Singer Mary Weiss once described her influential girl group this way: “The Shangri-Las were punk before punk existed. People thought we were tough.” To further the point, Joey Ramone once told Weiss his band wouldn’t have existed without The Shangri-Las.
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In this punk tradition and long before British radio blacklisted The Sex Pistols, the BBC banned The Shangri-Las’ biggest hit, “Leader Of The Pack”.
About “Leader Of The Pack”
“Leader Of The Pack” by The Shangri-Las follows a girl named Betty, whose friends ask her to confirm whether she’s dating Jimmy, the leader of a motorcycle gang. Betty then sings about her love for Jimmy before her parents insist she find another boyfriend.
My folks were always putting him down,
They said he came from the wrong side of town.
After Betty tells Jimmy it’s over, he speeds away in the rain on his motorcycle.
He sort of smiled and kissed me goodbye
The tears were beginning to show
As he drove away on that rainy night
I begged him to go slow.
But Jimmy crashes his bike and dies. And the violent scene was too much for the BBC.
We Were Banned in the UK
Like most things that get banned, “Leader Of The Pack” became more popular because of the controversy. Though the ban wasn’t lifted until 1972, the single had already charted multiple times in the UK since its release in 1964.
The BBC found itself in a moral panic and tried to keep “Leader Of The Pack” from the mods and rockers, thinking it might lead to violence between the groups. But Britain’s public broadcaster must have thought The Shangri-Las were pretty tame by the time The Sex Pistols were swearing on television in 1976.
The Good Company of Outcasts
The Shangri-Las’ “death disc” had good company among the BBC’s banned songs. “My Generation” by The Who, “Space Oddity” by David Bowie, and “Lola” by The Kinks were all kept off the airwaves for a variety of silly reasons.
Yet, “Leader Of The Pack” endures, and The Shangri-Las’ influence reached emerging punk rockers in both the US and the UK. CBGB famously kept the group’s records in its jukebox, and the likes of Ramones, Blondie, the New York Dolls, and Sonic Youth appreciated The Shangri-Las’ pop hooks but also their toughness.
Written by George “Shadow” Morton, Jeff Barry, and Ellie Greenwich, “Leader Of The Pack” and its hullabaloo helped make Weiss’s group iconic. In that spirit, the New York Dolls chose Morton to produce Too Much Too Soon.
Similar to the BBC’s ban, it failed commercially. But the Dolls’ second album unwittingly helped ignite a punk revolution. Proving, The Shangri-Las did, indeed, lead the pack.
Photo by Gilles Petard/Redferns
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