Straight edge sentiments can be found in songs by the early 1980s band Minor Threat. This anti-inebriation movement had been developing in punk prior to Minor Threat, but their song 'Straight Edge' was influential in giving the scene a name, and something of a (somewhat unwilling) figurehead. Album information 'Straight Edge', a song from the Minor Threat EP, inadvertently inspired the straight edge movement. The song, while written merely as an account of MacKaye's personal views and lifestyle, was seen to be a call for abstinence from drugs and alcohol, a then-unusual concept for punk rock and rock music in general. 'Out of Step,' from the follow-up In My Eyes EP, further. Check out 'I'm Straight' by The Modern Lovers. It's about a guy who is straight edge and digs a girl who is into another guy who's a hippie (Hippie Johnny) and into drugs. Really awesome song. Lyrics to 'Straight Edge' by Minor Threat. I'm a person just like you But I've got better things to do Than sit around and fuck my head Hang out with the living dead Snort white shit up my nose.
Straight Edge History
HISTORY
By 1980, punk rock, one of the most innovative and confrontational music and art movements of the modern era, was careening towards the “No Future” refrain from the Sex Pistols’ anthem “God Save the Queen.” Pistols bassist Sid Vicious had died/committed suicide of a heroin overdose and a year later the Germs’ Darby Crash did likewise. The romantic “live fast, die young” mantra was increasingly becoming a grim reality, as many punks piled hard drugs on top of abundant booze, glue, and weed.
Yet from punk came hardcore, an aggressive, fast, stripped-down style inspired by pioneers such as Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Fear, and Bad Brains. And hardcore would quickly spawn a counterculture within the punk counterculture, kids who believed true punk revolution lie in not using drugs, in not drinking oneself to death. Despite its seeming anti-rebellious rebellion, straight edge punk persists as a vibrant element of many music scenes and as an important culture in its own right.
Minor Threat. Photo: Malcolm Rivera.
Straight edge (sXe) emerged in Washington, D.C., around 1980 as a response to the hedonistic and nihilistic tendencies in the punk scene (Haenfler 2006; Wood 2006). Some punks were drawn to the punk scene’s innovative music and art, anti-authoritarian politics, and DIY ethos but were skeptical of the prevalent substance use/abuse, seeing drugs and alcohol as self-destructive and pacifying. Hardcore band Minor Threat coined the term in the song “Straight Edge” and inadvertently outlined its credo in “Out of Step” with the lyrics “(I) Don’t drink. (I) Don’t smoke. (I) Don’t fuck. At least I can fucking think.” Minor Threat’s singer Ian MacKaye claimed that being “straight” (drug-free) gave one an advantage, an edge in life. Straight edge became a lifetime commitment to abstain from alcohol, tobacco, illicit drugs and “promiscuous” sex. By 1986, what had begun as an aspect of the punk scene developed into its own movement, with sXe bands such as Youth of Today and BOLD actively promoting “clean living.” Since then, sXe has spread across the world, from Sweden to South Africa, Japan to Brazil.
Straight Edge Song Lyrics
While straight edge holds different meanings to many different people, a lifetime commitment to abstaining from drugs, tobacco, and alcohol remains the cornerstone of the movement: no drinking, no smoking, no recreational drugs. Many also speak out against “conquest” sex, or using others for temporary gratification. Beyond these basic principles, adherents have blended straight edge with other lifestyles and ideologies. Many adopt vegetarian or vegan diets. Some avoid caffeine. Others combine their straight edge identity with (usually) progressive politics such as anti-fascism/racism, feminism, and animal rights. But substance-free living remains the bedrock of straight edge culture, a promise meant to be for life.
While straight edgers (sXers) exist in many music scenes, and some have little or no connection to music, many are or were connected to the hardcore scene. Hardcore – originally, “hardcore punk” – emerged in California (e.g. Black Flag), Washington, D.C. (Bad Brains), and New York (Agnostic Front) in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s as a faster, more aggressive style of punk, and has since become a global genre (Haenfler, 2015). It encompasses a variety of musical styles, but tends towards screamed or shouted vocals, relatively short songs, few guitar solos, and anti-commercialism. Straight edge, like underground punk and hardcore, fiercely advocated a DIY ethic. Bands performed at “shows” versus concerts, small all-ages venues with low door prices and less distance between audience and performers (both physically and figuratively).
