Music Headcanon - Severus’ Favourite Band
To quote a good friend of mine “music headcanons tend to just be the music the writer likes”. This is very true, people often writing how characters would like music they’ve been listening to at the time.
I’m not innocent of this either, as the band I’m about to talk about is one that I am particularly fond of, however I do have reasoning as to why I think Severus would like them and hopefully this will make sense at the end. I know there is this consensus that Severus would be into “obscure Queen”, although I heavily disagree with this.
I’m going to open the discussion by saying first and foremost that all of this regards marauders era Severus. It is around adolescence that people tend to discover their music tastes. I know this next sentence will split opinions but I hope people will stick with me until the end:
Severus Snape would be into punk rock.
I know that the term ‘punk rock’ instantly conjures up images of safety pins, leather jackets and multi-coloured mohawks. Severus was by no means this stereotype of what being punk represents.
Severus was born in January, 1960. This would have meant that during the 1970′s, the beginning of the punk rock movement, Severus would have been a teenager.
Now it’s vital that we realise that the punk rock movement was not about looking ‘scary’, or threatening, or any of those fashion statements. Rather it was a result of the angry, (white) working class in Britain. I say white working class because the majority were white, however, there were black punk rock banks and punk rock bands with black members.
Many people felt that they had been let down, that they had been working hard with no reward. This is where the anger, bitterness, and rage of the harsh sounds of punk rock come from - an artistic expression of injustice. Punk rock bands often integrated with reggae bands, and as a result ska was born from the mix of white and black British working class sounds and protests merged into different artistic expressions.
Overall, punk rock wasn’t just angry, it was political. While people like to talk about Vivienne Westwood clad boy bands, the reality of punk rock was that people made a point to not wear designer, expensive fashions. Quite the contrary, people wore hand me downs, second hand clothes from charity shops; there was even a trend to wear bin bags to make a deliberate point about wearing what was cheap and available.
So how does this relate to Snape?
Severus, during the 70s, was an adolescent boy that had been let down by life. He was poor, he was working class, and more importantly he was angry. The political ideals of punk rock, the rejection of bourgeois standards to be as unapologetically a product of their own oppression.
Now I’ve explained why I think he would be into punk rock, I’ll move onto the point of this post: Severus’ favourite band.
The band I am referring to is X Ray Spex.
To cut to the chase, I’m going to post a few handfuls of lyrics from their songs:
When you look in the mirror, do you see yourself
Do you see yourself on the T.V. screen
Do you see yourself in the magazine
When you see yourself does it make you scream
Some people think little girls should be seen and not heard
But I think...
Oh Bondage! Up yours!
I know I'm artificial
But don't put the blame on me
I was reared with appliances
In a consumer society
When I put on my make-up
The pretty little mask not me
That's the way a girl should be
In a consumer society
So the anger is evident, which connects with Severus, as is the rejection of consumerism imposed on the working class. All of this is classic with punk, yet what I think separates X Ray Spex out from the most is the fact that two members - including the lead singer/front person - are female.
Lora Logic (Saxophone) and Polly Styrene (Lead Singer)
I don’t want to belittle Lora Logic’s contributions to X Ray Spex as often the saxophone solos were incredible. However the main songwriter was Polly Styrene.
Given that Severus is coded incredibly female and relates far more to women than he does to men, I believe he would be far more drawn in by the songs with a female perspective.
Oh Bondage, Up Yours! is definitely about women hitting back about what society expects of them (specifically to be sexy but not sexual) and Art-I-Ficial HEAVILY touches upon the struggles of not only the poor working class, but poor working class women.
Also Polly Styrene sang so many gigs in a bin bag to argue against the pressures of the fashion industry, and I think that’s neat.
