Gen X Reflex: We’re Not Gonna Take It
It is Saturday morning, and apparently we are going to set the weekend on fire.
I have been writing Rock ’n’ Roll Angel for a couple of weeks now, opening doors into memories I haven't visited in a very long time.
And something unexpected has happened.
This journey has been good for my soul.
There are parts of my childhood I don't particularly enjoy revisiting. When some of your memories aren't pleasant, sometimes it is easier to close the gate on the whole damn thing.
The problem is, when you lock away the things that hurt, sometimes you accidentally lock away some of the things that didn't.
The music.
The laughter.
The discoveries.
The ridiculous things we did.
The moments that made us feel alive.
Rock ’n’ Roll Angel has been unlocking that gate.
Someday I think I am going to sit down and write about what this journey has meant to me. Really write about it. Because something is happening here that deserves its own story.
But not today.
Today I woke up with a song in my head.
And Lord, what a song.
Five words.
We're not gonna take it.
Oh yes.
Enter Twisted Sister.
Every Generation Gets Its Moment
Rock ’n’ roll has always had a little problem with authority.
Our parents certainly knew that.
Their generation had The Who declaring “My Generation.”
The Beatles wrestled with the upheaval around them in “Revolution.”
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young gave voice to horror and anger after Kent State with “Ohio.”
Those songs weren't the same. The events surrounding them weren't the same. “Ohio,” in particular, came from an actual national tragedy.
But there was a tradition being handed down through rock ’n’ roll.
Eventually, young people look at the world the adults have built for them and say:
No.
Then it was our turn.
And because we were Gen X, apparently our declaration of independence needed screaming guitars, enormous hair, questionable fashion choices and a man being repeatedly launched through household architecture.
Of course it did.
MTV Gave the Rebellion Pictures
You have to remember what MTV was like then.
It wasn't simply another place to watch music.
MTV was the place.
The video could transform a song. Suddenly we didn't just hear the artist. We saw the clothes, the attitude, the fantasy, the story.
And right at the height of that craziness came “We're Not Gonna Take It.”
The video begins with a family.
Well...
Sort of.
This was not exactly Leave It to Beaver.
There was a kid.
Image: Twisted Sister Music VIdeo "We're Not Going to Take It". Source: IMDb
And there was a father.
A furious, screaming, wildly over-the-top father.
He towers over this kid, yelling at him, demanding answers, belittling what matters to him and representing just about every adult who had ever stood over a young person and declared:
You will be what I tell you to be.
It was ridiculous.
It was cartoonish.
And somehow...
we understood it immediately.
That kid was us.
Maybe your parents weren't screaming maniacs.
Maybe nobody ever burst into your bedroom demanding to know what you planned to do with your life.
But we knew the feeling.
Adults had expectations.
Schools had expectations.
Society had expectations.
There was a path.
There were rules.
There were things respectable people did and things respectable people absolutely did not do.
And then the kid had enough.
What followed was one of the greatest adolescent transformation fantasies MTV ever gave us.
The powerless kid was gone.
And in his place?
Dee freaking Snider.
You Have to Understand the Hair
Now, before we continue, younger readers may need some historical context.
There was a moment in rock when the boys discovered cosmetics.
This wasn't entirely new.
Rock had already gone through an earlier glam movement. David Bowie and others had spent years stretching ideas about what rock stars could wear, how they could present themselves and just how theatrical the whole thing could become.
Image: David Bowie. Source: David Chiu "From Glam to Gaga" by David Chiu
But eventually Gen X inherited glam.
And apparently we decided it wasn't nearly big enough.
Record stores became populated by bands like Mötley Crüe, Ratt, Poison, Warrant, Skid Row, Cinderella and a seemingly endless parade of beautifully ridiculous human beings.
Image: Cinderella. Source: IMDb.
Guys with hair that required engineering permits.
Makeup.
Eyeliner.
Lipstick.
Spandex.
Leather.
Lace.
Jewelry.
Boots.
Scarves.
Sometimes all at once.
These men walked onto our television screens looking like they'd mugged a cosmetics counter on the way to the leather shop, picked up a guitar...
and proceeded to melt our faces off.
And what did we do?
At least in the rock world I remember, there wasn't some great philosophical debate happening every time a man appeared wearing eyeliner.
It was more like:
Yeah.
Cool.
Let's rock.
Then Dee Snider showed up and apparently decided everybody else was being entirely too conservative.
Hold My Hairspray
Image: Dee Snider. Source: Loudwire
Dee was something else.
Lean body.
Massive blond hair.
Makeup applied with what appeared to be both enthusiasm and vengeance.
Leather.
Pink.
Black.
Torn fabric.
Boots.
Straps.
Things hanging from other things.
It wasn't polished.
It wasn't elegant.
It wasn't supposed to be.
Dee seemed to take everything glam rock had been doing and ask one deeply important artistic question:
Can we make this more ridiculous?
Yes, Dee.
Yes, apparently we can.
And that was exactly what the video needed.
Because the point wasn't subtlety.
The point was rebellion.
Dad represents the rules.
The kid represents everybody trapped underneath them.
Then suddenly this outrageous rock creature appears who seems completely immune to embarrassment, intimidation and respectable society.
Dad screams.
Dee screams louder.
And the guitars take care of the rest.
We’re Not Gonna Take It
Then came that chorus.
Good Lord.
It may be one of the easiest pieces of musical information ever transmitted between members of Generation X.
Start it anywhere.
At a party.
At a concert.
At a reunion.
In the car.
Probably in the produce section of Safeway if you're feeling adventurous.
