Looking back at ‘Never Been In A Riot’, the 1978 debut single by The Mekons that parodied and criticised the message of The Clash’s debut single ‘White Riot.
By Ben Forest
Overstating the importance of The Clash on the punk landscape of the 1970s is a virtual impossibility; for many people, Joe Strummer’s outfit embodied their ‘the only band that matters’ tagline in every aspect of their existence. It is worth noting, though, that not everybody was quite so bowled over by the output of the London outfit.
A couple of hours up the M1, in the musical haven of Leeds, one group of art school students were so perturbed by The Clash’s debut single ‘White Riot’, in fact, that they took it upon themselves to launch a response, in doing so sparking one of the most enduring outfits of the punk and post-punk age: The Mekons. Source: The 1978 Clash parody that launched a punk institution
For those whose memories have been destroyed by youthful glue-sniffing or pogoing accidents, ‘White Riot’ was an often misunderstood track by the Strummer-Jones songwriting partnership. In essence, the song bemoans the complacency of white working-class people, who are not as readily prepared to stand up against their oppressors as the Black population – “Black man got a lot of problems, but they don’t mind throwing a brick”.
While probably well-meaning, the sentiment of the song is more than a little naive. After all, white people in London weren’t being subjected to horrific racist abuse, institutionalised oppression, and police brutality on a daily basis. Even still, the single had a far more noble aim than many people gave it credit for at the time, with some misguided audiences assuming that the band were calling for race riots.
Luckily, The Mekons were intelligent enough to understand that Strummer and the band weren’t calling for race riots, but that didn’t mean they were any less offended by the track. According to Kevin Lycett, the band thought the song’s sentiment of “I want a riot for us poor downtrodden white people” was nothing short of offensive, and so they decided to write a satirical response to the song, in the form of ‘Never Been in a Riot’.
An endearingly DIY recording detailing a bloke who has, as the title suggests, never been in a riot or done much of anything else, the single lays bare the phoney machismo present throughout a lot of the early punk scene, as well as the rather naive message of that Clash single.
Within only one minute and 46 seconds, The Mekons had established the entirety of their sonic manifesto, arguably in a much more effective manner than The Clash had done with their own debut single.
‘Never Been in a Riot’ was The Mekons’ very first release, and it earned the Leeds band an immediate cult following, spurred on by the fact that it was listed as single of the week in the New Musical Express at the time, even if it was never in any danger of breaking into the singles charts. From there, the outfit’s reputation only seemed to grow, and the follow-up single ‘Where Were You?’ remains an indisputable classic of the early post-punk period.
Today, bordering on half a century later, The Mekons are still going strong with upwards of 25 albums under their belts and an audience that has largely followed them through that extensive discography. Right back at the beginning, though, it all started with a parody of The Clash.
Source: https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/1978-clash-parody-launched-a-post-punk-institution/
