Thanks to Postman Patel for switching me onto this story here about the guy hauled off a plane and questioned by police for singing along to a Clash record in a taxi on the way to the airport.
Oddly enough, this story was classified in the Reuters ‘Oddly Enough’ section; putting it in the same category as toasted tacos that look like Jesus and amusing anectdotes about the zany things cats get up to.
I can understand that. Stories of official paranoia and wrongful detention are an absolute hoot.
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My gut feel would be that anyone singing along to the Clash could be described as pretty well integrated into British society. It’s the songs and chants you can’t understand the lyrics to you probably should be worried about.
Anyway, Stef’s top five lyrics from punk era songs that you should twice about before singing in a taxi on the way to the airport if you look all brown and foreign…
Anarchy in the UK, Sex Pistols
I am an antichrist
I am an anarchist
Don’t know what I want but
I know how to get it
I wanna destroy the passer by
Eton Rifles, The Jam
Sup up your beer and collect your fags,
There’s a row going on down near slough,
Get out your mat and pray to the west,
I’ll get out mine and pray for myself
I feel like a Wog, The Stranglers
I feel like a wog people giving me the eyes
But I was born here just like you
I feel like a wog
Got all the dirt shitty jobs
But everybody's got to have something to do with their time
Killing an Arab, The Cure
Standing on the beach
With a gun in my hand
Staring at the sea
Staring at the sand
Staring down the barrel
At the arab on the ground
I can see his open mouth
But I hear no sound
I’m alive
I’m dead
I’m the stranger
Killing an arab
Chemical Warfare, The Dead Kennedys
Down at the arsenal they keep the nerve gasses
Guarded day and night by caged white rabbits
Been sitting there for years
I'm gonna have at it
I cut through the fence, run right in and grab it
Go crazy crazy crazy crazy
The last one is my personal favourite.
Some are stronger than others but I only had a quick bath this morning and probably need to take a much longer one to peg this list down properly.
Of course, if things carry on the way they are at the moment even Petula Clark’s Downtown could be seen as a statement of bloody homicidal intent in the mouth of the wrong person
When you're alone and life is making you lonely
You can always go - downtown
When you've got worries, all the noise and the hurry
Seems to help, I know - downtown
Just listen to the music of the traffic in the city
Linger on the sidewalk where the neon signs are pretty
How can you lose?
They’re coded instructons. I’m telling you!
Honourable mention to Monitor by Siouxsie and the Banshees because I haven’t listened to it for ages and it dawned on me just now that it was about 25 years too early
Monitor outside
For the people inside
A prevention of crime
A passing of time
They come and they go
It's a passing of time
They come and they go
Whilst we sit in our homes
Sit back and enjoy
The real McCoy
Our new air of authority
Our sentinel of misery
His facewas full of intent
And we shook with excitement
Then the victim stared up
Looked strangely at the screen
As if her pain was our fault
But that's entertainment
What we crave for inside
No more second rate movies
From those people outside
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