We're not gonna take it...
And somewhere a Gen Xer will feel a disturbance in the Force.
NO! WE AIN'T GONNA TAKE IT!
You don't think about it.
You respond.
That is why I call these songs Gen X Reflexes.
They got embedded somewhere beneath conscious thought.
But this one went deeper because those words were so wonderfully useful.
We're not gonna take it.
We're not gonna take it anymore.
That could mean whatever you needed it to mean.
Parents.
School.
Bosses.
Rules.
Expectations.
Anybody who had decided they knew exactly who you were supposed to become.
It was simple enough to shout.
And broad enough to belong to everybody.
Then the Grown-Ups Got Involved
Of course, eventually adults began worrying about what all this music was doing to us.
Heavy metal had already accumulated a rather impressive collection of accusations.
Satan.
Sex.
Drugs.
Violence.
Corruption.
The imminent collapse of Western civilization.
You know.
Rock ’n’ roll.
Then came the Parents Music Resource Center, the PMRC, and the battle over explicit content in popular music.
Image: PMRC March on Congress. Source: Rolling Stone Magazine
And suddenly one of the people summoned to Washington to testify before the United States Senate was...
Oh, this is just too perfect.
Dee Snider.
The guy with the hair.
The makeup.
The shredded clothes.
The screaming.
The guy who looked like somebody had taken every fear about heavy metal, thrown it into a blender and added hairspray.
And then he started talking.
That moment has become one of my favorite pieces of rock history.
Because beneath the spectacle was an articulate grown man capable of defending himself, his music and his artistic choices.
The package had fooled people.
They looked at Dee Snider and thought they knew what was inside.
And that, perhaps, was one of the most Gen X things about the entire affair.
You looked at us and decided what we were before you bothered to ask.
You saw the hair.
The clothes.
The music.
The attitude.
And you thought you understood the kid underneath it.
Sometimes you didn't.
Maybe That Was the Real Rebellion
Looking back now, I don't think our rebellion was simply about refusing authority.
Gen X learned early to be skeptical of it.
We were the latchkey kids.
The kids who came home and figured things out.
The kids who heard adults tell us one thing and sometimes watched the world demonstrate another.
We weren't necessarily marching through the streets every afternoon.
Sometimes our rebellion was quieter.
Fine. I'll do it myself.
Sometimes it was sarcastic.
Sometimes it was creative.
Sometimes it was turning the music up and closing the bedroom door.
And sometimes it was an entire generation shouting:
WE'RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT!
There was a line in the sand there.
You don't get to tell me what music I have to like.
You don't get to tell me how I'm supposed to look.
You don't get to tell me which dreams are respectable.
You don't get to look at me and decide you already know who I am.
Maybe we couldn't always articulate that when we were young.
Twisted Sister could.
And they gave us a chorus.
Forty-Something Years Later
Image: Dee Snider. Source: USA Today.
Which brings me back to this Saturday morning.
Because I heard that song differently when I was young.
Of course I did.
I was different then.
Back then the rebellion pointed outward.
You don't get to tell me who to be.
Today?
Something else is happening.
I've spent the last few weeks wandering through my childhood in a way I haven't allowed myself to do for a very long time.
I have remembered records.
Concerts.
Radio stations.
Television.
MTV.
Artists I loved.
Things that made me laugh.
Things that made me curious.
Things that made me feel powerful.
And I am beginning to understand something.
The difficult memories are real.
I'm not interested in pretending otherwise.
But somewhere along the way, I think I allowed some of those memories to stand guard over the gate.
If I didn't visit the past, I didn't have to encounter the things that hurt.
Fair enough.
Except behind the same gate were other things.
Good things.
There was music back there.
There was wonder.
There was discovery.
There was joy.
There was a little girl dancing when nobody was looking.
There was a young woman discovering rock ’n’ roll and deciding she liked it loud.
There was a kid standing in a record store staring at album covers and wondering what adventure she could take home next.
She was there too.
And maybe that's why this particular song came roaring back into my head today.
We’re Still Not Gonna Take It
Forty-something years ago, those words gave me one kind of strength.
Today they give me another.
I'm not yelling at my parents.
I'm not yelling at teachers.
I'm not yelling at politicians.
I'm not even particularly angry.
I'm simply drawing a different line in the sand.
The painful parts of my past do not get to own the whole story.
They happened.
So did the beautiful parts.
The sadness was real.
So was the joy.
The loneliness was real.
So was the music.
And if taking this ridiculous trip through the Wayback Machine lets me reclaim some of those pieces, I'm going back for them.
Every damn one.
Maybe that's what rebellion looks like at this point in life.
Not destroying the past.
Reclaiming it.
Choosing what comes forward.
Remembering the girl who survived things, certainly.
But also remembering the girl who lived.
The one who laughed.
The one who dreamed.
The one who rocked.
The one who heard four lunatics blasting through her television and immediately understood the assignment.
So here I am, all these decades later.
Same song.
Different fight.
Same reflex.
And somehow it has managed to change something in me twice.
It changed my life then.
It is changing my life today.
So turn it up.
Saturday has officially begun.
WE'RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT.
NO! WE AIN'T GONNA TAKE IT!
🤘❤️
Thanks for taking this trip back with me.
What do you remember? Were you there too, or did this story bring back a memory of your own? I’d love to hear it. Share your stories in the comments, and if this made you smile, laugh, cringe, or turn up an old favorite song, share it with someone who remembers too.
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Until next time...
Keep the memories alive. Keep the stories coming. And whatever you do... turn it up.
— Dr. AY Heath (Angel)
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