‘I just consider myself a person first. And anything else that anybody else might call you - well, they’re just names really, aren’t they? ’
Poly Styrene

I recently enjoyed a documentary about the luminous singer and inventive songwriter Poly Styrene.

Co-directed by Paul Sng and Poly’s daughter Celeste Bell, ‘Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché’ reminds us that, as leader of her band X-Ray Spex, Poly gave us some of the most inspiring music of the punk era. She engaged with issues - sexism, racism, consumerism and identity - in a way that was heartfelt, insightful and way ahead of her time. She was a creative force, a defiant political voice and a unique style icon.

Let us consider what Poly teaches us today.

‘Who am I? I’m just an ordinary tough kid from an ordinary tough street.’

Mari Elliot was born in 1957 in Bromley and raised in Brixton. Her mother was a Scottish-Irish legal secretary, her father a Somali dockworker. Bullied at school, she encountered racism from all sides.

‘They see us as a threat to their genetic existence.’

As a teenager Mari travelled around the country going to gigs. She dabbled in a recording career, and made her own customised clothes and jewellery to sell on a stall on the King’s Road. On her nineteenth birthday she saw the Sex Pistols perform on Hastings Pier. She decided there and then to form a punk band, and promptly put an ad in the Melody Maker for ‘young punx who want to stick it together.’

And so X-Ray Spex was born. Mari chose her stage name, Poly Styrene, from the Yellow Pages. It suggested ‘something around today - something plastic and synthetic.’

In 1977 X-Ray Spex released their first single. The song begins with a gently spoken intro:

'Some people say little girls should be seen and not heard. But I think ...

Poly’s voice suddenly becomes irate:

‘Oh bondage up yours! 1-2-3-4!’

‘Oh Bondage Up Yours!’ was inspired by Vivienne Westwood’s Seditionaries outfits, by the Suffragettes and David Bowie, by rage against ubiquitous sexism, racism and consumerism. It was banned by the BBC and was not a hit. But it became a seminal punk single.

‘I discovered a new-found sense of freedom….I had an innate desire to be free – to be free from unwanted desires seemed desirable.’

The X-Ray Spex sound was built on a base of buzzsaw guitar. A robust saxophone added melody and mystique. And over the top of it all Poly shrieked, chanted and sang with raw power and intensity.

'A lovely girl with a voice that could punch a hole in a steel plate.’
Johnny Rotten

Poly Styrene in 1991. Photograph: Ian Dickson/Redferns

Lyrically Poly was particularly concerned with the omnipresence of plastics and synthetics; with a culture that was becoming increasingly disposable and fake.

'I know your antiseptic,
Your deodorant smells nice.
I'd like to get to know you.
You're deep frozen like the ice.
She's a germ free adolescent,
Cleanliness is her obsession.
Cleans her teeth ten times a day,
Scrub away, scrub away, scrub away,
The SR way.’
‘Germfree Adolescents'

Poly recognised that, on the one hand, this modern consumer society dumbed down and desensitized; but, on the other hand, it had seductive charms. And she found this paradox fascinating.

‘The weird thing about all the plastic is that people don’t actually like it. But, in order to cope with it, they develop a perverse kind of fondness for it.’

There were few women in pop and rock at that time, and they were often forced by the industry into highly sexualised presentations of themselves. Poly was determined to be different.

Here’s Poly in her signature dental braces; in DIY day-glo and brilliant bri-nylon. Poly in an army hat and scarlet military jacket; in home-made creations, jumble sale discoveries, ornamented with enamel badges. Here’s Poly in leggings, pink socks and court shoes; in huge white woolly cardigan. Poly in granny prints; in emerald tank dress with orange tights. Poly in a pale blue trouser suit with lemon-and-lime head dress. Poly with red and blue pom-poms in her hair. She was a magnificently inventive dresser.

‘Clothes are never really you. That’s why people wear them. Cos you can just create an image with clothes. They’re just part of a façade, which is good fun to play sometimes.’

On stage Poly performed with righteous anger and joyous pride. She skipped, strutted, danced and did a playful hand jive. You can’t take your eyes off her.

Given her experiences growing up, Poly was keen not to be defined by demographics, gender, ethnicity or style tribe.

‘Identity. That’s one of the current problems at the moment is identity. Everyone’s looking desperately to identify themselves with one thing, instead of themselves.’

She elegantly articulated these sentiments in song.

'Identity
Is the crisis,
Can't you see?
When you look in the mirror,
Do you see yourself?
Do you see yourself
On the TV screen?
Do you see yourself
In the magazine?
When you see yourself,
Does it make you scream?’
‘Identity'

I have always found this a compelling provocation. When we look in the mirror, do we see categories and classifications? Do we see other people’s standards and stereotypes - their expectations of who we are? Or do we see a unique individual, liberated from definitions and divisions?

X-Ray Spex did not hang around for too long. They only released five singles and one album, 1978’s ‘Germfree Adolescents.’ They performed in all the classic punk venues: The Roxy, the Man in the Moon, the Hope and Anchor, New York's CBGB's. And they featured in the famous 1978 Rock Against Racism gig at Victoria Park.

But then in 1979, exhausted by touring, Poly left the band. She was misdiagnosed with schizophrenia and sectioned. Only many years later was her condition recognised as bipolar disorder.

