Everyone’s favourite Essex based musical collective, Crass, released their third album, “Penis Envy”, in 1981. On the whole, and despite the “post water-shed” title, it was a departure from their more “difficult” or hardcore offerings on “The Feeding of the 5000” and “Stations of the Crass”. “Penis Envy” in contrast, was musically more complex and featured the girl Crass vocalists Eve Libertine and Joy De Vivre. The album, despite it’s softer sound and production, was a cynical and feminist angled attack on the patriarchy, marriage and sexual repression.
Well what did you expect?
Penny Rimbaud had this to say about the incident, in an interview with Vice in 2014
“We were recording an album called Penis Envy, the last track of which was ‘Lipstick On Your Penis’ based on the old standard ‘Lipstick On Your Collar.’ Penis Envy was fronted by the women of the band, it was a very feminist album and ‘Lipstick’ was about the institution of marriage being little more than prostitution. Having recorded that track, we realized it would almost certainly lead to a copyright prosecution, so we decided to completely rewrite the lyrics. What we ended up with was so convincingly schmaltzy that we had the idea of trying to sell it to a teenage romance magazine called Loving. It was one of those magazines which feeds lies to young girls, sets them up with ludicrously impossible fantasies which they can’t follow, won’t follow, and don’t follow. Magazines like that just create heartache, they remove young people from themselves, set them up to be knocked down.”
“Anyway, we called in at Loving’s IPC offices as Creative Recordings and Sound Services (CRASS) and said, ‘We’ve just made this recording and think it would be suitable for your publication.’ They jumped at it, saying, ‘It’s great, fantastic. We’re about to do a special brides [bribes] issue. How about us doing it as a free flexi?’ Which is precisely what it became. They advertised it as ‘Our Wedding’—an ‘absolute must for your wedding day.”
“They’d bought it hook, line, and stinker, but the lyrics were frightful, banal shit about the social fantasy of marriage, you know, things like never looking at other girls or guys once you’ve fallen for it. It was total rubbish, but they happily gave it away with their magazine. Now, what kind of loving is that? Shortly afterwards a friend in Fleet Street exposed the scam and the Star printed the glorious headline ‘Band of Hate’s Loving Message.’ I think there were a few sackings at Loving magazine.”
Coincidence? With Crass?…we would guess probably not!
I remember reading book called ‘Careers in the Music Business’ at school that had an interview with Andy N A Palmer. I didn’t agree with a lot of what he said (I was a working class kid that wanted to be a rock star, man) but the story he told about the Flexi disc did make me smile; I appreciated the subversive nature of it and the bare faced cheek. You tell the story a whole lot better than that book did though 🙂
Thanks Rob!