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Very little is known about the career of Scritti Politti before their debut album, "Songs to Remember," released in 1982. In what follows, I will try to piece together the fragmented information I have managed to gather.
Their story begins in 1978. Between 1978 and 1980, they self-released three EPs. The songs on those EPs were not included in any of the subsequent officially released albums. It was only in 2005 that they were compiled in a Rough Trade CD with the summary title "Early." The Smiths, the Beatles, Belle and Sebastian, the Fall are the only other rock and roll bands (or "beat groups," as Green would call them) I know of that have a catalog of singles not included on albums. Green is the singer of Scritti Politti. We will talk about him shortly.
The titles of the first three EPs of Scritti Politti are "Skank Bloc Bologna," "4 A-sides," and "The Peel Sessions." The single "Skank Bloc Bologna" included only two songs, one of which was titled "Skank Bloc Bologna." I have listened to this song many times, because I like it and because I am curious since I was born in Bologna, but I have never been able to understand its lyrics. The music is slow, repetitive... ethereal like a dream. The back cover of "Skank Bloc Bologna" states that the record cost the group about 500 pounds, which is very little. This figure is obtained by summing the costs of each step in the production process, from the recording studio (98 pounds for 14 hours, including tape) to the printing of the first 2500 copies (the record had unexpected success and was soon reprinted). The other two EPs include four songs each, and no song appears on more than one record. Some of the songs were improvised at the time of recording; one of the songs in "4 A-sides" is titled "25-8-78."
The members of Scritti Politti between 1978 and 1980 were: Green, Tom, Nial, and Matt. But Green explains in an interview that many other people, including some "non-musical" ones, were involved in the project. Between 1978 and 1980, Green made extensive use of the word "project." Even Matt, although considered a member of the group, was rather an "organizer." As we mentioned, Green sang and played the guitar. Tom played the drums. Nial played the bass. Green's name was originally a regular name, but he replaced it with "Green" as a protest against something I don't remember. His last name, which he didn't change, is Strohmeyer-Gartside. Green grew up in Wales and enrolled in college in Leeds. He attended art school, where he met Tom. Tom had received a scholarship to study art, but decided to forgo it and bought a drum kit with the money. Nial was an old friend of Green in Wales. He still lived in Wales, where he worked in a laundry. He quit the laundry and moved to Leeds to join the band. Then they all moved together to London, to a squatted house.
Between 1978 and 1980, Scritti Politti were highly politicized. They were more or less communists. But later they changed, and in 1980 Nial left for political reasons. In that year's elections, Green, who was getting into soul and pop, didn't even go to vote. Although communists, they did not have a high opinion of Antonio Gramsci, whose "Scritti Politici" inspired their name. In a 1979 interview, Green says: "We took it [the name] from a book of essays by a guy named Gramsci, an Italian. Political essays written while he was in prison. He was a dwarf, hunchbacked, and died in prison in the thirties. Scritti Politti is not the title of the book but a bastardization of it. Politti is an English word, and refers to any group of individuals that come together to achieve certain goals."
Scritti Politti was an intellectual group. They lived together in a squatted house in London, would wake up in the early afternoon, have a good breakfast, and talk about political issues or the cover of the next single, which they would insist on doing themselves. Doing everything themselves was important because the music industry should not influence any aspect of the product. The cover is an important part of the pop art piece. Or an important part of the context. Scritti Politti wanted to modify the context. They wanted to alter the reality around them. They were an intellectual group. All this, of course, before they left Rough Trade to sign with Virgin.
They were interested in what was happening in Bologna. At the time, Bologna was (or had just been) the scene of a student uprising. People moved into squatted houses and embarked on artistic projects or formed new "beat groups." The groups had unusual names and sang in a new language, which, until then, had only been used by street kids. Through the street slang of Bologna's youth, the new groups showed reality from an entirely new perspective. What Gaznevada did with music, Andrea Pazienza did with comics. In March 1977, there were clashes with the police, and as everyone knows, the student Francesco Lorusso was killed. In the already mentioned 1979 interview, Green explains: "...the issues behind Skank Bloc Bologna will not immediately be obvious... not to everyone. Things like sexism, things like the messes in which young people find themselves, especially in big cities, like the degraded neighborhoods of London... and something of the difference between all this and what happens in a city like Bologna... I didn't want to analyze too much... the way the answers are not provided to young people in anything they encounter in their lives..."
