Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll
Encyclopedia
"Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll" is a song and single by Ian Dury
. It was originally released as the Stiff Records
single BUY 17 with "Razzle In My Pocket" as the B-side, on 26 August 1977
. The song was released under the name 'Ian Dury' and only two members of the Blockheads
appear on the record - the song's co-writer and guitarist Chas Jankel
and saxophonist
Davey Payne
.
cricket-ground. The pattern of work adopted by the pair involved Dury presenting Jankel with his hand-typed lyric sheets. According to Chas in Sex And Drugs And Rock And Roll: The Life of Ian Dury he would be repeatedly given the lyric for "Sex And Drugs And Rock And Roll" but Jankel kept rejecting the song, only for it to be at the top of the pile again the next time, only to be rejected again. This went on until Dury sung the song's guitar riff to Chas and sang the song's title in time with Chas's riff.
Sometime later Jankel heard "Ramblin", a tune by Ornette Coleman
(from the album Change of The Century that also included Charlie Haden
and Don Cherry
) and heard exactly the same bass riff being played by Haden.
Ian Dury once apologised to Coleman for lifting the riff but, as Coleman explained, he (or possibly Haden) had lifted it himself from a Kentucky
folk tune called Old Joe Clark
. An alternative version to this story exists: as Dury explained when he guested on BBC Radio 4
'sDesert Island Discs
, he had apologised to Haden at Ronnie Scott's Club for the riff lift, who responded by saying there was no need for an apology as he had lifted it from an old cajun
tune.
The single did not chart, selling only around 19,000 copies (a small amount for a single in 1977) but won critical acclaim. The original single was deleted after only two months.
Released as it was in the height of the popularity of punk rock
, the song was misinterpreted (as it is often is to this day) as a song about excess as its title and chorus would suggest. Although the single was banned by the BBC
, a number of Radio 1
disc jockeys, including Annie Nightingale
and John Peel
, continued to promote the record by playing the mildly salacious B-side "Razzle In My Pocket". Dury himself, however, maintained that the song was not a punk anthem and said he was trying to suggest that there was more to life than a 9-to-5 existence (such as in his track-by-track comments in the sleeve-notes of Repertoire Record's Reasons To Be Cheerful: The Best Of Ian Dury & The Blockheads compilation). The verses themselves are at times somewhat riddle-like, although always suggestive of an alternative lifestyle:
The title of the song became part of the English language and was later used in many other song lyrics.
in November 1977, with both tracks from his next single "Sweet Gene Vincent"/"You're More Than Fair" replacing "Razzle In My Pocket" as the B-side, and again in December as a free give-a-way to guests at the NME
's Christmas party that year (of which only 1,000 were pressed). This time "Razzle In My Pocket" was replaced by "England's Glory" and "Two Stiff Steep Hills", two tracks recorded live by Ian Dury & The Kilburns, the final phase of Dury's pub-rock band Kilburn & The Highroads. Five hundred more copies of the NME's version of the single was re-pressed for a competition the magazine ran but following this it was not available until Juke Box Dury, an Ian Dury singles collection released in 1981 by Stiff Records. Since then it has appeared on every Ian Dury compilation.
, Ian Dury
, Wreckless Eric
, Larry Wallis
and Elvis Costello
, five of their biggest acts at the time with the intentions of having the bands alternating as the headlining act. Ian Dury and the newly formed Blockheads soon became the stars of the tour (it was surmised that Elvis Costello
would be the main attraction having had chart success) and the nightly encore became "Sex And Drugs And Rock And Roll". A version can be heard on the Stiffs Live Stiffs LP released after the tour called "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll & Chaos", credited to Ian Dury and Stiff Stars'. It features four drummers and four keyboard players, plus vocals by Wallis, Wreckless Eric, Edmunds, Lowe, and Dury, and by the end (at 5 minutes and 22 seconds) what sounds like every musician on the tour.
