Originally posted by
[email protected] 02, 2007 11:45 am
What exactly is Oi!?
Oi is an offshoot of punk. Basicly remove most of the politics and replace it with songs about football, going to the pub with the lads, getting in fights, police oppression etc. add singalong chanty choruses. A lot of the Oi! bands were actually formed by members of football firms, The Cockney Rejects, West Ham, Blitz Man United etc.
The name was allegedly coined by Gary Bushell of Gonads, also NME and later The Sun, from the fact that a lot of the songs had Oi! in thier chorus. He acted as a guru for a lot of the early Oi bands, and organised a lot of the goings on in the Oi! scene.
It was regarded as more working class than punk, which was seen by some as a middle class trendy movement, all that human rights, anti nuclear stuff was just not on for the lads on council estates. Oi! also has always had a strong nationalist streak, even amongst the lefty bands.
The best idea is to see Oi! as a reaction to the the percieved infiltration of punk by the middle classes. As example The Busness "Suburban Rebels"
They're the sons and daughters of well off bankers
Tom Robinsons' army of trendy wankers
Flared blue jeans and anoracks
With yellow streaks all down their backs
Who act so tough when their on tv
But trendy wankers don't scare me
[Chorus:]
Oi!, Oi! Oi! Chosen few
This is what we think of you
Surburban rebels playing at reds
You would be urban terrorists
You don't scare us with your badges and banners
You know fuck all about heavy manners
You're the middle class kiddies from public schools
Who write the slogans on the toilet walls
Like Tony Benn's clones in plastic masks
You wave a hammer and sickle, never Union Jacks
Got lots of mouth when your in a crowd
But when your alone you don't speak loud
Blitz "someones gonna die tonight"
This is where the good times went
With his brains lying on the pavement
With a broken bottle in his hand
And another in his back
Do you feel alright?
Oi! Oi! Oi!
Someone's gonna die tonight
Oi! Oi! Oi!
Do you feel alright?
Oi! Oi! Oi!
The boys are out tonight
Was it something that he said?
Or his football scarf now stained red
Or the broken bottle in his hand
You will never understand
The Angelic Upstarts "England" *note the angelics are left wing
The red in the flag
is the blood that was spilt
in the way that your forefathers tell
And never a country been so great
The stories Britannia could tell
I never want to live my life
away from the golden shores
There's never a country in the world
with the scent of an English rose
England, oh England a country so great
the land of so fair and so true
There'll never be any colours like
the red, the white and the blue
Whenever you go to the far-off shores
there's something that goes with you
The pride and the joy and the love
that comes from your mother of red, white and blue
You could never be born under a flag
that's like the one of the Union Jack
St. George's spirit has never died
It all keeps coming back
England, oh England... [5x]