Adherents of straight edge are most recognizable when they “X up,” drawing a black X on their hands with a felt tip pen. The X began its march towards becoming the universal straight edge symbol via the cover of the Teen Idles’ Minor Disturbance ep, which features crossed hands each marked with a large X, and it reappears on countless straight edge records. Originally meant to distinguish underage fans at shows so they would not be served alcohol, the X became a sign of defiance to self-destructive punk and an intoxicated culture more generally. While not every straight edge person walks around with X’d-up hands, many have X (or other straight edge related) tattoos or wear shirts with X designs.
While most adherents in the US are white and tend to be middle class, there is significant regional variation; Latin@s have a strong presence in Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, and many urban scenes and more diverse in terms of class and race, if not gender. The scene remains cis-male-dominated, though many women identify as sXe in spite of their marginalization (Haenfler, 2004; Mullaney, 2007) Despite their conservative lifestyle, manysXers are politically progressive, with participation in animal rights, anti-fascist, and ecological movements relatively common and many
Earth Crisis t-shirt
adopting vegetarian or vegan lifestyles. While many sXers eventually leave the hardcore scene and abandon their drug-free commitment (commonly referred to by sXers as “selling out”), a substantial number remain sXe into their thirties, forties, and beyond (Mullaney, 2012).
The live performance is where straight edge hardcore truly shines. The frenetic chaos of the punk circle pit reached new levels as hardcore kids incorporated kung-fu kicks, maniacal stomping, and acrobatic stage dives into their moshing repertoire. During the most transcendent hardcore shows the band and audience are virtually indistinguishable, as kids literally crawl over one another to sing into the mic, and divers burst onto the stage before catapulting into the melee below.
Despite a few high-profile straight edgers – professional wrestler CM Punk, pro baseball player C. J. Wilson, and, controversially, Metallica’s James Hetfield – straight edge hardcore remains remarkably underground. A few successful bands, such as Rise Against, Killswitch Engage, and Throwdown, have straight edge members. Still, since its inception, straight edge has spread around the world, with vibrant hardcore scenes from Indonesia and South Africa to Brazil and Sweden. What follows is a brief tour through straight edge history using some of the key bands and records to illustrate significant moments in the scene.
Gender and straight edge – not just boys’ fun?
Violence, crews, and … gangs?!
Media
MEDIA
Documentaries
Edge: Perspectives on a Drug Free Culture(2009)
A documentary featuring interviews with a variety of US straight edgers, including Ian MacKaye, Karl Buechner (Earth Crisis), Ray Cappo (Youth of Today), and Kent McClard (Ebullition Records).
Inside Straight Edge (National Geographic Channel, 2008)
Straight Edge Songs List
A NatGeo special examining both the “posi” side of straight edge and the notion of straight edge as a gang.
“There Will Be Quiet: The Story of Judge” (Noisey 2015)
A four part documentary about the enigmatic Mike Judge and a pivotal moment in straight edge history when positivity met militancy.
Foundational music
Minor Threat – Minor Threat (1984, but collecting the first two EPs released earlier)
Straight edge emerges with the 46-second song “Straight Edge,” a product of seminal Washington, D.C. hardcore band Minor Threat released on one of the pinnacles of DIY punk labels, Dischord Records.
Earth Crisis – Firestorm (1993)
Combining youth crew’s outspoken commitment to straight edge with Manliftingbanner’s direct politics, Syracuse, New York’s Earth Crisis became the face of vegan straight edge throughout the 1990s.
Scholarship
SIGNIFICANT SCHOLARSHIP
Books
Haenfler, Ross. 2006. Straight Edge: Clean-Living Youth, Hardcore Punk, and Social Change. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Ethnographic study of US straight edgers, focusing especially on subcultural resistance, gender, and considering straight edge as a new form of social movement.
Wood, Robert T. 2006. Straightedge: Complexity and Contradictions of a Subculture. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. Study of the many variations and changes in straight edge over time, based upon interview data and analysis of song lyrics.
Articles
Haenfler, Ross. 2004. “Rethinking Subcultural Resistance: Core Values of the Straight Edge Movement.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 33(1):406-436.
