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Rating: What was the first English punk band in chronological order to release a 45 rpm? And which one released the first LP? And went on the first US tour? And broke up first, just a couple of months after the release of their second album, for which they wanted nothing less than to work in the production room with Syd Barrett, having instead to settle for his buddy Nick Mason? And reformed, keeping a band name alive even to this day, although this is most likely not a good thing?
If you answered Damned to any of the above questions, you've won a spit - or if you prefer, a can - right in the forehead. Yes, them, the Damned Londoners. Those who beat both the Sex Pistols and the Clash to the appointment with vinyl and therefore with history. Those who chose as a singer someone who was an undertaker and liked to dress up as a vampire, obsessed as he was by the myth of Count Dracula. Those who originally had a brilliant guitarist, but - alas for them! - let him slip away too soon (note no. 1: someone someday will take the trouble to glorify Brian James and his Tanz der Youth). Those who the writer is willing to forgive all the countless ugliness of the past twenty-and-a-half years - and how many they have given us! Enough to fill a couple of the niches that Dave Vanian loves so much...-, in exchange for a debut album that showed in the midst of the Seventies what regenerative juice punk could bring to the dying body of a (certain kind of) rock.
But how punk were the Damned? Here's the busillis. If the theory of punk as an attitude rather than a genre increasingly ready - and it was only 1976... - to become stereotyped is valid, the Damned of that very first and unrepeatable season were an extraordinarily punk band. Precisely for this reason, they contributed to revitalizing the dying music that surrounded them as much as their other peers. Maybe more.
Look at the cover of their epochal debut. No slogans or proclamations or much less politics, no provocative aesthetics and not even the angry sneer of a Sid Vicious. Just four cheeky young lads who preferred, unconcerned with an imagery soon to be confined to strict cliches, the youthful rowdiness of rock'n'roll boys who throw pies at each other only to lick them off each other later. More Belushi-Bluto from "Animal House" than Johnny Rotten. Not for them mentors like McLaren preparing the great rock'n'roll swindle, but a frank and rustic subject raised on bread and pub-rock like Nick Lowe, may he always be praised (note no. 2: someone someday will take the trouble to glorify him as well as other veteran lions like Brinsley Schwarz and Dave Edmunds).
In the twelve tracks of "Damned Damned Damned," therefore, the most genuinely sincere, desecrating, violent and sick spirit of rock resides. The same spirit for which it is rightly believed that in Detroit, well-known as the Stooges and MC5, as well as in Sydney, obscure as the Missing Links unknowingly invented punk-rock almost a decade in advance. If in those days, Iggy hadn't gone to "clean up" at the court of the White Duke but had instead happened to pass through London, very likely today he would not be alive but might have sung with those Damned. His rotten breath would have been the vital breath blessing songs that seem like genuine outtakes from "Raw Power" with the added value given by the explosive charge of those young idiots ("Fan club", the epic and unsurpassable crescendo of "Feel the pain", with Brian James screaming to the world what a massive bullshit it is to say that punks can't play). I also like to imagine the face of the average Seventies listener, the one well-nourished on Yes and EL&P, when out of the crackling speakers of the radio came surprising riffs accompanied by hyperkinetic rhythms and first-take sounds like in "Neat Neat Neat", "I fall", "Stab your back" or "See her tonite". Or the unprecedented martial intro to "New Rose", a cornerstone which is the first engine that motivated someone to form a band in countless instances.
Finally, since the "sins" of the fathers can sometimes rightly fall upon the children, here are the Damned grappling with "1970", a flagship of the Iguana and depraved family. Needless to say, treated in a seventy-seven style. More royalist than the king. No flights of fancy, no sax, no free expansions. Less than three minutes ugly, dirty, and bad as rarely (I say Radio Birdman, I say Saints) punk-rock was able to synthesize. Even changing the title.
"...Feel the pain... ...I'm doing just great..." Off with the stereo headphones, you could really go back to garages and streets.
The resurrection of rock once again passed through a damnation.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Neat Neat Neat (02:42)
be a man ,can a mystery man, be a doll,be a baby doll, it can't be fun not any way,
there can be found no way at all
a distant man can't sympathise,
can't uphold his distant laws,
due to form on that today,
i got a feeling then i hear that call,i said
(chorus)
neat neat neat,she can't afford a cannon,
neat neat neat,she can't afford a gun at all,
neat neat neat,she can't afford a cannon,
neat neat neat,she can't afford a gun at all,
neat neat neat
no crime if there aint no law,
no more cops left to mess you around,
no more dreams of mystery chords,
no more sight to bring you down,
i got a crazy,got a thought in my mind,
my mind's on when she falls asleep,
feelin' fine in her restless time,
then these words upon me creep,i said
(repeat chorus)
(solo bit)
(repeat 1st verse)
(repeat chorus twice)
02 Fan Club (02:55)
well i'm craving for a cigarette
hey gimme a light
feeling kinda thirsty
gimme somethin' that bites
sure been hangin' round here
for much too long
all you crazy people waitin' for my song
i said
(chorus)
well here i a-am
just another one night stand
anyway i don't know why i'm sad.........
