Grab it and change it,it’s yours: Affect,attitude and politics in 1970s Northern Irish punk music

Affect/attitude

Affective responses from participants were plentiful following the discussion of the practice of visiting a space of music. On the scale of the body, these sentiments purportedly arise due to an unknown cause, such as the ‘chills’; seemingly spectral. For example, when asked about the feelings and sensations apparent when remembering punk rock experiences, Dermot responded by referring to I wanna be sedated by the Ramone (1978):

‘I still get this hair on my arms stand up when I think about that.’

Whilst not strictly part of the Northern Irish music scene during the Troubles conflict, this provides an entry point for discussion surrounding the power of music in determining a response which may move beyond the ‘customary binary opposition’ between cognitive and non-cognitive embodiments (Robinson, 2013). Further interview data signifies that these ghostly reactions within the body are emphasised in the production of music, apparent as otherworldly sensations and inability to comprehend the cause of the situation. These spectral atmospheres are realised for John during his song writing process. He described it as follows:

‘sometimes you get this really mystical thing where it’s like somebody’s whispering in your ear, and they’re whispering lyrics and they’re whispering songs, and you don’t feel like you’ve written a song at all’

Equally existing on a bodily scale, this otherworldly affective experience informs the cognitive process of writing the song, as opposed to simply existing as a pre-reflective expression. The creation of a tangible, albeit representational, song is thus the interface for this transient affect to be passed onto the consumer. In turn, the consumer of the music also enters this spectral affective atmosphere, as Brian recounted:

‘you get this wee feeling… everything about that feeling, like the smell, the touch, everything, is of what happened maybe 20 years ago… it’s definitely some sort of emotion, but it’s just so intense… you try and grab it, and it just drifts off’

Brian’s description indicates how affective atmospheres influence cognitive thinking (Jhangiani and Tarry, 2014). Whilst the feeling, emotion and memory arise organically, there is a cognitive effort to ‘try and grab’ these non-representational entities. However, the spectral construction of these sensations inhibits attempts to apprehend and capture this feeling. The music, therefore, serves as a linear trajectory of communication, allowing for pre-reflective happenings of music to exhibit themselves in the affective atmospheres in its consumption (Bramwell-Dicks et al., 2013).

Remarkably, as evident within Brian’s comments, temporality in these fleeting encounters with memories is contested. The insignificance of the current temporality, in favour of a previous moment, underlines the role of these affective experiences as interacting with different temporalities. The present is thus rendered inconsequential due to the power behind the affective atmosphere. Brian elaborated on his experiences in the affective atmosphere of punk:

‘you just go into one of these wee black holes, that you would just stare into, and you would maybe listen to the music quite intensely’

The out-of-this-world imagery of black holes emphasises the spectral and unknown nature of the affective experience, providing the atmosphere with an ‘elusive character’ (Bressani and Sprecher, 2019: 2). Considered as a distortion of space-time, this notion of the black hole is sufficient in underlining the complexities of temporality in the affective atmosphere. Within this distortion, there is an opportunity for the music to be used as catharsis, whereby the affective musical experience permits an escape from the harsh realities of the Troubles conflict (McLoone, 2004).

However, these bodily responses cannot simply be understood as the result of pre-reflective influences following music consumption. Participants were clear, when asked about what punk meant to them, that an important influence arose through attitude. Brian was eager to comment on the influence of punk on his life:

“to me it’s the music, and it’s an attitude, it’s an attitude more than anything, it really is”

Combined with intentional attempts to hold onto the feelings conjured when remembering past musical experiences, this attitudinal behaviour exhibits itself through initial intentional attempts to hold onto these sensations. It is this initial cognitive intentionality which renders attitudinal behaviours as markedly different to pre-reflective embodiments, which are implicit within the musical experience (Gallagher and Zahavi, 2019). Thus, in place of a precognitive bodily response to the music, the involvement of attitude instead constructs actively changed experiences. These attitudinal embodiments exist beyond the realm of the affective, as they inform how individuals approach their everyday practices, providing a context for affective responses. Jerry indicated how punk music in the 1970s actively trickled into attitudinal behaviours of Northern Irish youth:

