The Birth of the Band

Bow Wow Wow was the creation of former Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren. Joshua Lyon’s “Annabella Lwin and the History of Bow Wow Wow” illustrates the strings McLaren pulled to complete his vision (2016). Rising British band Adam and the Ants hired McLaren, but he had plans of his own, convincing drummer David Barbarossa, guitarist Matthew Ashman, and bassist Leigh Gorman to leave Adam Ant’s band and form Bow Wow Wow. In search of a lead singer, McLaren lucked out when a coworker overheard a girl’s beautiful voice at a dry cleaners. That girl was Annabella Lwin, who at the young age of 13 would become the face of Bow Wow Wow. McLaren considered her youth to be a great opportunity for the band, as she was more willing to express herself confidently and less likely to act self-consciously. Interestingly, Lwin had no professional singing background and did not know how to work with a band, which led to a number of conflicts in the early days of Bow Wow Wow. 

Not long before forming Bow Wow Wow, McLaren had stumbled across the 1971 track “Burundi Black,” which consisted of a number of other instruments layered over a sample of Burundi drummers that had been recorded by French anthropologists a decade before. McLaren fell in love with the African drumming sound and heavily pushed this musical influence onto Bow Wow Wow, resulting in him facing a number of accusations for cultural appropriation and musical piracy. 

Bow Wow Wow’s See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Join Your Gang Yeah, City All Over! Go Ape Crazy! album cover is a parody of Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe. This parody of Manet’s piece relates to the band’s antagonistic behavior as Manet’s piece was controversial in its time because of the nudity in the work. Bow Wow Wow utilizes this connection to emphasize their efforts in anti-establishment and striking controversy as Lwin is nude in the album cover and was underage.^[1]Bow Wow Wow. See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Join Your Gang Yeah, City All Over! Go Ape Crazy! RCA, 1981.

“C30, C60, C90, Go!”

The demand for new wave music predominantly originated from young people, and “C30, C60, C90, Go!” was a perfect overlap of rebellious messages and a marketable product. The lyrics explicitly speak to the benefits of piracy, introducing the convenience of never needing to spend money on music again, while also referencing running away from the police. While piracy is likely not dangerous on an individual level, Bow Wow Wow personified pirates as criminals on the run to evoke the ‘bad boy’ rush associated with punk music. The song functioned as a relatively safe way for kids to still feel rebellious and outside of the norm. Lwin was only 14 at the time their cassingle (cassette-single) was released, which brought an air of authenticity to the band’s personification of a frustrated teen who couldn’t afford to buy physical copies of their music. The cassingle was developed and sold with one side intentionally left blank, both encouraging self-expression by singing along with Annabella and rebelliousness by putting the potential of piracy in the hands of consumers.

Citation: Reid, Bill. “Bow Wow Wow – C30, C60, C90, Go! with Lyrics – YouTubeYou.” YouTube, 3 Jan. 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y61Zt0gWTxM. 

Stylistically, Bow Wow Wow’s approach to new wave music barely differed from its punk roots. The defining energy of punk music, characterized by lyrical and musical intensity, clearly influenced the band’s song. “C30, C60, C90, Go!” has a quick tempo, and the consistent, syncopated drumming—likely a result of McLare’s Burundi drumming inspiration—thickens the texture and increases the cognitive load of the music, creating the aural intensity. Another incorporated punk aspect is choosing to shout the majority of lyrics rather than sing them. Lastly, the band also utilizes an element of rhythmic experimentation, particularly audible in their iterations of the end of the chorus: “Go, Three-Oh, Six-Oh, Nine-Oh, Go!” Within this section, a slight marcato is placed on the alliterative “oh” sound, with each iteration of the sound altering on and off the beat. This small dynamic increase is synced with an accompanying drum beat to accentuate the different rhythm and make the vocal inflection more percussive. This use of older, unfamiliar music to provide commentary on the contemporary issue of piracy is largely characteristic of new wave. The band also constructed their song to work in harmony with headphone technology that was popularizing as a result of the Walkman. They recorded and mixed in stereophonic sound as the syncopated drumming bounces between ear to ear, resulting in a surround-sound that further incorporates listeners into their personal soundscape. 

The band’s lyricism does not sugarcoat their message of piracy, directly describing a scene in which a policeman stops them in their tracks for breaking the law, to which they return “I’m a pirate and I keep my loot.” As previously mentioned, the song provides a safe environment in which youth can revel in their rebelliousness without feeling chastised. Their lyricism is also unconventional in the way it does not tell much of a story but rather makes the listener hyper-aware of what they are doing, almost written like an instruction manual, speaking directly to the cassette technology their audience is using to experience their cassingle, exemplary of the aforementioned camp and kitsch aesthetics. 

Citation: parkhill62. “Bow Wow Wow – C30 C60 C90 (Live in Liverpool `82).” YouTube, 11 May 2008, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eQWJRP-lAw.

Bow Wow Wow embraced the trashy visual aesthetic of punk music as well. In this live video, Lwin takes the stage with a partly shaved head and gold ribbons reflecting the bright stage lighting threaded through her remaining wild hair. The band also utilizes pulsing, colored lights as a backdrop on stage. Lwin’s teenager confidence and authenticity shine in this performance as she energetically bounces around stage and interacts with her audience. Her voice, and the performance in general, also comes off as unpolished, possibly due to the band’s new formation and Lwin’s lack of experience as a professional singer. 

Complementary Aesthetics 

Due to the significant lyrical, musical, and performative similarities between Bow Wow Wow’s new wave music and their punk roots it becomes difficult to clearly distinguish the two genres. While new wave was certainly treated differently by the market, credit goes largely to influential individuals such as Seymour Stein and Malcolm McLaren pulling strings to satisfy their profit incentives. Bow Wow Wow’s role in this rebranding is unique when examined through the lens of their cassingle “C30, C60, C90, Go!,” specifically in relation to new cassette and Walkman technology. As previously mentioned, the song’s emphasis on using the recording function of cassettes to pirate music, therefore avoiding the expenses of purchasing music, appealed to their demographic of the frustrated, broke youth. Their lyricism is such a direct suggestion that it sounds instructional, giving explicit directions to their fanbase to tape songs from the radio and avoid buying records. To further expand on this intersection between technology and the song’s success, headphones, a technology popularized by the Walkman, also allowed listeners to disassociate from their environments, complimenting the punk aesthetic of anti-establishment behavior. The song’s use of panning sound between ears likely further immersed listeners in their individual soundscape, additionally separating them from the society they were frustrated with. The Walkman combined privacy with mobility, which importantly allowed for audiences to publicly indulge in self-expression by listening to their custom mixtapes while hiding their music, which was typically generational and not always received well from others. Similar to the lyricism of the song, this allowed for a relatively benign feeling of rebelliousness; while listening to scandalous music in public, the isolated bubble of sound did not affect others.