Mullhaney, Jamie. 2007. “‘Unity Admirable but Not Necessarily Heeded’: Going Rates and Gender Boundaries in the Straight Edge Hardcore Music Scene.” Gender & Society 21(3):384-408.
Torkelson, Jason. 2010. “Life After (Straightedge) Subculture.”Qualitative Sociology 33:257-274.
Williams, J. Patrick and Heith Copes. 2005. “‘How Edge are You?’ Constructing Authentic Identities and Subcultural Boundaries in a Straightedge Internet Forum.”Symbolic Interaction 28(1):67-89.
Other resources
Kuhn, Gabriel (ed.). 2010. Sober Living for the Revolution. Oakland, CA: PM Press. Collection of articles and interviews with straight edgers, scholars, and activists from around the world on the political potentials of straight edge.
Lahickey, Beth. 1997. All Ages: Reflection on Straight Edge. Huntington Beach, CA: Revelation Books. A book of interviews with many of the key musicians and other insiders who shaped the youth crew era of straight edge.
Peterson, Brian. 2009. Burning Fight: The Nineties Hardcore Revolution in Ethics, Politics, Spirit, and Sound. Huntington Beach, CA: Revelation Records Publishing. Features interviews with a variety of musicians of ‘90s era hardcore along with insightful commentary around hardcore politics and spirituality.
What is Straight Edge?
In the late 1970s and early 1980s a group of bands and kids began something that grew into a movement. It would become a movement that would outlive many of their involvement in the music and the scene. They didn't know what they were doing. They knew they didn't like what was going on around them, the self destruction, the self hatred, the pain and suffering caused by the punk mentality. The fuck you and fuck the world attitude didn't make sense to them. They took a symbol that was originally used to identify them as being too young to drink so that the bartenders would know not to serve them and they made it their own. So they started setting themselves apart by wearing X's on their hands and by singing angry songs proclaiming:
'I'm a person just like you
But I've got better things to do
Than sit around and fuck my head
Hang out with the living dead
Snort white shit up my nose
Pass out at the shows
I don't even think about speed
That's something I just don't need
I've got the straight edge'
Minor Threat wrote this song in 1980 and a name was given to what would become a movement. The basic beliefs that drugs and alcohol were not needed and should be rejected. That one should live against the grain of popular society and live by rules and standards from themselves and not the ones dictated by society.
Influenced by Minor Threat and other Washington DC bands like the Teen Idles and SOA, the Boston bands SS Decontrol and DYS took the words to heart and expanded on them and expanding Straight Edge's presence within the growing hardcore music genre.
SS Decontrol, Forced Down Your Throat from the GET IT AWAY LP
What's there to do weekends here
Go to a party drink some beer
Everybody's drinking why shouldn't you
Be a part of the drinking crew
CHORUS:
That's real cool you're a man
Forced down forced can
Forced down your throat
Forced down your throat
Conditions set conditioned to drink
Too much pressure just won't think
Look what's next smoking a J
Think for yourself break away
[CHORUS]
Do the hard stuff its real fast
Do it straight the buzz will last
Fuck off you I ain't no waste
Why drink that when I just can't stand the taste
The East Coast was not the only place where Straight Edge was starting to take hold. West Coast bands Unity, Uniform Choice and 7 Seconds were each adding their voice to the growing chorus.
Uniform Choice, Straight and Alert from the Screaming for Change LP
Who drinks the barley?
Who drinks the grain?
Who shoots that shit into their veins?
Is there really the need for the use of dope?
Does it solve ones problems
Can it help one cope?
All the above bands were active between 1981 and 1984. Things stalled at this point. It wasn't until 1985 that a band would come along and change straight edge forever and turn it into the movement that everyone involved today knows and loves. This band was Youth of Today. The record that would change it all was Can't Close my Eyes. During its existence youth of Today featured pretty much a who's who of New York Hardcore. Youth of Today shared members with bands that would define the youth crew and straight edge sound for years to come. Bands like Bold, Side By Side, Gorilla Biscuits, Judge, and Project X. These bands together would form the backbone that all modern straight edge bands benefit from. These are best represented by the lyrics of the song that named the era.
Youth of Today, Youth Crew from the Can't Close my Eyes 7'
Me you youth crew!
