Paul Gorman is…

Revised and updated with fresh links: My marathon trawl through the references in You’re Gonna Wake Up One Morning And Know What Side Of The Bed You’ve Been Lying On!

“It didn’t matter what side of the bed you were lying on, as long as you were lying on it. Everybody from (author/actress) Anne Lambton to (Sex Pistols guitarist) Kutie Jones to (socialite and writer) Anthony Haden-Guest – they were all flattered. Just goes to show how everyone loves to have their moment – good, bad or indifferent.”

Malcolm McLaren, The Look, 2006

It’s coming up to five years since I posted my marathon dissection – including extensively researched links to sources and references – of the divisive 1970s punk manifesto t-shirt design You’re Gonna Wake Up One Morning And Know What Side Of The Bed You’ve Been Lying On!

Here is a new version of that post, revised and updated with fresh links.

Enjoy!

Sixty years after Blast, the You’re Gonna Wake Up list t-shirt adopted a similarly truculent tone in an attempt to ring the alarms amid a culture rendered flaccid by the failure of the 60s dream.

You’re Gonna Wake Up – which went on sale in Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s boutique Sex at 430 King’s Road in the autumn of 1974 – was conceived by fellow traveller and soon-to-be manager of The Clash Bernie Rhodes and realised with contributions from McLaren and their friend Gerry Goldstein.

Of course, it is best known for carrying the band name McLaren had recently granted to a bunch of teenagers hanging around the shop: “Kutie Jones and his SEX PISTOLS”.

I investigated the history of this design in THE LOOK and also here. By publishing the list with links I’m diving deeper to demonstrate not only the tract’s range beyond popular culture but also the resonances felt today.

Among those referenced in the text are artists David Holmes, Mel Ramos, John Lacey (COUM Transmission’s technical director also known as John Gunni Busck) and Patrick Heron as well as the literature of Alfred Bester, David Cooper, George Dangerfield, Konstantin Paustovsky and Bernard Wolfe, the work of radical journalists Alexander Cockburn and Mervin Jones and the campaigning of political activists Pat Arrowsmith and Marian and Doloures Price.

Such content dates the compilation to October 1974: The Guardian published Heron’s 14,000-word Tate critique over consecutive days between the 12th and 14th of that month; the shirt itself mentions a piece by Jones in the New Statesman on October 4th and also an Elton John interview in the NME on September 25 (in fact the issue was dated September 28).

Alongside the call-girl phone number taken from a card in a local newsagents there are such quizzical nods as that to former Playboy Club UK head Victor Lownes: “To be avoided first thing in the morning”.

Is this because one of the contributors had encountered him leaving his club Stocks, just a few hundred yards from Sex along the King’s Road?

It’s worth pointing out Lownes was to earn the soubriquet “Disgusting” from Private Eye (whose distribution problems with WH Smith at that time are described as “censorship”).

Is “D.H.” DH Lawrence? Who was Mal Huff? And why did automotive manufacturer GKN come in for a kicking? Was this down to foreign investments or had Rhodes had a run-in with the company as a result of operating his Renault dealership in Camden Town? Undoubtedly it was he who contributed the reference to the UK’s long-established French car dealer Arthur Prince.

It is only right that questions remain about this multi-layered slice of invective; 41 years after the fact, You’re Gonna Wake Up retains mystery as it portrays a divided country and fragmented culture.

First up are the “blasted”, followed by the “blessed”. NOTE: spelling mistakes etc have been retained.

