Armchair Anarchist

Album: Sleepwalking (1992)
Charted: 47
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Songfacts®:

  • According to a report in the November 7, 1992 issue of Melody Maker, "Armchair Anarchist" was deleted by Chrysalis while it was still in the charts. DJ Jakkie Brambles played it once, and faded it early, while many radio stations were said to have banned the song because it would have caused offense.

    This was not because it was sexually explicit:

    I'm a young transvestite
    I wear clothes that women like
    In fact I've got a lovely silken blouse
    That just gets me so aroused


    but because of the lines "Bomb the idiots" and "Viva Dynamite."

    Although this may seem somewhat limp, even for the 1970s, it was not so much censorship as human decency.

    On September 10, three British soldiers were killed in a landmine attack in County Tyrone, and there had been over a dozen similar outrages since, many involving the murders of both soldiers and civilians. Earlier in the year, "Give Ireland Back To The Irish" was banned by the BBC, and the following year, the Provisional IRA launched a bombing campaign on the Mainland.

    Although the IRA was never an anarchist group, the release of such a record at that time was considered in extremely bad taste, and unlike Cole Porter's "I Get A Kick Out Of You", it couldn't be salvaged by some minor tinkering with the lyrics.
  • An armchair anarchist is someone who is content to mouth off against the system, perhaps in a drunken rant, but never prepared to actually do anything. The Kingmaker song was the second track on their 1993 Sleepwalking album. A fairly uptempo number, it was an obvious single, and was released on CD backed by "Everything's Changed Since You've Been To London" and "Kissing Under Anaesthetic".

    In December 2003, a 12-inch promo version (on the Scorch label) turned up on eBay.
  • "Armchair Anarchist" was written by guitarist Loz Hardy, bass player Myles Howell, and drummer John Andrew. >>
    Suggestion credit:
    Alexander Baron - London, England, for above 3

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