‘there was almost a walk that came with punk, which was a very passive aggressive, slouchy kind of way of carrying yourself’

Here, attitude alters how an individual interacts with space, affecting behavioural responses (Jhangiani and Tarry, 2014). In a context in which spaces of artistic expression were limited (Bailie, 2018), this attitude permits escapism from a current space and time, resulting from listening to the music or remembering musical experiences. There is consequently a transcendence from the fleeting affective experience during music consumption towards the imposition of attitude into everyday practices. Whilst this attitude is initially cognitive, over time it becomes embedded as a habituated behavioural performance, whereby it exists as a more-than-cognitive, or post-cognitive, entity. This therefore questions the assumed binary between the cognitive and pre-reflective (Robinson, 2013).

The conceptualisation of attitude as more-than-cognitive differs from attitudinal concepts in the realm of psychology (Jhangiani and Tarry, 2014) as it moves beyond cognition. Spatially, an understanding of how affective influences may permeate into everyday embodiments enables an exploration of how the temporal endurance of affect can exist in differing spaces following music consumption. Attitude is considered as an enduring evaluation of entities (Eagly and Chaiken, 1993; Hogg and Vaughan, 2005), consisting of affective, behavioural, and cognitive responses (Jhangiani and Tarry, 2014). However, attitude subsequently informs pre-reflective responses to atmospheres due to the interaction with affect; over time, this allows attitude to transcend into existing as a more-than-cognitive entity. Here, the initial cognitive choices of attitude, such as intentionally choosing to walk a certain way, or adopting a certain political stance, allow for the creation of new embodiments and practices. As time progresses, these embodiments are continually reproduced to the extent of exceeding the cognitive state, at which point they occur as a more-than-cognitive response whilst interacting with affect at the pre-reflective level. Whilst in agreement with literature pertaining to the fact that affect is the strongest influencer on attitudinal responses (Abelson et al., 1981), this conceptualisation contributes towards new innovations of attitude in non-representational geography as it emphasises that over time, the intentionality and choice inherent within preliminary stages of attitude are lost as attitude becomes fully embodied in a more-than-cognitive sense.

This spatialisation of the relationship between affect and attitude indicates that during the embodiment of attitudinal behaviours, there is still an active, cognitive move to impose these attitudinal traits into the way that individuals approach the everyday. These attitudinal behaviours therefore begin to encompass, incorporate and influence pre-reflective responses. After long-term experiences with music, attitude becomes embedded as a more-than-cognitive entity, in which it has affirmed itself within the individual’s identity. Affective responses will consequently arise within the boundaries of attitude, thus are altered and limited by these boundaries, which function on a longer timescale. The ‘radical openness’ of affect (Pile, 2010: 8) is thus called into question, as it becomes regulated by attitude. On the scale of the everyday, then, the mechanism which determines embodiments resulting from interactions with punk rock can be conceptualised as attitudinal.

Additionally, attitude exhibits itself both visually and non-visually, allowing the spatial diffusion of the punk attitude through visibility as well as through music. Whilst an affective experience may reveal itself through the aforementioned bodily responses, attitude can develop into a fashion, thereby entering the realm of everyday embodiments. By channelling the ‘fuck you attitude’, as described by punk enthusiast David, a purposeful response to Northern Irish punk is expressed through clothing, which differs from pre-reflective responses to the music. For example, several participants indicated how wearing a leather jacket contributed towards their identification as punk. However, this visual expression is attitudinal through the ethics of DIY (do-it-yourself) which has been widely noted in punk literature (Moran, 2010). Kathleen evidenced this DIY attitude, and highlighted that the nature of the visual expression was spatially differentiated due to the socio-political context in Belfast:

‘I had to go to a motorcycle shop to buy my leather jacket, because you couldn’t buy a leather jacket anywhere else… because we didn’t have the punk shops that London or elsewhere would have had’

The affective experience stemming from the collective punk identity thus creates an attitude, which is actively conveyed and incorporated into visual expressions of identity, thereby creating further positive, yet bounded, affective responses for the individual. The lack of technologies for punk expression due to the socio-political context generates a unique configuration of the affect-attitude interaction, as a result of spatial isolation.

