Listen to thisWe all have a soundtrack to our lives and recently I have revisited the soundtrack to my late teens. I was a troubled and troublesome teenager and in the words of Lou Reed, “my life was saved by rock and roll". My search for identity had taken many avenues influenced by parents, peers and most significantly friend's older brothers.
I needed a hero, some one to articulate my despair and rage at the world and the bitter unfairness of it all. Enter Patti Smith; “Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine", she intoned at the start of her album Horses. At the age of 16 it was mind blowing to encounter someone articulating such an idea. It did not matter to me that Patti came out the relatively elite New York clique of performance artists and suffering poets. It was the gut feeling that this music came from the edge of human experience.
Great Britain in 1977 was not that great and the youth were revolting! This took the form of the emerging punk subculture. Enter the Clash with their first single “White Riot”. When Joe Strummer “sang”, “black man gotta lotta problems, but he don’t mind throwing a brick." here was another sentiment from the edge, which ignited the possibility of direct action in a manner not previously contemplated.
The punk movement saw young people from a wide variety of social backgrounds come together to change society, as many had before us. However, with the arrogance of youth we believed our way was the best and the only relevant approach. “Never trust a hippie” and a deep suspicion of anyone over 25 bound us together.
Through all of this teen angst the music was everything and we hung on the words of our new found heroes and heroines. The music politicised us into marching against the nuclear threat and rocking against racism. We absorbed another culture through reggae music. Women, in the shape of Siouxsie and the Banshees, the Slits and the Raincoats to name but a few found a voice in rock music on a par with the men.
The ethos was DIY, and heated debates ensued every time our heroes “sold out” and joined a major record label. We all formed bands with varying degrees of commitment and success. Action and involvement was critical. We sensed that the time was important.
Twenty-five years have passed and here I am reflecting and revisiting my personal soundtrack. Joe Strummer has sadly died and most recently Patti Smith was in Scotland singing the songs of Robert Burns. However the time is still important and those songs still move me.
But what of today’s youth? As I was gently going through my back pages I suddenly heard the discordant sound of my own voice saying to young people in the unit, “that’s not music, you should checkout the Beatles, Byrds and Beefheart." The reality struck me I was sounding like an old hippie!
How often as Child and Youth Care workers do we fail to acknowledge the special soundtrack of the youth we work with. I believed I was offering a service in broadening their horizons, opening young minds to fresh possibilities and mistakenly believing that the special songs for me would touch them in the same profound manner.
In considering this theme on deeper level I was struck by the degree to which a politically correct conformity had crept into my practice. In team discussion around the music being played in the unit I was entertaining the practice of censoring the playing of work by the likes of Enimen (sexist, homophobic), Slipknot (disgusting) and Marilyn Manson (satanic). Most of the team’s opinionated discussion was based on information picked up through the mass media and a knee jerk reaction to being bombarded from all sides with loud discordant music.
I was conscious that I had seldom made the time to really listen to the music and engage with the meaning that the music had for the young people themselves. I wasn’t affording to the youth an acknowledgement that the music in their lives could be as important for them as it was in my own. I had narrowed my passion and my prejudice to only include topics of my own choosing. This position was so at odds with the lessons from my own youthful soundtrack development.
Once I opened my ears and my mind I found the connections and recognised their inherent value. The reality was that the young people in my unit were investing the same raw emotion in their own soundtrack as I had in mine. They had songs for first love, minibus journeys to adventure weekends and their 1st gig. Often there would be a strong attachment to a sentimental pop song, one that acts as a comfort blanket, a transitional object.
I have opened new doors to my experience with youth and progressed my practice. I can now recognise Enimem’s “Cleaning out my closet” as a profound indictment of the abuse and neglect that shaped the life of Marshall Mathers and how it offers a clear statement of hope for the future of his own child. The power of the message is relevant to every generation and it is our challenge to let the message into our hearts.
I'll sign off with some words from Patti Smith,
I awakened to the cry that the people
have the power to redeem
the work of fools upon the meek
the graces shower its decreed
the people rule
The people have the power
The people have the power
The people have the power
The people have the power
Jeremy
Songs –
The Clash, “White Riot” 1977 CBS single
Lou Reed, “Sweet Jane” from “Loaded” 1970 Atlantic
Patti Smith, “Horses” 1975 Arista and “People have the Power” from “Dream of Life–1988 Arista
