Crass - Reality Asylum

CRASS - REALITY ASYLUM

Shortly after the release of The Feeding Of The 5000, Crass released their debut 7" single on their own record label - Crass Records - for the princely sum of 45p. Being so cheap, how could anyone not buy it? Reality Asylum was a version of the song that the pressing plant in Ireland had refused to deal with when due initially to go on Feeding Of The 5000 and after hearing it, it was very easy to understand why it had caused offence.

Sung - or rather, spoken - by yet another Crass member going by the name of Eve Libertine, it was completely at odds with any preconceived notion of what this Punk group called Crass should sound like. No Punk Rock record was this but more a soundscape, a cut-up collage of sounds taken from the radio interspersed with a child's prayer. And yes indeed, it was very blasphemous and in more ways than one: "I am no feeble Christ, not me. He hangs in glib delight upon His cross, above my body. Lowly me. Christ forgive? Forgive? Holy He. He holy, He holy. Shit He forgives. Forgive? Forgive? I? I? Me? I? I vomit for you Jesu. Christy Christus. Puke upon your papal throne. Wrapped you are in the bloody shroud of churlish suicide. Wrapped I am in the muddy cloud of hellish genocide. Petulant child. I have suffered for you where you have never known me. I too must die. Will you be shadowed in the arrogance of my death?"

The voice of Eve Libertine was authoritative, confident and sincere; pronouncing the words precisely in a calm and measured tone: "He hangs upon His cross in self-righteous judgement. Hangs in crucified delight. Nailed to the extent of His vision. His cross. His violence. Guilt. Sin. He would nail my body to His cross. As if I might have waited upon Him in the garden. As if I might have perfumed His body. Washed those bloody feet. This woman that He seeks. Suicide visionary. Death reveller. Rake. Rapist. Gravedigger. Earthmover. Lifefucker. Jesu. You scooped the pits of Auschwitz. The soil of Treblinka is rich in your guilt. The sorrow of your tradition. Your stupid humility is the crown of thorns we all must wear."

This in no way was rock'n'roll and neither was it a laugh or a giggle. So what then was it? Shock for shock's sake? Hardly. Therapy? Possibly. Expurgation of Catholic guilt? Not sure. An articulate and heartfelt attack on organised religion? Don't know.

If listened to carefully, it wasn't so much an attack upon Christianity or upon organised religion but an attack upon Jesus Christ Himself: "Lame arse Jesus calls me 'sister'. There are no words for my contempt. Every woman is a cross in His filthy theology. He turns His back on me in His fear. His vain delight is the pain I bear. Alone He hangs. His choice, His choice. Alone, alone. His voice, His voice. He shares nothing, this Christ. Sterile, impotent fucklove prophet of death. He is the ultimate pornography."

For those not already inoculated against Christianity through religious education and being made to recite the Lord's Prayer every day whilst at school, Reality Asylum would have been an ear and eye-opening experience, if not a shocking one. For those who didn't care either way about religion, it wouldn't have really meant a lot. And possibly for those who only saw Jesus and Christianity as pillars of authority, it would have meant a well-aimed and deserving blow. Whether or not it was the original intention, what it was in the end, however, was an exercise in free speech. An exercise, ultimately, in being able to express such things and of course, it fell at the first hurdle as in the pressing plant refusing to deal with it. Once finally released, it also instigated a visit to the house of Crass from the police who warned the band they may be breaking obscenity laws. In the end nobody was prosecuted for what was being expressed in Reality Asylum nor has anyone ever been but Crass certainly came close to it: "You sigh alone in your cockfear. You lie alone in your womanfear. You die alone in your manfear. Alone, Jesu, alone. In your cockfear, cuntfear, womanfear, manfear. Alone in your fear. Your fear, your fear. Warfare, warfare."

In its composition, echoes of Allen Ginsberg's famous poem Howl could be detected (for those who knew of him) and also an echo of Patti Smith in its last line: "Jesus died for His own sins, not mine." An obvious nod to the opening line from her seminal Horses album. Whether or not Reality Asylum succeeded in its intentions (whatever those were?) was debatable but for all that it was without doubt a unique and brilliantly controversial creation that certainly showed Crass to be 'different'. It revealed an 'otherness' about Crass. Something strangely dark yet beautiful born from an awareness of something more. Something better. Reality Asylum may not have been Punk Rock, but it was certainly Punk.

If Reality Asylum was indeed an exercise in freedom of speech that caused eyebrows (and for some - hackles) to be raised then the record's flip side was an exercise in raising questions - along with the tempo. With Eve Libertine again taking on lead vocals, Shaved Women starts with her screaming out like a clarion call to the world: "Shaved women collaborators!" Then to the sound of a hurtling train the phrase "screaming babies, screaming babies" picks up the rhythm and runs with it accompanied by Eve continuing to scream: "Shaved women collaborators, shaved women are they traitors? Dead bodies all around. Shaved women instigators, shaved women shooting dope. Shaved women disco dancing."

The whole track is startling in its ferocious passion though the actual meaning of it can only really be gauged by the photo montage on the back of the record's sleeve depicting a shaven-headed woman clutching a swaddled baby, depicted as running before a group of nuns led by a Seig-Heiling clergyman. The cropped image is taken from an iconic photograph by Robert Capa revealing the dark side of liberation from the Nazi occupation of France at the end of World War Two when thousands of women were accused of collaboration though without any form of trial. As punishment they had been beaten, spat upon, and ritualistically shorn of their hair. Whether they deserved to be treated in such a manner has always been an ongoing debate among historians but one thing has always been clear: the retribution administered was completely misogynist in nature.

So, if this was possibly the subject matter of the song then the sound of a train throughout it was presumably a representation of a Nazi death camp-bound train? In terms of rock'n'roll, where had such an idea for a song sprung from? This was totally and absolutely like nothing before. Just who the fuck were Crass?

"In all your decadence people die!" screams Eve near-hysterically into infinity, as the listener is left with the sense that this song with Eve's vocals is something really quite astonishing. But in whose decadence was it that people die? The individual listener's? Society's at large? The Western world's? God's decadence? And where did shooting dope and disco dancing come into it?

Shaved Women was a classic slice of Crass at their best. Nobody was quite prepared, however, for what was to come next: the debut album from Crass - a double album at that, retailing for just £3.00 - entitled Stations Of The Crass....