In addition to affecting physical embodiments in an individual’s gait, Kathleen highlighted that musical experiences with punk in Belfast were impactful in a non-visual sense through the notion that ‘you’re always fighting against something’, in a more-than-cognitive fashion as previously outlined. The use of always, however, calls into question the temporality of this attitudinal mechanism. Unlike the transient affective experience, which is realised momentarily during the process of a musical experience (Elliott, 2000), attitude is stabilised. For Kathleen, intentionality in the knowledge that she is always fighting against something, which is cognitive, enables this stability through endeavours to escape reality. The expression through everyday embodiments of walking or dressing, which become assumed, advance the Northern Irish punk attitude into the more-than-cognitive realm. The constant temporality of attitude thus distances the concept from theorisations of affect (Anderson, 2009), which prioritise the spatialisation of the affective atmosphere yet disregard its endurance. This differentiation, even while attitude and affect can become experientially bound together as attitude becomes in-place, provides an understanding of the temporal durability of the punk musical experience on the individual.

Returning to affect may, however, provide an insight into the spatial differentiation which influences attitudinal responses, as the interaction with the initial affective experience instigates the progression of attitude into the more-than-cognitive state. Disparities in affective embodiment were evident between spaces of public and private listening. Angus underlined the agency within collective music consumption:

‘you might get goosebumps listening to a big song that doesn’t necessarily appeal to you so much when you’re listening to it by yourself, but when you’re in the company of three or four thousand people, and everybody’s singing it, maybe the power of that song really connects on stage’

The visceral nature of the shared experience exists due to a combination of the affective atmosphere at the gig, and the shared expressions of attitude. Whilst durable, attitude is evidenced to be altered by the affective experiences within it to provide intensities which are spatially differentiated, and stronger within the public sphere. There is accordingly further fuelling of affective and attitudinal intensity during the process of the musical experience, particularly when amongst like-minded individuals. Whilst attitude enables the musical experience to embed itself in everyday embodiments, it is therefore still ‘inextricably bound into the spatial formations’ of performances (Revill, 2000: 605). The performance itself provides the opportunity for attitude to gain its durable energy, which is required for the more-than-cognitive transcendence into daily embodiments. Thus, punk musical experiences in the Troubles were able to exert themselves on the scale of the everyday as a result of the durability of attitude existing as a long term, more-than-cognitive entity. Additionally, the spatiality of the musical experiences varied the influence of attitude on embodiments. This calls for further discussion of the role of the political context of the Troubles, to consider the relationship between affect and attitude through a political lens.

Political/apolitical

Mirroring the geopolitical issues evident at the time of the Troubles, the data revealed contradictions within the relationship between music and politics. While acknowledging that–in the context of the Troubles–taking an apolitical stance was inherently not only political but dangerous, our primary concern here is with how punk music itself was simultaneously political and apolitical and how its seemingly apolitical aspects became embedded and sustained as political implicitly: through attitude.

According to participants, there was a general sentiment that popular punk music should not have incorporated politics. However, overtly political songs were identified, through their lyrics, as influential on participants. When asked about personally significant music, Brian commented:

‘Stiff Little Fingers, Gotta Get Away. I mean, y’know, teenager, bit confused, why the fuck’s everybody fighting each other. And then, to be honest, they came out with Gotta Get Away, and I just thought I have to get away, that’s what I have to do’

These lyrics provide the fulcrum on which participants were able to simultaneously acknowledge the state of conflict within Northern Ireland and reject its ideals and politics, emancipating themselves in an anarchist fashion (Springer, 2013). The significance of escapism is thus emphasised. Additionally, the importance of this song for Brian ‘still to this day’ evidences the durability of the lyrical impact. Other lyrics from Stiff Little Fingers music were noted by participants as having an influential impact on how they perceived their socio-political context, supporting literature pertaining to the compelling nature of lyrics on behaviours (Lamarre et al., 2012). Wasted Life, for example, provides a philosophy which punk supporters may follow to oppose the social context. The heavy critique of the political elite, described as ‘nothing but blind fascists/Brought up to hate and given lives to waste’, combined with an intensely apolitical stance of ‘I won’t take orders from no one… I’m not gonna be taken in’, highlights the contradictions within a politically charged, yet apolitical standpoint.

