Pure Punk Picks
I Got A Right – Iggy & The Stooges
Two snare hits and then the avalanche, overload of guitars cascade in eventually, met with a high-pitched yelp like someone stepping on the third rail. Then the music accelerates, the intensity elevates, the song grabs you by the throat and by some other lower, delicate areas.
I was around when punk rock first ignited, (and there when shortly after, it fizzled out) in 1977.
All the new punk bands whether they were in New York, Boston or London professed to hating all the old rock bands, the “dinosaur” bands that were still roaming the earth.
At the time I made a vow to myself to only buy punk or new wave albums and that vow lasted for many years.
But there was one band that everybody loved and took major inspiration from- and that was Iggy & The Stooges.
The bands that covered Stooges songs at that time would include: The Damned, The Sex Pistols, The Dictators, Blondie, Richard Hell & The Voidoids, Joan Jett and many others.
And everyone loved Iggy Pop. He was the true Godfather Of Punk.
“Death Trip” may be my favorite Stooges song but there’s so many gems and diamonds in the Iggy Pop jewel box that you can’t help but be dazzled by picking out any one.
But I will say that “I Got A Right” is my second favorite song by him and his band and it was never released on a proper new album. I remember buying it as a single with “Gimme Some Skin” on the flip side- another great, obscure song by the band.
This was released sometime between “Funhouse” and “Raw Power” when the band was in its prime. Actually, a bit closer to the “Raw Power” days as this is James Williamson on guitar playing that over the top, hang onto your seats, roller coaster of a guitar solo.
This song is a full blast of energy and passion, excitement and aggression- that just rips into your entrails like a wolverine on meth tearing into your internal organs while digesting and demolishing them to shreds.
This song goes for the jugular vein, goes for those round, globular objects that hang directly below your dick. Goes for the right spot in your soft spot only to tingle and tangle and finally provides for your lusty reaction before you explode into audio sensory overload.
My favorite James Williamson solo is also contained within this tune.
It’s a great- “Flying by the seat of your pants”, “Hold onto your hats”, cliff hanger before you topple over the edge of the mountain- wild, chaotic, wonderful mess of a guitar solo that crashes effortlessly and deftly back into the over stimulated verse chord riff that is so perfect and sublime.
And what do the lyrics say to me? And remember, this song was recorded in 1973.
It says that he has the right to be “anyone I want, any old time, no matter what they say.”
But it’s also implied that we all have this right, that we have a right to be whatever we claim or feel ourselves to be.
And it implies- You have the right to be gay, you have the right to be transgender, no matter what your gender was assigned to you at birth. You have the right to be dominant or submissive whatever gender you happen to be.
‘Cause you have the best perspective of what you feel of who you are, over anybody and everybody else.
And no one else has the right to tell you how you should feel, how you should act or who you really are.
I have a right to be anyway I interpret myself.
I have a right to expect you to accept me as how I perceive myself.
I have a right to not be restricted by gender on how I act or behave.
I have a right to be me without you judging my choices, without you influencing how you want me to be, or me rejecting your preconceived notions.
I and everyone- has the right just to be.
But also, I have the right to say this song sounds just as wild and exciting, so great and expressive as when I first heard it decades ago.
Actually, it even sounds greater and wilder now! So much so that it makes me want to take off my underpants and place them on my head, then setting them on fire, while streaking through my neighborhood screaming-
“I Can’t Find My Goddamn Pants!”
That is, until the authorities arrive.
But then, I guess I do that about every other week, anyways.
But for a song to hit me so strong and hard and true as “I Got A Right”-
Well, that only happens a few times in a lifetime.
(Slimedog)