‘It isn’t normal for people to be surrounded by people telling them that they’re great.’

Poly pursued a solo career, developing a more jazz-based sound, and in 1983 she joined the Hare Krishna movement. She died of breast cancer in 2011. She was only 53.

Poly Styrene teaches us that creativity is, at heart, an articulation of your own personal tastes, your individual feelings, your particular perspectives – unconstrained by custom, consensus and convention. Creativity is an expression of self.

The B-side of X-Ray Spex’ first single was ‘I Am a Cliché’ and featured the song title being repeated over and over again. Of course, Poly Styrene was anything but.

'I drove my polypropylene car on wheels of sponge,
Then pulled into a Wimpy bar to have a rubber bun,
And watched the world turn day-glo.
You know, you know,
The world turned day-glo.’
X-Ray Spex, ‘The World Turned Day-Glo’

No. 330

It’s October 1977. Some young punks are being interviewed about the closure of the Electric Circus nightclub in Manchester. We see a gaggle of teenagers wearing cheap plastic sunglasses and safety pins in their ears; girls with thick black eyeliner; one lad with a bike chain round his neck. They explain their commitment to the cause:

‘I wanted to do something for me. Look at me now. I’m nothing.’
‘That’s what punk is.’

That was indeed the essence of punk. It was a short-lived musical movement that punctured the pomposity at the heart of the ‘70s British rock scene. It demolished the distance between performers and their audience. It gave music back to ordinary young people. Punk was speed, anger and urgency. It was Joe Strummer’s revolutionary zeal, Siouxsie’s swagger and John Lydon’s sneer. It was New Rose, Germfree Adolescent, Alternative Ulster. It was ‘a voice crying in the wilderness.’

I was only 12 when punk arrived, unannounced and unkempt, and shocked Britain out of its concrete slumber. And within a few short years ‘the filth and the fury’ was gone. But the movement cast a long shadow over British youth culture. It re-set the clock, and 1976 became a kind of Year Zero after which everything would be different.

I recently attended a small exhibition at the British Library celebrating forty years since the birth of punk in Britain. (Some have observed that you can’t get anything less punk than an exhibition at the British Library, but it was interesting nonetheless. It runs until 2 October.) The exhibition begins by highlighting the intellectual roots of the movement. Punk emerged from a rich brew of rebellious street fashion, avant-garde American rock and art school anarchism. A modish punk t-shirt of the time quoted a French Situationist slogan:

‘Be reasonable, demand the impossible.’

But punk also had its own more populist libertarian spirit. Punk musicians taught themselves to play, wrote their own songs, performed on their own terms; they worked with independent record companies, producers and managers, designed their own artwork. Punk is often represented as an entirely destructive force, but it was also constructive, empowering and enabling. It was about doing it yourself; doing it for yourself.

I was thrilled to find at the exhibition an original copy of a call-to-arms that appeared in a small London fanzine, Sideburns, in 1977. Over the years I’d seen many reproductions of this graphic, but had not come across an original.

‘This is a chord (A). This is another (E). This is a third (G). Now form a band.’

I remember at the time thinking what an exciting exhortation this was. Hitherto we’d imagined rock’n’roll as an arcane pursuit for the gifted elite; for those with a head start and a healthy bank balance. Music was an industry, rock was a career, an album was a concept. But punk reduced pop to its fundamentals, demystified it and encouraged everyone to have a go.

There was some debate at the time as to whether punk’s spirit of self-sufficiency and enterprise was in some respects Thatcherite. But this rebellious libertarian instinct was part of a long tradition amongst the oppressed and the disadvantaged, the bored and the unfulfilled. In 1969 James Brown sang:

‘I don’t want nobody
To give me nothing.
Open up the door,
I’ll get it myself.’

Of course in business we may recognise this as the entrepreneurial urge: the instinct to cast off corporate shackles and company conventions; to break off, break out and break away; to make one’s own mark on the world. The entrepreneurial spirit is rare, bold and admirable. We should treasure, protect and encourage it.

Moreover, in the Age of Technology it seems more possible than ever to ‘open up the door and get it yourself.’ As the world becomes more connected, there are infinite opportunities for both fusion and fission; for corporate aggregation and, at the same time, independent disengagement. So there’s never been a better time to go your own way. Have code - will travel. It’s exhilarating. It's punk entrepreneurism.

I should say that, whilst I have always admired the entrepreneurial spirit in others, I’m not sure I ever had it myself. I didn’t call up my mates in the late ‘70s to start a band. And I didn’t email my colleagues in the late ‘90s to start an agency. I was a company guy, a ‘salaryman.’ And there’s no shame in that. Leaders need followers. Entrepreneurs need executors.

Perhaps, ultimately, that’s what punk taught us: everyone can, but not everyone does.

‘When you look in the mirror do you see yourself?
Do you see yourself
On the TV screen?
Do you see yourself
In the magazine?
When you see yourself
Does it make you scream?
Identity is the crisis.
Can’t you see?
Identity, Identity.’

X-Ray Spex- Identity

No. 96

Poly Styrene’s Provocation: ‘When You Look in the Mirror Do You See Yourself?’

Punk Entrepreneurism: ‘Open Up the Door, I’ll Get It Myself.’