The apolitical stance is threaded through participants’ responses, as Brian remarked on the political interactions with music:

‘Our band kept us off the street. It saved us from the gang mentality that was definitely out there, y’know? We had our own wee punk gang that had nothing to do with politics.’

Punk music is consequently evidenced to have provided a method of escapism (McLoone, 2004). However, Northern Irish punk music created a shift in power from the political elite towards the musical youth, in which the filtering of agency generates an apolitical movement which becomes inherently tied to the political. For example, the description of songs using the notion of ‘anthem’ constructs a substitute for the ad hoc political stance, as David indicated:

‘I kind of feel a bit of pride in where I come from. I mean, Alternative Ulster is my national anthem.’

Here, David clarifies that lyrics initially appearing as following an apolitical standpoint instead begin to reclaim a political view, in which the music acts as both a mechanism to escape to a utopia, and an exhibition of an alternative mode of living in Belfast and the surrounding areas. The lyrics of Alternative Ulster, by Stiff Little Fingers, comprise of imperative phrases such as ‘Grab it and change it, it’s yours/Get an Alternative Ulster’. In addition to calls to ‘Be an anti-security force’, suggesting notions of an ‘anti-everything’ attitude, there is the implication that there is indeed a political underpinning to the apolitical outward proposition.

Before conceptualising a political yet apolitical stance, it must be noted that not all popular punk music originating from Northern Ireland at the height of the Troubles simply addressed the conflict and socio-political grievances. For example, Teenage Kicks by the Undertones (1978) concentrates on teenage life, with no mention of the political context. The everyday, relatable nature of the lyrics creates an atmosphere in which the political situation becomes irrelevant to consumers of the song, contributing towards escapism. As Jerry described:

‘Teenage Kicks was revolutionary enough, because it was an act of defiance to be youthful and self-obsessed, and kind of, um, working to your own agenda, at a time when everybody wanted you to work to a given agenda’

The very notion of working towards your own agenda as opposed to an agenda imposed by the political elite, or sectarian groups, was inherently dangerous and instrumental. Despite its seemingly apolitical motivation, the ‘act of defiance’ thus exists as a political act, in which there is a rejection of commonplace political ideals in favour of a more prefigurative form of politics, thus reinforcing the notion of a filtering of agency towards the musical youth. This prefiguration is revealed within the attitude of musicians and music fans, evidenced within visual aspects such as their aforementioned ‘passive aggressive’ walk, transcending the spatial and temporal bounds of the act of listening to the music into everyday embodiments. Further, the gatherings of music lovers in apolitical music venues or record shops created spaces in which there could be ‘resistance against the establishment and against all the crap that was going down’ (Terry).

Resistance is central to anarchist geographies, which reject current political standpoints (Springer, 2013), thus anarchism itself contributes towards transcendence into everyday embodiments. The mechanism through which this occurs exists as more-than-cognitive, attitudinal responses, due to the infiltration of the affective musical experience into daily acts. The affective intensities felt as a result of the lyrical politics providing autonomy against the norm, whether explicit or implicit, permit the affective to interact with anarchism. This is also seen to occur collectively, emphasised by gatherings in record shops and Brian’s notion of a ‘punk gang’, supporting arguments surrounding the power of collective structures of feeling (Clough, 2012). Alterations of everyday behaviour due to affect-attitude interactions with punk music also existed on the long-term, ‘still to this day’, highlighting the durability of the relationship between the prefigurative and anarchism (Day, 2005) which is extended here due to attitude.

