Please Kill Me

Gillian McCain and Legs McNeil’s oral history, Please Kill Me (1996) comprises numerous oral accounts about the birth and progression of the punk music scene, as told by major figures from the scene itself. More specifically, the book traces the development of the punk scene from Andy Warhol and The Velvet Underground to the death of Johnny Thunders, although several other important figures, of course, die along the way – a great many from overdoses. In between, bands, trends, and scene stars are born and destroyed, along with relationships of every kind. The book takes the form of interview passages, grouped according to topic. Today, Please Kill Me is considered an important, even iconic book, not only as a landmark example of music history but also for helping to popularize the “oral history” format. On the other hand, some have criticized the authors for taking certain quotes out of context, and for putting on the record conversations that were not intended by their speakers to be made public. As they point out, for all that Please Kill Me is a notoriously uncensored history, uncensored doesn't necessarily translate to “accurate.” What critics do seem to agree on is that the work's rawness makes it an appropriate tribute to the notoriously abrasive genre it commemorates.

The topic and form of Please Kill Me largely renders the traditional plot synopsis a useless tool, but the book does follow a general, historically informed arc. It begins with New York's Velvet Underground and Detroit's Motor City Five, which it positions as the vanguard of the punk scene. Major figures who would come to be associated with those bands, punk generally, or both are investigated. Andy Warhol crosses the narrative, as does Patti Smith. As the scene proliferates and begins to coalesce as a scene, The Stooges and The New York Dolls rise to prominence. Snaking through the interviews included in the book are innumerable mentions of sex, drugs, and the general intent to provoke and incite that characterized punk's snarling early energy. Another unfortunately common theme is racist associations. Swastika flags show up in various places and as part of the paraphernalia of many scenesters.

The book includes the Ramones and the Sex Pistols, stopping to consider whether punk first emerged as an American or British phenomenon. As the scene and its more notorious members find their places in the spotlight, the seeds of an inevitable backlash form. By the 1980s, as many of punk rock's founding members began dropping dead from the weight of their excesses – mostly drug-related – this backlash often took a turn for the smug. Nevertheless, punk music and some semblance of a larger scene continue to limp through to the 1990s – leading eventually to Please Kill Me, which first began to take shape in 1991.



One of the many darker themes that haunt Please Kill Me and that seems especially stark today, is the prevalence of misogyny throughout its many interviews. Groupies were rarely treated well during the best of times; at worst, they were abused, raped – and possibly worse. Nancy Spungen, Syd Vicious's girlfriend, who ended up dead from a stab wound in a hotel bathroom, is bad-mouthed by many interviewees. Spungen was known to be mentally ill (she was diagnosed with schizophrenia as a teen), and her story today, given the greater awareness of mental illness, strikes a chord it might not have when Please Kill Me was first published.

More than two decades after its initial publication, Please Kill Me continues to receive praise for its unfiltered glimpse into a now-legendary period in the development of Western music. Punk's primal energy, aggression, and concern for the working class arose within a sociopolitical climate that receives only indirect analysis in this oral history. The book's focus on the people who were living in that climate, and their attempt to grapple with it by way of an unprecedented musical art and performance form, continues to set standards for musical histories. As has been noted, oral histories are now commonplace, but when Please Kill Me was first published, this was not the case. Ultimately, Please Kill Me holds a special place in recent Western nonfiction not only for its content but also for the form it helped legitimize.