Another live version can be found on the Ian Dury & the Blockheads live album Straight From The Desk, though much of it is not the song but Ian Dury introducing the band and their respective solos, with only the first half of the song and a repetition of the title at the song's climax included.
When Edsel Records re-released the New Boots and Panties!! album as part of a series of Ian Dury re-issues recording in Alvic Studios, London, the track was included on the bonus disc included with the album. It features two later Blockheads members Norman Watt-Roy
and Charley Charles.
of the phrase are often used in media:
The opening lines of the song are sung in the introduction to Ain't No Right
by Jane's Addiction
Ian Dury
Ian Robins Dury was an English rock and roll singer, lyricist, bandleader and actor who initially rose to fame during the late 1970s, during the punk and New Wave era of rock music...
. It was originally released as the Stiff Records
Stiff Records
Stiff Records is a record label created in London in 1976, by entrepreneurs Dave Robinson and Andrew Jakeman , and active until 1985. It was reactivated in 2007....
single BUY 17 with "Razzle In My Pocket" as the B-side, on 26 August 1977
1977 in music
This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 1977.-January–February:*January 1 – The Clash headline the gala opening of the London music club, The Roxy....
. The song was released under the name 'Ian Dury' and only two members of the Blockheads
The Blockheads
The Blockheads are an English rock and roll band. Originally fronted by vocalist Ian Dury as Ian Dury and the Blockheads, the band has continued to perform since Dury's death in 2000. Current members include Chaz Jankel , Norman Watt-Roy , Mick Gallagher , John Turnbull and Davey Payne...
appear on the record - the song's co-writer and guitarist Chas Jankel
Chas Jankel
Charles Jeremy Jankel professionally known as Chaz Jankel, is a musician best known as the keyboard player and guitarist with Ian Dury and the Blockheads...
and saxophonist
Saxophone
The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...
Davey Payne
Davey Payne
David 'Davey' Payne is an English saxophonist best known as a member of Ian Dury's backing band The Blockheads, and his twin saxophone solo on their 1978 UK #1 single "Hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick"....
.
History
The song was written by Ian Dury and Chas Jankel in Dury's flat in Oval Mansions, London (nicknamed "Catshit mansions" by Ian) that overlooked The OvalThe Oval
The Kia Oval, still commonly referred to by its original name of The Oval, is an international cricket ground in Kennington, in the London Borough of Lambeth. In the past it was also sometimes called the Kennington Oval...
cricket-ground. The pattern of work adopted by the pair involved Dury presenting Jankel with his hand-typed lyric sheets. According to Chas in Sex And Drugs And Rock And Roll: The Life of Ian Dury he would be repeatedly given the lyric for "Sex And Drugs And Rock And Roll" but Jankel kept rejecting the song, only for it to be at the top of the pile again the next time, only to be rejected again. This went on until Dury sung the song's guitar riff to Chas and sang the song's title in time with Chas's riff.
Sometime later Jankel heard "Ramblin", a tune by Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman is an American saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter and composer. He was one of the major innovators of the free jazz movement of the 1960s....
(from the album Change of The Century that also included Charlie Haden
Charlie Haden
Charles Edward Haden is an American jazz musician. He is a double bassist, probably best known for his long association with saxophonist Ornette Coleman...
and Don Cherry
Don Cherry (jazz)
Donald Eugene Cherry was an innovative African-American jazz cornetist whose career began with a long association with saxophonist Ornette Coleman. He went on to live in many parts of the world and work with a wide variety of musicians.-Biography:Cherry was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and...
) and heard exactly the same bass riff being played by Haden.
Ian Dury once apologised to Coleman for lifting the riff but, as Coleman explained, he (or possibly Haden) had lifted it himself from a Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
folk tune called Old Joe Clark
Old Joe Clark
Old Joe Clark is a folk song, a mountain ballad that was "sung during World War I and later by soldiers from eastern Kentucky." An early version was printed in 1918, as sung in Virginia at that time. Joe Clark was born in 1839, a mountaineer who was murdered in 1885. There are about 90 stanzas in...