However, the incorporation of attitude to express the apolitical yet political nature of these prefigurative embodiments returns the focal point to the question of intentionality. Conceptualising attitude evidences that there is initial intentionality, which through long-term iterations of an affective musical experience becomes embedded as a more-than-cognitive entity. Notions of the prefigurative may therefore be reconfigured from their bounds of intentionality (Yates, 2015). With each affective musical experience, the punk attitude of rejection of political conformity seen in participant responses intensifies, however as this exists in the more-than-cognitive it is not cognised by the producers and consumers of the music, and consequently they will be unaware of their political stance. There is therefore a dual existence between the belief of individuals that they are embodying an apolitical stance, and the intentionality inherent within prefigurative political acts. Through affective musical experiences of punk rock, then, participants were politicised in terms of positionality, but apolitical in terms of attitude as intentionality becomes embedded. Attitude consequently allows this political/apolitical dichotomy to persist through everyday actions in the long term.

The sound itself should also be considered as politically influential. Participants highlighted how transferals of agency also existed as a result of the melodies of the songs, particularly in relation to the socio-political context. When asked whether there was a ‘Northern Irish sound’, a melodic, pop-like tonality was identified, bearing a striking difference to their traditional imaginations of punk music. Declan suggested the reasoning for this:

‘nobody came here, so we had nothing… we could listen to the record, but for some reason, whether it’s an Irish thing or a Belfast thing, we all came out a lot more poppy’

This spatial differentiation, in combination with attitudinal prefigurative politicisation by which everyday embodiments became an ‘act of defiance’, shifts agency towards the apolitical individual. It exhibits itself as the spectacle within the soundscape of the Troubles, as a ‘display of power which draws on and reproduces the symbolism of place’ (Smith, 1994: 234). The transfer of power may be considered as politicised as due to the constantly reproduced forms of resistance against the status quo. However, this emancipation was spatially differentiated to a greater extent. Participants indicated that sectarianism was left at the door of the music venues that existed in Belfast, with Kathleen commenting on how ‘it was about the music, and about the style, it wasn’t really about anything else’ inside the gigs. This apolitical attitude emphasises the escapist features of the music, permitting the music consumers to evade the sectarian atmosphere existing on the streets. The actual spectacle (Smith, 1994) thus constitutes the act of the gig itself, in transferring power into a prefigurative, accessible form before embedding as attitude. Whilst this permeated outside of the spaces of music due to the creation of a spatially and temporally extensive attitude, the ability to access political emancipation and empowerment should still be considered as spatially differentiated.

The consideration of the soundscape creates an opportunity to understand the melodies themselves as technologies of power, insofar as their ability to shape the (a)political standpoints of the punks. For example, referring to Ghost Town by The Specials, John (1981) remarked that:

‘it was only years later when I worked out this shift from the minor key to the major key, and the major key was retrospective talking about the happy times… I thought this is us’

The alteration of the melody itself is thus mirrored by a political realisation. The reference to ‘years later’ is emphatic in reinforcing the temporal endurance of this melodic power in reshaping Paul’s memories of the conflict. Spatially, on the other hand, the melodies have additional power. When asked about what the purpose of the music was personally, David responded:

‘um… escape. Getting away from the drabness of life. Because Belfast was very drab. You had a ring of steel of security grid around the city, everything closed down at 6 o’clock regardless. So, the music kind of… it was life is elsewhere’

This was reflected in several other participants’ responses, noting the significance of escapism within music in the Northern Irish context (Pietzonka, 2013). The physical denial of access to spaces within the city centre is thus undermined in agency by the power of the melodies, which hold the ability to traverse material boundaries by affecting both emotional and political stance. Much like the transferal of agency towards the apolitical individual, there is a shift of agency towards the sonic qualities of Northern Irish punk, which provokes a consideration of a form of nationalism to the music itself. David’s evocation that Alternative Ulster provides an alternative anthem establishes a substitute in which traditional forms of nationalism are rejected. Whilst national identity and music have been closely interrelated in the literature (Kong, 1995; Kearney, 2009; Wood, 2012), this conceptualisation differs as nationalistic qualities such as pride and belonging are instead directed towards the music itself, rather than reproduced through the music; temporally sustained through attitudinal embodiments. Efforts to be apolitical are thus reinforced as inherently political.