ygwuhates

//A selection of those on the wrong side of the bed//

Television (not the group)/Mick Jagger/The Liberal Party/John Betjeman/

George Melly /Kenny & Cash/Michael Caine/Charles Forte/Sat nights in Oxford

Street/SECURICOR impotence or complacency (slogan & Robert Carr)/Parking

tickets/19, Honey, Harpers, Vogue in fact all magazines that treat their

readers as idiots/Bryan Ferry/Salvador Dali/A Touch of Class/BRUT for –

who cares?/Peregrine Worsthorne, Monty Modlyn, John Braine, Hughie

Greene/The Presidents Men/Lord Carrington/The Playboy Club/Alan Brien/

Anthony Haden-Guest, Vic Lownes, to be avoided first thing in the

morning/ANTIQUARIUS and all it stands for/Michael Roberts/POP STARS

who are thick and useless/YES/Leo Sayer/David Essex/Top Of The Pops/

Rod Stewart oh for money and an audience/Elton John – quote in NME

25 Sept re birthday spending/West End shopping/Stirling Cooper,

Jean Junction, BROWNS, Take Six, C&A/Mars bars/Good Fun

entertainment when it’s really not good or not funny Bernard Delfont

a passive audience/arse lickers/John Osborne Harry Pinter Max

Bygraves Melvyn Bragg Philip Jenkinson the ICA and its symposiums

John Schlesinger Andre Previn David Frost Peter Bogdanovich/

Capital Radio/The Village Trousershop (sorry bookshop)/The

narrow monopoly of media causing harmless creativity to

appear subversive/THE ARTS COUNCIL/Head of the Metropolitan

Police/Synthetic foods/Tate & Lyle/Corrupt councillors/

G.K.N./Grey skies/Dirty books that aren’t all that

dirty/Andy Warhol/Nigel Waymouth David Hockney and

Victorianism/The Stock Exchange/Ossie Clark/The Rag

Trade/E.L.P./Antiques of any sort/Housing Trusts who

profit by bad housing/Bianca Jagger/Fellini/John

Dunbar/J. Arthur’s/Tramps/Dingwalls without H/

Busby Berkeley MOVIES/Sir Keith Joseph and his

sensational speeches/National Front/ W. H. Smith

Censorship/Chris Welch and his lost Melody

Makers/Clockwork soul routines/Bob Harris (or

the sniffling Whistler as we know him) /

The job you hate but are too scared to

pack in/Interview magazine–Peter

Lester/rich boys dressed as poor boys/

Chelita Secunda, Nicky Weymouth, June Bolan, Pauline Fordham halitosis/Rose

& Anne Lambton Chinless people/Antonia Frazer/Derek Marlow/Anne

Scott-James/Sydney Edwards/Christopher Logue/Osbert

Lancaster/Shaw Taylor whispering

grass/The Archers/BIBAS/Old

clothes old ideas and all this resting in the country business/The

suburbs/The Divine

Light Mission/All those

fucking saints.

ygwuloves

///And some of those on the right side//

Eddie

Cochran/

Christine

Keeler/Susan

602 2509/My

monster in black

tights/Raw Power

Society For Cutting Up Men/

RUBBER Robin Hood

Ronnie Biggs BRAZIL/

Jamaican Rude Boys/Bamboo

Records/Coffee bars that

sell whiskey under the

counter/THE SCENE – Ham

Yard/Point Blank/Monica

the girl who stole those paintings/

Legal Aid – when

you can get it/Pat Arrowsmith/

Valerie Solanis/The Price

Sisters/Mervin Jones article The

Challenge To Capitalism in New

Statesman 4th Oct. 74/Buenoventura

Durutti The Black Hand Gang/Archie

Shepp Muhammed Ali Bob Marley Jimi

Hendrix Sam Cooke/Kutie Jones and his

SEX PISTOLS/This country is run by a group of fascists so said Gene Vincent in

a 1955 US radio interview/Seven Days

with Alexander Cockburn/Olympia Press/

Strange Death of Liberal England –

Dangerfield/Mrs Scully love goddess from Shepherds Bush her house slaves and Search

magazine/Labour Exchanges as your local/FREE

RADIO stations/A chance to do it for more than a

month without being ripped off/The Anarchist Spray

Ballet/Lenny Bruce/Joe Orton/Ed Albee/Paustovsky/ Iggy

Pop/John Coltrane/Spunky James Brown/Dewey Redman/

KING TUBBY’S sound system/Zoot suits and dreadlocks/Kilburn

& the High Roads/Four Aces Dalston/Limbo 90 -Wolfe/Tiger

Tiger–Bester/Bizarre Humphries/Woolf -Wavee/Walt Whitman poet/

Exupery, Simone de Beauvoir, Dashiell Hammett, Dave Cooper, Nick

Kent, Carl Gayle writers/Mel Ramos painter/David Holmes the newsman/Mal

Dean cartoonist/Guy Stevens records/Mal Huff funny stories/D.H./Valve

amps/Art Prince/Marianne Faithfull/Jim Morrison/Alex Trocchi –

Young Adam/Patrick Heron v. The Tate Gallery and all those

American businesslike painters/Lady Sinthia 908 5569/

Experiment with Time – Dunne/John Lacey and his boiled book v. St Martin’s Art School experiment to be seen in New York.

Imagination…

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