Crass - How Does It Feel (1982)

"How Does It Feel" was recorded and mixed in August 1982 at Southern Studios, London.

George Barber wrote in the Crass story, Having had a bit more time to consider their response, Crass released another single: ‘How Does It Feel To Be The Mother Of A Thousand Dead?’ A direct attack on Thatcher, it came in a black sleeve decorated with white graveyard crosses. When, during Prime Ministers Question Time,Thatcher was asked if she’d heard the record, things were getting serious.

The Conservative Party attempted to fight back, as the Guardian reported: “The Attorney General, Sir Michael Havers, has been asked by the Conservative MP for Enfield North, Mr. Tim Eggar, to prosecute an Anti-Falklands war record under the Obscene Publications Act. The record ‘How Does It Feel To Be The Mother of 1,000 Dead?’, by the group Crass, which also owns the record company Crass Records, which released it, is said to have sold 20,000 copies since it was issued last Saturday. It refers to Mrs. Thatcher and the decision to send the Task Force. ‘You never wanted peace or solution, from the start you lusted after war and destruction . . . Iron Lady, with your stone heart so, eager that the lesson be taught that you inflicted, you determined, you created, you ordered . . . It was your decision to have those young boys slaugh- tered.” Tim Eggar was the brother of Robin Eggar, a Daily Mirror columnist who had previously written in his column:“Rock music is often used by the young to voice their protests. However distasteful the Sex Pistols appeared to be in 1977, their songs were a chilling warning of the coming recession. But anarchist band Crass have gone too far. They released last week the most revolting and unnecessary record I have ever heard. ‘How Does It Feel To Be The Mother of 1,000 Dead?’ is a vicious and obscene attack on Margaret Thatcher’s motives for engaging in the Falklands war. It bears little relation to reality. Retailing at only 75p it has already sold more than 28,000 copies.”

Crass themselves escaped any direct threat from the state.“We didn’t actually get any of it,” says Rimbaud.“There’s no question at all that that was a policy.” Rimbaud cites a circular sent around the Tory party after MP Timothy Eggar opened proceedings against ‘How Does It Feel?’ which stated that “on no account must they respond to any form of provocation from us”.

A hilarious LBC radio interview ensued, where Tim Eggar debated with Andy Palmer and Pete Wright. Eggar is clearly angry fit to burst before he even starts, and – sounding like a clichéd public school Tory – starts off by blustering that the record goes “beyond the acceptable bounds of freedom of speech, being the most vicious, scurrilous and obscene record that has ever been produced”.

Tracklist:

A How Does It Feel (To Be The Mother Of A Thousand Dead)?
B1 The Immortal Death
B2 Don't Tell Me You Care

Crass - How Does It Feel (1982)
(192 kbps, cover art included)