Consequently, the punk soundscape of the Troubles influenced both the producers and consumers of the music through affect-attitude interactions with prefigurative politics, permitting expressions of anarchist escapism. The durability of the politically charged, apolitical attitude, fuelled in part through affective experiences of lyrical and melodic technologies of power, rationalises the lack of intentionality within long term exertions of this (a)political stance.

Attitudinal anarchist utopia

Attitude therefore informs a politics behind non-representational geographical thinking, as affective atmospheres do not function in isolation, but can be refigured by habituated and politically motivated attitudinal dispositions. This politics is nevertheless caught within contestations, due to endeavours by the punk community in Northern Ireland to be apolitical in their attitude, which was itself a political act. In a broader context, this attitude and the accompanying melodies and lyrics become technologies of power, permitting long-term emancipation. Escapism becomes embodied through spectral and aggressive affective responses, reaching a state of emancipation through the prefigurative imposition of attitude into the everyday.

As such, a utopic geography emerges. Anderson defines this as a process towards a better existence, prevailing as the ‘not-yet’ and thus as ‘disruptive’ (2006:693). Efforts to escape through the music constitute the not-yet, whereby the affective atmosphere acts as a momentary encounter. Anderson’s conceptualisation is further supported through the emphasis on performativity, evident in both the affective musical experiences and the notion of the utopia. As the performativity creates new potentialities, these disrupt the norm (Anderson, 2006). This disruption has been evidenced in Northern Irish punk within the prefigurative rejection of politics, following anarchist modes of thought (Springer, 2013). Within the socio-political context of the Troubles, punk music thus constitutes a movement towards an anarchist utopia, through its ordered disorder.

However, this anarchist utopia becomes present and realised. Anderson (2006) claims that this is problematic due to the prominence of potentiality in a utopic geography, which results in limitations to achieving a full recognition of the utopia. Conceptualising this through attitude, however, enables an embodiment of the utopic process in a more-than-cognitive sense, thus infiltrating into the everyday performances of the individual. Here, the potentialities become embedded in performances and expressions of attitude, which are not cognised. There is consequently a realisation of an attitudinal anarchist utopia, spawned by the sectarianism within which punks were bound, yet sought to overcome. The attitudinal anarchist utopia realises potentialities of escapism which in turn influence affective experiences and actions, altering embodiments such that the world becomes experienced and performed as ‘something better’ (Anderson, 2006: 692). As this is more-than-cognitive, the emancipation is not recognised by individuals, which encourages further efforts to engage with performances that strive for an anarchist utopia, ensuring durability. The exploration of punk music in Northern Ireland at the height of the Troubles consequently evidences that music–aside from any explicitly political intentions–may become (re-)politicised implicitly in the long-term through the process of the attitudinal anarchist utopia.

While this is a critical utopia (Firth, 2019) in challenging the sectarian status quo, and it is a practical utopia (Purkis and Bowen, 2004) in constituting changes in inter-personal and inter-group interactions in music venues compared to the sectarianism that was rife on the streets of Belfast, it goes beyond both these forms of utopia in being underpinned by attitude, which renders it both durable and imperceptible. It is durable both within and beyond the music venue through the everyday embodiment of that attitude and it is imperceptible as a political stance and act because of its very attitudinal nature. While utopias have been deemed more appropriate and effective if short-lived and exceptional so that they don’t ossify, they simultaneously need to become embedded if they are to be more than fleeting in impact (Firth, 2019), and the attitudinal nature of the anarchist utopia of punk enables it both to endure in terms of everyday embodiments and to remain exceptional in performative intensity. This paper, then, both responds to the articulated need to advance theoretical perspectives on anarchist geographies (Springer, 2013) and speaks more broadly to the temporality and politics of affect and the non-cognised political import of everyday embodiments, contributing to anarchist geographies, non-representational geographies and political geographies respectively.