March 2010 Editorial

The Sex Pistols are often looked back upon as being a cheesy, music industry product with no value to hard core fans of music. Still though it's hard to think of any record  that is more emotionally charging than "Never Mind The Bollocks" and really no record for that matter grabs people's attention the same way as the Pistols one and only proper studio album. If somehow "Bollocks" was played over the intercom at a mall in any suburban town in North America a few things could be guaranteed. . . First off old ladies would be trying to get their shopping done as quickly as possible, mothers would complain about their kids hearing such frighteningly offensive music, and at least one thirteen year old kid would make it a mission to own the album as soon as he could get his hands on it.

While most of what Johnny Rotten said in the Pistols' lyrics seemed to be negative just for the sake of being negative there are a few really clever lines that somehow give the band some substance that most people surely overlook. The lyric that stands out the most comes from "God Save the Queen" where Rotten snarls, "We are the flowers in the dustbin." That lyric alone in fact changes the entire tone and outlook of the record. In essence it makes a distinction between people and their surroundings- for those who are not familiar with the term a dustbin is a British term for a trash barrel and Rotten is stating that he is part of something that has potential to be valuable and even beautiful despite being discarded, overlooked, and surrounded by doom and gloom.

Anger, unrest, and even destruction all have their place in our world and when these things are used in a meaningful and well directed manner they can be powerful and even positive. If something exists only to make people's lives miserable than it should be destroyed and anytime that their is injustice in the world there should be rebellion. All too often though unfocused people direct their anger, rebellion, and destruction in all of the wrong directions. This is perhaps because it's often much easier to challenge the meek than the structures that exist to maintain power in a negative way.

Everyone in the world has walked into a trashed public restroom at some point in their lives. It's a gross, frustrating, and defeating feeling, because under normal circumstances most of us don't use a public restroom unless there's no other choice. It's a classic example of misdirected destruction- the people that suffer because of this sort of behavior are the normal and innocent people who have to use a gross bathroom and the guy on the bottom of the company food chain who has to clean up the mess. It's never a company C.E.O. who has to clean up shit off the floor at McDonald's- it's always the new guy who is working for minimum wage for a company that doesn't care about him.

When we aimlessly destroy things it gives people an excuse to use more authority and legitimizes the structures that any person with a right mind would never want to deal with in their day to day lives. It's self defeating and gives our enemies more power. On the other hand positive rebellion distinguishes us from our enemies and the negativity that we are too often surrounded by. If we really don't want to deal with cops and other authority figures being on our backs all of the time, perhaps the best way to make even a small step in that direction is to act in a positive way that shows that extreme forms of authority are not necessary. Maybe it's time for more people to make the distinction between the flowers and the dustbins they too often get thrown into.

 

-Ditch-
Asst. Editor