Oh Bondage Up Yours!
| "Oh Bondage Up Yours!" | |
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| Single by X-Ray Spex | |
| B-side | "I Am a Cliché" |
| Released | 30 September 1977 |
| Format | 7" and 12" vinyl |
| Genre | Punk rock |
| Length | 2:45 |
| Label | Virgin |
| Writer(s) | Poly Styrene |
| Producer(s) | |
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"Oh Bondage Up Yours!" is the debut single by English punk rock band X-Ray Spex. Released in September 1977, it is regarded by critics as a prototypic example of British punk, though it was not a chart hit.
A version taped on 2 April 1977 at one of the band's earliest public performances had already been issued on a live compilation album, The Roxy London WC2, in June.
The anthemic song attracted wide notice and led directly to the band's first record deal—a pact with the Virgin label for one single.
Poly Styrene, X-Ray Spex's songwriter as well as lead vocalist, had been motivated to join the punk scene like many others as a result of attending a Sex Pistols concert—her first encounter with the band, when she still went by Marianne Elliot-Said, was in Hastings in early July 1976. Concerned with issues of consumerism and disposability, reflected in the name she soon adopted, she wrote "Oh Bondage Up Yours!" shortly after seeing the Pistols for a second time the following month. The lyrics combine a depiction of contemporary capitalist materialism as a brand of servitude with a "feminist [...] rallying cry". Styrene later described it as "a call for liberation. It was saying: 'Bondage—forget it! I'm not going to be bound by the laws of consumerism or bound by my own senses.' It has that line in it: 'Chain smoke, chain gang, I consume you all': you are tied to these activities for someone else's profit."
X-Ray Spex' instrumental lineup featured a saxophonist, unusual for a punk band. What made the woodwind player particularly stand out was that she was a girl, Susan Whitby, just 16 years old as of mid-1977. Band manager Falcon Stuart had helped convince Styrene that the presence of a second woman in the band would be a boon to their marketing.
Young Whitby's "freeform" style on her horn, writes Maria Raha, often yielded "staccato wails that faded quickly, like those of a sax player whizzing by in a car". Redubbed Lora Logic, her signature "rough rasp" would feature prominently in "Oh Bondage Up Yours!"
Richie Unterberger describes the single version's brief setup and raucous payoff:
"Some people say little girls should be seen and not heard," Poly Styrene solemnly intones. ... "But I think"—and then the voice suddenly rises to a scream—"OH BONDAGE UP YOURS! 1-2-3-4!" Then the band kicks in with all the immediacy of a custard pie in the face. Fuzzy power chords and careening saxophone bleats fight it out with Styrene's half-chanted, half-sung vocals, a mixture of glee and rage that periodically trails off into caterwauling shrieks.
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Wikipedia