Two weeks at number one from w/e 31st March 1984
“You’re Already Dead” isn’t Crass’s final single – that would be “Ten Notes On A Summer’s Day”, released in 1986 – but it was the last one to be released while the group were a going concern. They entered 1984 in a state of disarray, burdened by heavy legal costs from the obscene publications court case around their album “Penis Envy”. They were also under the microscope of the tabloid press and the government thanks to their anti-Thatcher single “Mother of a Thousand Dead”, and their creation of a doctored recording faking a conversation between The Iron Lady and Reagan.
It’s impossible to speak on their behalf, but Crass were possibly beginning to feel the downsides of being a scratchy anarcho-collective living off their wits and little other external support. They may have operated successively away from the music business, taking matters into their own hands and surviving, but the more their reputation grew, the more interest they attracted from the mainstream media as well as the music press.
Music journalists in the eighties were, for all their critical savagery and their belief that they could make or break careers, pussycats compared to the tabloid press. They adored rebellion, and most were also niche publications, talking to an audience who understood their language, had sympathies with the idea of rock music being an agency for change, and generally didn’t get too upset about punk groups with hard-hitting viewpoints provided they weren’t fascistic.
Newspapers, on the other hand, were widely read, still thought of punk rock as being a possible threat to society, and loved the idea of singling out smart-arsed angry young men and women for a public flogging. That’s essentially where the Sex Pistols ended up in the late seventies, and in the case of Crass, typewriters in Fleet Street were beginning to become damaged by hacks bashing out feverish stories about these disgusting lawless vagabonds. In a flash of total absurdity, News Of The World were even moved to comment that the title of Crass’s album “Penis Envy” was “too obscene to print”. You hardly need me to highlight the stupidity, hypocrisy and irony in those four words.
It’s tempting to think that experienced warhorses such as Crass were able to roar with laughter, let these situations pass and even enjoy being provocateurs spreading their ideas to the broadest possible audience. I suspect, though, that they quickly found out that readers of tabloid newspapers are strangely unforgiving types, willing to apply pressure to the families of people featured in their stories as well as the individuals themselves. Penny Rimbaud commented in the liner notes for their compilation LP “Best Before 1984”:
“We found ourselves in a strange and frightening arena. We had wanted to make our views public, had wanted to share them with like minded people, but now those views were being analysed by those dark shadows who inhabited the corridors of power… We had gained a form of political power, found a voice, were being treated with a slightly awed respect, but was that really what we wanted? Was that what we had set out to achieve all those years ago?”
On top of that, the group were beginning to disagree with each other about some of their core political principles, including whether or not pacifism was a viable position. Pressure came from within and without, and the central supporting beam could not hold the weight.
“You’re Already Dead” almost seems like an audio souvenir of these contradictions and struggles. If The Jam had “Beat Surrender” as a farewell single where Weller set out his reasons for throwing in the towel – a very straightforward and principled address to The Kids – the very sound of YAD feels like a group falling into pieces in front of you in real time. It starts immediately with a cacophony of out-of-time musicians and screaming and swearing, before slowly finding its order and beginning properly as something akin to a sleepy, creepy anarcho-punk reading of the “Are You Being Served?” theme, as we’re told “Ask no questions, hear no lies/ And you'll be living in the comfort of a fool's paradise.”