Music Commons, Social History Commons
"If Only I Could Get a Job Somewhere:" The Emergence of British Punk
In the seventies, Great Britain was crippled by a widespread recession during which more than a million people were out of work and the inflation rate rose to above 18 percent, a stark contrast with the generally prosperous economy of the sixties. The conditions of this difficult decade would result in lasting social and cultural developments — including, of course, punk rock in all its loud, cynical, and spiky-haired glory. This paper examines the economic origins of the punk movement and argues that it was, at heart, the unique product of a generation raised in times of hardship and scarce opportunity. As the members of the Clash said themselves in a 1976 interview with The Times: “If there were jobs, we’d be singing about love and kisses.”
Notes
2nd place winner of the Karen E. Hoppes Young Historians Award for Outstanding Research and Writing.