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 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 the Ornette Coleman tune "Ramblin", (from his album Change of The Century, which included also 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's Desert 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 Records' 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.
Read more about this topic: Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll
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