If the world was flat I'd grind the edge
To the positive youth my heart I pledge
X on my hand now take the oath
To positive youth to positive growth
To positive minds, to pure clean souls
These will be all my goals
Walk with me and my crew
There is so much shit we can do
And we won't stop until we're through
The Youth Crew era lasted through the late 80s and straight edge would never be the same. It was now a movement. It was more than just a set of personal beliefs. It was something more. It was more than words it was a force of change in the world.
The late 1980s and early 1990s found many straight edge bands becoming more and more political and more geographically dispersed. California saw bands like Inside Out, Insted, Chain of Strength, Outspoken, No for an Answer, Carry Nation, Chorus of disapproval and Unbroken. Seattle saw bands like Brotherhood and Undertow. The east coast had Turning Point, Mouthpiece, Flagmen, Crud, Battery, and Lifetime.
Brotherhood, No Tolerance (For Ignorance) from Fuck Racism, No Tolerance EP
So proud of your country, nationalistic pride
So proud of your race, prejudiced mind
If you so love your country why can't you see
It's made up of all people, no racial boundaries
We're dedicated to stop your ignorance
Band together to bring you to your knees
For your actions we have no tolerance
Your blind hate, prejudice, a disease
Beating up kids who don't share your views
Pull that shit with us and you'll lose
We may lose some battles
But we'll win this war
We may have sat complacent once, no more
The mid 1990s saw explosive growth due in large part to the pro animal rights, pro straight edge band Earth Crisis. The more metallic Bands of this era were One King Down, Brother’s Keeper and Strife. Many of these bands and people involved embraced a militant animal rights stance. It was at this time that Straight Edge gained notoriety, incorrectly, for advocating violence and a gang like mentality in places like Salt Lake City Utah. While misconceptions continue to this day, there is no truth or foundation in accusations like these. These stories were isolated and were blown out of proportion and ended many many years ago.
Firestorm by Earth Crisis was often misinterpreted and pointed to as an example of advocating violence in the name of straight edge. However as with most hardcore the song wasn't literal, but the mainstream press doesn't understand subtext.
Firestorm from the Firestorm EP/ The Oath that keeps me Free
Street by street.
Block by block.
Taking it all back.
The youth's immersed in poison
Turn the tide counterattack.
Violence against violence,
Let the roundups begin.
A firestorm to purify the bane that society drowns in.
During this same time period saw a Youth Crew revival spearheaded by Ten Yard Fight and included bands like In My Eyes, Hands Tied, Atari, Rancor, 97a, and Better than a Thousand.
Far less militant than the 'vegan warriors' of the time, these bands were positive and brought crucial and edgemen back into the lexicon.
Courage to Care by In My Eyes from The Difference between
Growing up not slowing down
Time got your best just look around
But I've found something that keeps me aware
A whole scene of people with the courage to care
Your youth is behind you
As if you were dead
Those times were good man
My best lies ahead
When I deal with you now
All I get is upset
You keep pushing me away
Something you'll regret
I know only a few have the will to stay sincere
Seeing different faces every fucking year!
The first half of the 2000's have seen a lot of ups and downs in both the number of straight edge kids as well as the number of bands. There currently aren't an overwhelming number of straight edge bands as there once were, but the ones that are around are doing it with all their heart. The bands A.18 and Over My Dead Body were straight edge super groups made up largely by members from earlier bands and all involving men in their 30s a rarity in hardcore and especially straight edge. Some bands that were keeping things alive and spreading the message, The Promise, With Honor, Casey Jones, Champion, The Answer, and Blue Monday
The Mirror by With Honor from their Self Titled EP
I've let tomorrow be a good excuse for
Not changing today
Looking over our lists of to-do's routines have gotten in the way
Day in, day out it becomes the same
I'm tired of standing for nothing and sleepwalking our time away
Leaving our questions unanswered
Or never asking at all
Could we be something more?
Than we are right now?
Eyes closed, shut tight,
Apathy has us by the throat,
Loosen the ropes and let our dreams take flight!
So often we let our dreams fall away but not this time... let's go
I feel like I've never wanted something so bad as this
Stand up and be something more!
We’ll make a change
STAND UP
No time to waste
RIGHT NOW
STRAIGHT EDGE