for my fan club
waitin' for my autograph
well you must be mad
standing in the pissing rain
must be a drag
but if that's what you wanna do
i won't say no
and if you wanna see more of me
see me after the show
i said
(repeat chorus)
(solo bit)
you send me pretty flowers
while i'm slashin' my wrists
i'd read those little letters
through my smashed out mists
the dream i shock you
is my nightmare
i'm the freak that's on display
so stand and stare
i said
(repeat chorus)
03 I Fall (02:06)
i gotta full mon
a small room that i need
a candy store,a sexy whore
yes i bleed
a sifting sand,and an electronic hand
yes i'm mine
a souped up truck,a gobbling suck
yes i'm blind
(chorus) :-
but i fall........well i fall
well i fall .......yes i fall
my mind's a raging blame
a crying shame ,and i'm sad
a city of sin,a bottle of gin
so dog-gone bad
a cool reaction for the big attraction
that's fine
a messed up gut or nacked cut
yeah that's fine
(repeat chorus)
i'm a falling angel
falling down
be a falling angel
won't you come on round?
don't be scared to follow
it's no crime
you're a falling angel
before your time
(solo bit)
(repeat chorus)
04 Born to Kill (02:36)
i get a calling time of day
beat a lot,a lot of crime away
there's nothing baby i can't take
with that crime,i'm gonna make your body ache
chorus :-
it's no kind of big deal
no carnegie steal
i feel like no heel
well i'm born,i said i'm born
yeah i'm born,i'm born to kill
said i'm born,yeah i'm born
no i'm born,i'm born to kill
jet along and jive my back
don't tread on my toes and don't skid on my back
chedden bone chops are real fine fine fine
well take a chance honey,you can be mine
(repeat chorus)
born to kill,born to kill
born to kill,born to kill
05 Stab Your Back (00:59)
Stab yor back
Stab yor back
Stab yor back
Stab yor back
Stab yor back
Stab yor back
Stab yor back
Stab yor back
Well you used to hang around on the rails yeah
You know that was your patch
But there's a brand new kid in town
Never gonna let you gonna live it down
He's gonna
Stab yor back
Stab yor back
Stab yor back
Stab yor back
Stab yor back
Stab yor back
Stab yor back
Stab yor back
Well I'm gonna stab yor back
You aint nothing but a dead hag
Now that you're 25
Never gonna live 'till you're 29
I'm gonna
Stab yor back
Stab yor back
Stab yor back
Stab yor back
Stab yor back
Stab yor back
Stab yor back
Stab yor back
07 New Rose (02:43)
Is she really going out with him?
Ah!
I gotta a feelin' inside of me
It's kinda strange like a stormy sea
I don't know why, I don't know why
I guess these things have gotta be
I gotta new rose, I got her good
Guess I knew that I always would
I can't stop to mess around
Like a brand new rose in town
See the sun, see the sun it shines
Don't get too close or it'll burn your eyes
Don't you run away that way
You can come back another day
(repeat chorus)
I never thought this could happen to me
I feel so strange, so why should it be
I don't deserve somebody this great
I'd better go or it'll be too late, yeah
Ah!
08 Fish (01:38)
well i've seen you hanging round and round
on the streets with something on your mind
don't you think that i'm being fresh?
only want to lay with you
i promise you won't smell no fish
i said fish
well i don't want you to think i'm being obscene
when i say say say i wanna hold your hand
feelin' kinda cold,need somethin hot to hold
only wanna lay with you
i promise you won't smell no fish
i said fish
(solo)
fish,fish
well i've seen you hangin round and round
on the streets with somethin thats on your mind
don't you think that i'm being fresh
only wanna lay with you
i promise you won't smell no fish
i said fish
i said fish
i said fish
09 See Her Tonite (02:29)
1 2 3 4
she's no so clear,she's got nothin to say
it don't happen at all, it's not her day
she don't like art ,and plastic's a con
she can't stand fols who think it's right to be wrong
she's so cool,see her tonite
she's no fool,i wanna see her tonite
she don't fit in any so called scene
she don't like goin where she's already been
afraid rock'n'roll's gonna end up like art
she don't like endin what she can't even start
she's so cool,see her tonite
she's no fool,i wanna see her tonite
she's so cool,i wanna see her tonite
she's no fool,i wanna see her tonite
(solo)
she's no so clear,she's got nothin to say
it don't happen at all,it's not her day
she don't like art and plastic's a con
she can't stand fools who think it's right to be wrong
she's so cool,see her tonite
she's no fool, i wanna see her tonite
she's so cool,i wanna see her tonite
she's no fool,i wanna see her tonite
i wanna see her tonite ( 7 times)
11 So Messed Up (01:51)
one,two,three oh she's so
messed up,she won't even ball
well she's so messed up she has no fun at all
she's a sad case of hit and run
i think that i would rather fuck her mum
oh well her face is such a mess
the best thing she can do is die
oh well i'd save her the trouble
but i bet you'd still call it a crime
oh would you know
so messed up,well she's so messed up
yeah she's so messed up,so messed up
so messed up (9 times)
oh she's so messed up she don't feel the pain
oh she's so messed up she'll always feel the same
oh she's so messed up she don't feel the pain
i think ,no i ain't think,she ain' got no brain
12 I Feel Alright (04:26)
outa my mind on a saturday night
nineteen seventy is rollin in sight
radio burnin up above
beautiful baby,be my love
alright till i blow away
alright till i blow away
i feel alright
i feel alright
i feel alright
baby oh baby,burn my heart
baby oh baby,burn my heart
fall apart babe,fall apart
baby oh baby,burn my heart
alfight till i blow away
alright, till i blow away
i feel alright
i feel alright
i feel alright
(solo)
outa my mind on a saturday night
nineteen seventy is rollin in sight
radio burnin,up above
beautiful baby,be my love
alright,till i blow away
alright,till i blow away
i feel alright
i feel alright
i feel alright
feel alright
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