Three days before Christmas in 1978, a journalist from Sounds visits Scritti Politti at their squatted house in Camden Town (Carol Street). The squatted house is a small chaotic space full of things and people: "chairs, dishes, shapeless objects cram an all too small space" (the messy room with books, typewriter, musical instruments, and an old dusty sofa, photographed on the cover of "Skank Bloc Bologna"). It's a cold, rainy day, and the only source of heat in Scritti Politti's house is an electric fireplace. They all go to the pub then, the band, the journalist, and their friends. Green, says the journalist, is tall and thin; he is always the one talking. It turns out that the money to produce "Skank Bloc Bologna" was lent by Nial's brother, who has a stable job. "The Desperate Bycicles convinced us. 'If you're thinking of making a tape, why not go all the way and make a record?'" (Green). In the interview, the Clash, Joe Gibbs, the Culture, and the Abyssinians are mentioned. At the time, Scritti Politti were interested in mixing rock with reggae and dub. The word "skank" appears in the title of an early seventies Lee Perry record, and it subsequently referred to the dance and ska music. Dave McCullogh, the Sounds journalist, concludes: "Someone in the sweaty pub says it's time to close. Once again, we get lost in salutations with the bartender, and we leave. The bartender thinks we're crazy, homosexual, dirty, dishonest, and too young. I think we're simply pathetic."
Later, in 1980, Green became seriously ill, and I couldn't find precise information about his illness. Almost at the same time, Joe Strummer, or Mick Jones, or Paul Simonon, contracted hepatitis, but without giving much importance to it. A friend of mine once told me that these things happened because during early punk concerts audience members would spit at the band performing, but it seems unlikely to me, that's not how you contract hepatitis. In any case, it's possible that the sanitary conditions of Scritti Politti were not optimal in the squatted house where they lived, and Green, who in the few photographs I've seen looks very thin in overly large clothes, ended up catching something unusual. He returned home and stayed for nine months in convalescence. When he recovered, he started writing pop songs. Then, "Songs to Remember" was released. There are some good moments ("A Slow Soul", "The Sweetest Girl", the latter also featured in the aforementioned "Early" CD) but overall it's a desperately dull album.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Skank Bloc Bologna (05:53)
Tell her to work at Tesco's
Tell her to stay at school
Tell her what's possible - all day derision
Down at the Bull and Bush
Hopeless in Harrogate
Over and above and she hasn't a clue
Twenty number six and she hasn't an answer
No one wants to listen and there's no one wants to know
Someone's got a question that she doesn't want to see...
...Knocking around at tea time?
Up in her room, alone
Something she doesn't know - the Skank Bloc Bologna
Keeping us all alive - something in Italy
Stuck around the home and they haven't a clue
Dinner's at six and it isn't an answer
Now, they've got a notion and they haven't got a hope
Rockers in the town - the magnificent six
Rockers in the town with an overestimation
Now they've got a notion and they're working on a hope
A Euro-ruled vision and a skank in scope
13 Lions After Slumber (05:00)
My diplomacy, my security, my hope and my ice-cream
My tomorrow and my temperature, my lips and my selfishness
My cigarette, my uncertainty, my penetration
My notebook and my limit, my importance and my glycerine
My customer, my function, my lawlessness, my charm
My hunger, my refusal, my tissue and my vodka
My ommission, my ability, my telephone and my holler
My relaxing, my distress, my bedroom, my cassette
My dictation and my pulse, my fortune and my death
My flake and my restlessness, my headache and my dirt
My paper and my charity, my rose and my pallor
My guess and my closet, my light 'n' my time
My worry, my perversity, my transgression
My temptation and my polythene, my gunshot [click]
My jealousy and my water
My demands 'n' my angels 'n' my waiting 'n' my distance
My death, my curtness, my insulin, my memory
My partner 'n' my sadness, my story, my wantoness
My wish, my despair, my erasure, my plantation
My white chocolate, my thoughtlessness, my gracelessness
My courage and my crying, my pockets 'n' my mistakes
My body and my sex, my gaze and my helplessness
My letter, my sugar, my homework, my walk
My records, my smile and my struggle
My reflection, my eyelid, my fragility, my discretion
My hair, my austerity, my tattoo, my demise
My fooling and my terror, my problem and my judgement
Oh my disguise, my tongue
My ownership, my formula, my property, my thought, my razor
My blessing and my silence, my lust and my practice
My sincerity, my penecillin, my window and my androgyny
My mother, my recorder, my pity and my posing
My light, my carelessness, my drummer, my drummer, my drummer, my drummer
My tenderness 'n' my car, my undoing and my history
My bottle and my drugs, my drugs, my drugs
Tomorrow, my temperature, my lips and my selfishness
My cigarette, my uncertainty, my penetration, my notebook
[breath] My limit, my importance, my glycerine, my customer, my function
My lawlessness, my charm and my hunger
My refusal, my tissue, my vodka, my admission
[instrumental break]
My ability and my telephone, my holler, my relaxing
My distress and my bedroom, my restlessness, my headache
My dirt, my paper, charity, my rose
My pallor, my guess and my closet,
my light 'n' my time, my worry, my perversity
My transgression honey, my temptation honey
My polythene, my jealousy
My water, my demands, my angels
My waiting, my distance, my death, my curtness, my insulin
My memory, my partner, my refrigerator
My sadness, my story, my wantoness, my skipping
My wish and my despair, my erasure, my plantation, my chocolate
My thoughtlessness, my gracelessness, my courage and my crying
My pockets, my homework
Like lions after slumber in unvanquishable number
Oh yeah
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