Punk Music, The Cold War, and The End of the World

On a quick grocery run a few years ago, somewhere between the ramen noodles and the toilet paper, “London Calling” by the Clash poured out of the overhead speakers, and a little piece of me died. The music of my teenage angst was reduced to the kind of peppy background noise that makes you happy enough to buy the manager’s specials. Apparently the end of the world is now grocery store fodder and I am officially fucking old and the end can’t come soon enough. I understand my teenage self in a whole new way.

The ice age is coming, the sun's zooming in

Engines stop running, the wheat is growing thin

A nuclear era, but I have no fear

'Cuz London is drowning

I, I live by the river

Me too, boys, me too.

The story of my teenage years – my senior year of high school, specifically – isn’t one of a miserable misfit, which is usually how the story goes. It’s the narrative of a girl who is popular on the outside and seethingly miserable on the inside. A girl who has been abused and compliant her entire life and finds her escape in books and her outlet in music. A girl who has discovered punk music, justification for her anger, and other people who are outraged by the hypocrisy of the adult world. Let’s see what she found.

1981-82 was a bad time for the threat of global, nuclear annihilation, but great for punk music and teenagers who were sick of the adult’s Cold War shit. The Clash came out with the Combat Rock album, and while “Rock the Casbah” is mainstream now, it was the lyrics of “Know Your Rights” that were prescient:

This is a public service announcement

With guitar

Know your rights

All three of them

Number one

You have the right not to be killed

Murder Is a crime!

Unless it was done

By a policeman or an aristocrat

Know your rights

Still, “Rock the Casbah” was a great anti-establishment tune, even if it was a little more rock than punk.

And yeah, just like the Ramones song, “Sitting in My Room” I spent a lot of time just, well, sitting in my room, contemplating how lame the establishment was…

…and thinking about the future. Like, I had to go to college. In my family it was on a higher level than expectation. I saw it as a means of escape, but it turned out to be more like the Dead Kennedy’s song, “Terminal Preppie”:

I go to college, that makes me so cool

I live in a dorm and show off by the pool

I join the right clubs just to build an impression

I block out thinking, it won't get me ahead

My ambition in life

Is to look good on paper

All I want is a slot

In some big corporation

...

No, I'm not here to learn

I just want to get drunk

And major in business

And be taught how to fuck

Man, that album, Plastic Surgery Disasters, had some great stuff on it, and songs that could have easily been recently written about our age, fueling the angst of a lot of teens right now. The titles alone tell you all you need to know; “Riot” and “Government Flu” among others. Honestly, you want to understand 1980s subculture angst? Just listen to the whole album. I dare you. It’s what I’ve always played when I want to clear the room of my millennial children. Imagine wide-eyed looks of utter horror and rapid retreats.

And then there was mainstream 1980s angst. Like, the adults were going to blow the world up so what was the point of anything? Sounds funny, now. Well, maybe not. I suppose the angst now is because the adults are going to burn the world down, so what’s the point of anything.

The thing about angst is that it’s something grownups joke about, like it’s unfounded, overly dramatic, and childish, but the dictionary says it's:

a feeling of deep anxiety or dread, typically an unfocused one about the human condition or the state of the world in general.

I get it. In some big, important ways, the human condition and the state of the world isn’t much better now than it was back then. Is this called middle-aged angst?

Now I’m depressed.

Maybe a little X to cheer me up. This one used to make me feel good about my angst as a teenager. Is that an oxymoron?

At daybreak I roam

Ready to tear up the world

I roam, I roam

Okay, so the Cold War ended and the world’s still spinning. Of course, we found new ways to prolong conflicts and damage the planet, but time provides perspective, and I’m no longer as dubious about the fate of humanity. I think we’ll limp along forever. That said, I have a soft and understanding spot in my heart for Gen-Z’s angst. Go ahead and wallow, kids, you’ve earned it.