Ongoing History Daily: What was the first REAL punk song? (Part 1)

There is a lot of debate about who was the first true punk band. It’s…complicated. (We’ll get to the first real punk song soon. Hang tight.)

• Sci-fi writer Michael Moorcock called The Doors “punk” in a 1968 interview, but he meant it as an insult.
• Ed Sanders, the co-founder of a weirdo outfit called The Fugs referred to his first solo album in the March 22, 1970, edition of Chicago Tribune as “punk rock-redneck sensibility.”
• In March 1971, a rock critic Greg Shaw described a band called Shadows of Knight as having a “hard-edge punk sound.”
• A month later, he used the word as an insult against the Guess Who, calling them “not too imaginative punk rock and roll.”
• Another critic, Dave Marsh used the word to describe the singer of the garage rock band ? and the Mysterians in an article in CREEM magazine in May 1971.

But what about the first punk rock song? That’s a different thing altogether. We’ll pick it up there next time.

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