Every Song I Love is a series where I attempt to write about every song that I love. I’ll keep going until I run out of songs or die, whichever comes first (it will be the latter). I’ll tell the stories behind how and why I fell in love with each song, in the hope I can make you love them too.

I had a terrible habit of missing irony in lyrics when I was young I thought that what the singer sang is what they actually meant. A prime example was ‘Only Happy When It Rains’ by Garbage. I really believed that Shirley Manson was only happy when it rains, only happy when it’s complicated. Another was today’s song I love, Punka by Kenickie.

It is a scathing, hilarious takedown of the attitude of a kind of anti-mainstream, anti-success attitude. Specifically aimed at their former label Slampt, but perhaps also underground scenes in general. Despite lyrics such as “underground cliche, we never learnt to play”, I somehow mistook this for a celebration of that attitude and that kind of scene. As well as the lyrics, the fact that the single was released on EMI should also have been a clue it was not a promotion of a fundamentalist DIY attitude.

To be fair to Kenickie, it was not the fact that Slampt wanted to remain independent and DIY that was the problem, it was Slampt’s attitude to anyone who chose a different path. Releasing a tape called “Fuck Sell-Outs Up The Arse”, I would suggest is not ok, especially when aimed at a band comprised mainly of teenage girls.

Regardless of how justified Kenickie were in the mocking of Slampt, an attack on their former record company could easily have made for a dreary, mean-spirited record, but Punka was as far away from that as it could possibly be. It is a song of such verve and joy, that I can almost forgive my misunderstanding of its lyrics (although not really. The first lines are “Hey Punka, i’ve got ambition, hey punka, my one wish is to be as punk as you when I grow up, just dripping with sarcasm).

Punka sounds so celebratory, if you don’t listen to the words. The chanted chorus of P-U-N-K-A (punka) is irresistible to join in with. The song is full of youthful energy, to the point that I arbitrarily decided that the day I no longer enjoyed it would be the day I was no longer young. I was fond of such strange pronouncements when I was young, even if just to myself.

Punka was the first Kenickie song I heard, and they swiftly became one of my favourite bands. They featured a lot in the music press at the time, but the focus was all too often not on their music. They were young women, outspoken, not afraid to be glamorous or femme presenting. They were very different from the blokes who dominated the Britpop era who were generally dull, or dickheads or both. This being the nineties, their coverage was often heavily sexualised, and they were apparently offered money to appear naked covered in gold paint on the cover of one magazine. They were not taken seriously as songwriters or musicians. When Oasis wrote about Cigarettes and Alcohol, this meant they were both geniuses and men of the people. When Kenickie wrote about Nightlife, they were frivolous, unserious, silly young girls.

I remember going to see a gig by the short-lived Britrock band Cecil with some friends, and wearing my Kenickie t-shirt to the show. The singer, Ste Williams, came up to us after the sparsely attended gig, and asked me if I really liked Kenickie, and when I answered in the affirmative, told me they stood for everything he hated in music. I didn’t respond at the time, being a shy boy, but afterwards I wondered what he thought they stood for. Fun? Joy? Writing goods songs with actual choruses? Perhaps it was something he should have considered trying ,given there was only twelve people at his show, and he was doing his best to reduce that number by insulting the taste of his fans one by one. Much like with Slampt, there seemed to be this attitude of “how dare these young women pursue success on their own terms, by making music that isn’t exactly what I want them to make”

They were a great band though, for a while at least. Their live shows were excellent, even if the first time I tried to watch them at Glastonbury, the show had to be cancelled as the stage sank into the mud. They were also underrated songwriters and lyricists. As well as Punka, there were the anthemic songs about nights out like Come Out 2Nite, Nightlife and Classy, but also the bittersweet Millionaire Sweeper “now her kisses, full at first, ache like blisters waiting to get burst” and the epic Acetone. Their debut album At The Club was a great record. Not perfect, as you would expect from a very new and very young band, but way better than the debuts of most bands of the time.

It was not however, quite as successful as their label would have hoped, or as much as their impact on pop culture might have suggested (they were well known enough to be parodied on the TV sketch show Smack The Pony. for example). A second album followed swiftly after the first, which had its moments but felt rushed, and did not sell well. The stress of being in the public eye started to tell on the band, and factions seemed to form. This was especially apparent on their final tour, at which I attended two shows. Marie and Emmy-Kate led a cover of ‘Eye Of The Tiger’. Lauren and Johnny X performed an acoustic version of ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’ which suggests different visions for the band. At their final show Lauren announced “We were Kenickie, a bunch of fuckwits” and that was that.

Lauren put out one solo EP and guested on a couple of tracks by other artists. Marie and Emmy-Kate had a couple of singles as Rosita, but it seemed the music industry ultimately destroyed the desire of these women to be part of it. Only drummer Johnny X (Pete Gofton) really continued, putting out a number of albums as a solo artist under the name J Xaverre, and producing for other artists. If this sounds like a sad ending, it is and isn’t. They no doubt could have contributed more to the world of music, but they have gone on to be successful, and hopefully happy, in other fields, TV & radio (Lauren), academia (Emmy-Kate) and theatre (Marie).

Anyway, I’ll always have the music they did make, especially Punka. And what of my teenage self’s pronouncement that the day I stopped loving Punka would be the day I was no longer young? Well, I’m pleased to say that day is yet to come. The song brings me as much joy today as it ever did. So, I guess I’m still young? Perhaps I can be as punk as you when I grow up (if punkas ever do grow up).

Some of my thoughts on this were inspired by wife’s newsletter, which you can find here: https://alixbrodiewray.substack.com/