Have a listen to this song by Eric Idle, a very nice Python indeed.

How much more punk is this posh 62-year-old than the hordes of screaming fools currently clogging up “alternative” radio and TV? Oooh, look how loud and scary and metal we are! What are we shouting about? FUCK ALL! What are we doing to change the world? FUCK ALL!

Would the MTV punks risk their lucrative careers by deliberately baiting the current neo-Nazi US government? Would they take a stand for freedom of speech like Idle has in this song? Do they even give a shit about anything apart from looking cool in their glossy videos? No, no and no.

Remember kids – punk isn’t a set of trendy clothes, a musical genre or a wacky haircut, it’s a revolutionary state of mind.

If you’re an apathetic, apolitical, conformist dickhead, you can wear all the fancy clobber you like. But you’re not a punk, you’re a poser.

But a better writer than me summed-up all the above a long time ago:

PART-TIME PUNKS
Walking down the Kings Road
I see so many faces
They come from many places
They come down for the day

They walk around together
And try and look trendy
I think it’s a shame
That they all look the same

Here they come
La la la la laaa la
La la la la laaa la
The part-time punks
(repeat)

Then they go to Rough Trade
To buy Siouxsie and the Banshees
They heard John Peel play it
Just the other night

They like to buy the O Level single
Or “Read About Seymour”
But they’re not pressed in red
So they buy the Lurkers instead

They play their records very loud
They pogo in the bedroom
In front of the mirror
But only when their Mum’s gone out

They pay five pence on the buses
And they never use toothpaste
But they got two-fifty
To go and see the Clash tonight

Here they come
La la la la laaa la
La la la la laaa la
The part-time punks

The Part-Time Punks
The Part-Time Punks
The Part-Time Punks