Not last week but the week before, when I was limping along in a great deal of pain one morning trying to get through a crosswalk before the light turned red, The Damned's "New Rose" shuffled on the iPod:
What a song! Though each step sent a jolt of misery into my brain, I smiled a bruised smiled because my brain was also filled with the aural ecstasy of "New Rose."
Released in October of 1976 when Fly Like an Eagle was soaring the charts and giving the Hippies a swan song, "New Rose" is credited with being the first single by a UK Punk band; I think it might be the purest expression of Punk any Punk music not just first wave English Punk.
The Damned were always considered also-rans to The Clash and Sex Pistols. On the storied Anarchy in the UK Tour, The Damned decided to perform at a few venues that refused to allow the Pistols on stage (due to the band's super-historic incendiary appearance on the Today show). The Clash and The Heartbreakers showed solidarity and refused to perform.
I was so affected by hearing "New Rose" that I purchased the first album, Damned Damned Damned (1977), though it can be streamed for free on YouTube:
I know I have written briefly before about this album, the first full-length Punk record released in the UK, preceding The Clash (1977) by two months. I called it good. But it is time to amend that. I am ready to class Damned Damned Damned -- along with The Clash (1977), Never Mind the Bollocks (1977) and Pink Flag (1977) -- as a timeless monument to Punk.
Listen to this record. Put your player on repeat. Summer is upon us. July approaches. The planet is growing hotter.
The sound you will hear is the sound of purity. The buzz burning blur of youth and its confused clarity.
"Society is a Hole," as Sonic Youth would sing eight-years later. The Hippies felt the same way but acted as if there there was a way out of the hole. The Punks brought home the message that there is no way out.
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