. An alternative version to this story exists: as Dury explained when he guested on BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
'sDesert Island Discs
Desert Island Discs
Desert Island Discs is a BBC Radio 4 programme first broadcast on 29 January 1942. It is the second longest-running radio programme , and is the longest-running factual programme in the history of radio...
, he had apologised to Haden at Ronnie Scott's Club for the riff lift, who responded by saying there was no need for an apology as he had lifted it from an old cajun
Cajun
Cajuns are an ethnic group mainly living in the U.S. state of Louisiana, consisting of the descendants of Acadian exiles...
tune.
The single did not chart, selling only around 19,000 copies (a small amount for a single in 1977) but won critical acclaim. The original single was deleted after only two months.
Released as it was in the height of the popularity of punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
, the song was misinterpreted (as it is often is to this day) as a song about excess as its title and chorus would suggest. Although the single was banned by the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
, a number of Radio 1
BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation which also broadcasts internationally, specialising in current popular music and chart hits throughout the day. Radio 1 provides alternative genres after 7:00pm including electronic dance, hip hop, rock...
disc jockeys, including Annie Nightingale
Annie Nightingale
Anne "Annie" Nightingale MBE is an English radio broadcaster. She is most commonly known by the more informal name of Annie...
and John Peel
John Peel
John Robert Parker Ravenscroft, OBE , known professionally as John Peel, was an English disc jockey, radio presenter, record producer and journalist. He was the longest-serving of the original BBC Radio 1 DJs, broadcasting regularly from 1967 until his death in 2004...
, continued to promote the record by playing the mildly salacious B-side "Razzle In My Pocket". Dury himself, however, maintained that the song was not a punk anthem and said he was trying to suggest that there was more to life than a 9-to-5 existence (such as in his track-by-track comments in the sleeve-notes of Repertoire Record's Reasons To Be Cheerful: The Best Of Ian Dury & The Blockheads compilation). The verses themselves are at times somewhat riddle-like, although always suggestive of an alternative lifestyle:
- Here's a little bit of advice, you're quite welcome, it is free
- Don’t do nothing that is cut-price, you'll know what they'll make you be
- They will try their tricky device, trap you with the ordinary
- Get your teeth into a small slice, the cake of liberty
The title of the song became part of the English language and was later used in many other song lyrics.
Re-releases
The song has become a staple on punk rock, New Wave and Ian Dury compilations but initially the song was not available in the abundance it is today. In keeping with Dury's own policy of not including his singles on his albums, the track was not officially included on his debut New Boots and Panties!!, though a 12" version of the single was released in FranceFrance
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
in November 1977, with both tracks from his next single "Sweet Gene Vincent"/"You're More Than Fair" replacing "Razzle In My Pocket" as the B-side, and again in December as a free give-a-way to guests at the NME
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
's Christmas party that year (of which only 1,000 were pressed). This time "Razzle In My Pocket" was replaced by "England's Glory" and "Two Stiff Steep Hills", two tracks recorded live by Ian Dury & The Kilburns, the final phase of Dury's pub-rock band Kilburn & The Highroads. Five hundred more copies of the NME's version of the single was re-pressed for a competition the magazine ran but following this it was not available until Juke Box Dury, an Ian Dury singles collection released in 1981 by Stiff Records. Since then it has appeared on every Ian Dury compilation.
Versions
Stiff Records organised a joint tour for Nick LoweNick Lowe
Nicholas Drain "Nick" Lowe , is an English singer-songwriter, musician and producer.A pivotal figure in UK pub rock, punk rock and new wave, Lowe has recorded a string of well-reviewed solo albums. Along with vocals, Lowe plays guitar, bass guitar, piano and harmonica...
, Ian Dury
Ian Dury
Ian Robins Dury was an English rock and roll singer, lyricist, bandleader and actor who initially rose to fame during the late 1970s, during the punk and New Wave era of rock music...
