Let’s just start with “Silver Lining.” This song has
everything a punk rock song should have. It comes galloping out of the speakers
with a heroic drum riff and perfectly skanking horn section (courtesy of
British band The Q-Tips) like the national anthem of Punktopia and levels a
series of socially conscious, class warfare lyrical accusations at the listener
ultimately offering hope and a silver lining (get it?). Upon first hearing this
song I felt like there was more to punk than just The Sex Pistols and The
Ramones. This was substantive, hard-hitting commentary played with absolute
punk authority. Coming out of Belfast, Ireland in 1977 Stiff Little Fingers
really hit their stride with this, their third album in 1981. They claim they
were trying to produce an album of all singles, and in a perfect world, every
one of these songs would be a chart smash. Stiff Little Fingers never made much
of a dent on the charts Stateside, and, truth be known, they were never a first
tier band in the U.K. as history would have it. Damn though, listening to Go
For It now it is hard to understand why this band didn’t rule the earth.
Much of the difficulty with punk (and rock in general)
sustaining itself is that so much of the driving force is based on youth and
dissatisfaction and any band that hangs around long enough to get good at
songwriting and performing loses that angry spark that was the genesis of the
whole thing. Stiff Little Fingers have, to this day, toiled in a kind of
working-class netherworld of pubs and gigs that has kept them remarkably
focused on their original sound. Go For It is just brimming with great,
anthemic songs. Opening with “Roots Radicals Rockers and Reggae,” their revved
up version of a Bunny Wailer song, it is obvious that this was the very
punky reggae party that Bob Marley sang about on his hit; a group of
working-class white kids turned on by the elevated consciousness of the exotic
Rastaman. They follow with songs about relationships (abusive and otherwise),
politics, homesickness, pissing off the neighbors and many of the subjects that
informed Irish youth culture at the time. Songwriting mainstay Jake Burns is an
insightful yet self-deprecating songwriter with the common man’s touch.
Although they have been compared to The Clash for many years, in American terms
they have the urgency and writing chops of bands like X or The Blasters. There
is something comforting about listening to a band with something on their mind.
Musically, Go For It betrays a group of seasoned and
skilled musicians making highly energetic and catchy music in an era when punk
was fading and new wave was ascendant. Like their contemporaries The Saints,
Television or Magazine, Stiff Little Fingers were making music for a thoughtful
world audience, yet they remained a relatively regional phenomenon true to
their punk-rock roots.
- Paul
Epstein
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