Released in 1970, “Back in the USA” is a strange album containing many
apparently contradictory influences.
Aesthetically, there are both references to fifties musical styles
as well as a the announcement of things to come.
Ideologically, the album is divided between the rebellious protest
songs that characterised the band’s association with the White Panther
party and the almost “natural” rebelliousness given by the raw energy and
tone of rock’n’roll classics, both cover versions and original numbers.
So the questions here are ones of aesthetics and politics, issues often intimately intertwined in the rock and roll world.
Of course, the evocation of “The White Panther party” may sound worrying to those unfamiliar with what it stood for. Beyond the party’s program of “rock’n’roll, dope and fucking in the streets” there stood the issues of fighting the establishment, especially in the light of the Vietnam war and it’s toll on the country’s youth (this is illustrated in one of the album’s most ambitious tracks “The Human Being Lawnmower”). Nonetheless, the “White Panther Party” dubbed itself a “revolutionary” party and that worried the authorities to the point of framing John Sinclair, the band’s manager and leader of the party: he was sent to jail on a ten-year sentence for selling two marijuana cigarettes to undercover cops. I think he served at least three of them, although it would be necessary to look deeper into the band’s history to be sure of that.
Hippie politics, even radical hippie politics are often a bit of joke, especially looking back on it all from our point of view. However, Sinclair’s trumped up prison sentence was certainly no joke. And this prompts us to try and view the situation in it’s context.
It may be simplistic, but it is possible to view the band as a kind of turning point from the hippie world down the road that would eventually lead to punk. The British punks of 1976 would come out with the slogan “never trust a hippie”, but then again, the MC5 weren’t really hippies, or if they were, they’d be hippies with a vengeance.
There is nothing hippie about the “Back in the USA” album. It is both electric and heavy. The songs are usually short and to the point. A production “accident” virtually cut the bass frequencies from the recording making the trebles stand out giving the record a light, electric, clear-cut preciseness that was later picked up as a new musical aesthetic by the punks.
With “Back in the USA” the band chose to step back from the outspokenness and political commitment of their previous album. Ideologically, the old, more demonstrative side of the band is found on two tracks “The American Ruse” and “The human being Lawnmower” however the band’s ferocity is perhaps less present there than on the more “classical” numbers. The songs are driven, fast and electric, tense with high-pitched desire whether it be in the reworkings of the two classics that kick off and conclude the album (Little Richard’s “Tutti Frutti” and Chuck Berry’s “Back in the USA”) or in the harmonies of their own numbers such as “Teenage Lust” or “Let me try” with it’s references to doo-wop. A special mention must be made for Fred Smith’s classic “Shaking Street” as successful in it’s rock imagery as in its concise and aggressive musical form.
It’s interesting to note that a number of the songs focus on adolescence
and even school (Tonight, Teenage Lust, High School…). It’s as if the band
decided to draw their power from the expression of adolescent desire.
This explains the fascination with the fifties formats because original
rock’n’roll was basically about that: the sudden sexual expression of the
young.
So here, the MC5 decided to harness this original power but reworking
it in their own revitalised format: drenched in treble, fast, explosive,
tense…
The closing song, Chuck Berry’s “Back in the USA” probably makes the
clearest statement on the album. Berry’s song is apparently celebratory
about the happy consumerism possible in the states. Whether it actually
is or not is a matter I won’t dare to broach at present. Berry is a fascinating
and complicated figure in rock’n’roll, both in his life and his lyrics.
Hearing the MC5 sing the celebratory fifties lyrics of “Back in the
USA” is somewhat strange and the first reaction is to remark at the irony
of it. At the same time there seems a clear nostalgic element in this song
and throughout this album with it’s emphasis on teenage life and high school
hops.
So, although there is obvious intended irony in the title song (“I’m
so glad I’m living in the USA…anything you want they got it right here
in the USA) it’s also a homage to the past, a kind of nostalgia of youth
and also a homage to the energy of the early rock’n’roll classics.