, Wreckless Eric
Wreckless Eric
Wreckless Eric is an English rock and roll/new wave singer-songwriter, best known for his 1977 single " Whole Wide World" on Stiff Records. More than two decades after its release, the song was included in Mojo magazine’s list of the best punk rock singles of all time...
, Larry Wallis
Larry Wallis
Larry Wallis is a guitarist, songwriter and producer. He is best known as a member of the Pink Fairies and an early member of Motörhead.-Early bands:...
and Elvis Costello
Elvis Costello
Elvis Costello , born Declan Patrick MacManus, is an English singer-songwriter. He came to prominence as an early participant in London's pub rock scene in the mid-1970s and later became associated with the punk/New Wave genre. Steeped in word play, the vocabulary of Costello's lyrics is broader...
, five of their biggest acts at the time with the intentions of having the bands alternating as the headlining act. Ian Dury and the newly formed Blockheads soon became the stars of the tour (it was surmised that Elvis Costello
Elvis Costello
Elvis Costello , born Declan Patrick MacManus, is an English singer-songwriter. He came to prominence as an early participant in London's pub rock scene in the mid-1970s and later became associated with the punk/New Wave genre. Steeped in word play, the vocabulary of Costello's lyrics is broader...
would be the main attraction having had chart success) and the nightly encore became "Sex And Drugs And Rock And Roll". A version can be heard on the Stiffs Live Stiffs LP released after the tour called "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll & Chaos", credited to Ian Dury and Stiff Stars'. It features four drummers and four keyboard players, plus vocals by Wallis, Wreckless Eric, Edmunds, Lowe, and Dury, and by the end (at 5 minutes and 22 seconds) what sounds like every musician on the tour.
Another live version can be found on the Ian Dury & the Blockheads live album Straight From The Desk, though much of it is not the song but Ian Dury introducing the band and their respective solos, with only the first half of the song and a repetition of the title at the song's climax included.
When Edsel Records re-released the New Boots and Panties!! album as part of a series of Ian Dury re-issues recording in Alvic Studios, London, the track was included on the bonus disc included with the album. It features two later Blockheads members Norman Watt-Roy
Norman Watt-Roy
Norman Watt-Roy is the bassist for The Blockheads, previously known as Ian Dury & the Blockheads.In November 1954 the Watt-Roy family, including Norman, his older brother Garth and his sister, moved to England...
and Charley Charles.
Samples
The song was sampled in the 2007 single "Sex & Drugs" by dance act Slyde. The video features footage of Dury singing the lyrics.Allusions
VariationsSnowclone
A snowclone is a type of cliché and phrasal template originally defined as "a multi-use, customizable, instantly recognizable, time-worn, quoted or misquoted phrase or sentence that can be used in an entirely open array of different variants"....
of the phrase are often used in media:
- The book Sex, Drugs, Einstein & Elves by Cliff Pickover
- The book Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture ManifestoSex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture ManifestoSex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto is a book written by Chuck Klosterman, first published by Scribner in 2003. It is a collection of eighteen comedic essays on popular culture.-Overview:...
by Chuck KlostermanChuck KlostermanCharles John "Chuck" Klosterman is an American author and essayist who has written for The New York Times Magazine, The Believer, and The Washington Post, and has written books focusing on American popular culture....
The opening lines of the song are sung in the introduction to Ain't No Right
Ritual de lo Habitual
Ritual de lo habitual is the second studio album by Jane's Addiction, released on August 21, 1990 on Warner Brothers. Co-produced by Dave Jerden, it was the band's final studio album before their initial break-up in 1991...
by Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction is an American alternative rock band formed in Los Angeles, California in 1985. The band's original line-up featured Perry Farrell , Dave Navarro , Eric Avery and Stephen Perkins . After breaking up in 1991, Jane's Addiction briefly reunited in 1997 and again in 2001, both times...