I’m So Bored with the USA: Reflecting America in British Punk Memoirs of the 1970s

Abstract

In recent years there have been an increasing number of biographies and autobiographies written by the leading figures of the British punk scene of the Seventies and Eighties. As we pass the 40th anniversary of 1977, it can be argued that the British punk scene has also ‘come of age’ in academia with a number of retrospectives that examine not only the contemporary impact of punk in the Seventies but also the legacy of the punk movement in shaping British culture.

With a focus on John Lydon’s text Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs (1993) and Viv Albertine’s Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys (2014), this article will examine how these autobiographies draw attention to ways in which the British sub-cultural scene offered a platform through which British culture and identity could be reassessed as anti-American and anti-capitalist. This study will also highlight to what extent the self-reflexive framing of these personal narratives within the larger political, cultural and social landscape, can be read as a characteristic feature of the British punk memoir. Through these texts it is possible to uncover the pivotal role of the British punk scene in the development of a counter cultural identity that mirrored changes in the contemporary national identity. As such, punk memoirs, biographies and autobiographies not only give perspectives on a subversive youth cultural scene but, perhaps more importantly, can offer unique insights into the evolution of post-imperial British identity.