Straight Edge: Staying Above the Influence
Rock and roll has a stereotype where it is typical for a musician in this style of music to
take drugs and drink alcohol, in particular, heavily like they are party animals. However, drugs
and alcohol have been a part of music and musicians lives for many years, long before the era of
rock and roll, whether it is for creative purposes or not. Even classical musicians drank and did
drugs for various reasons, like the drug experimentation that Stravinsky did near the final decade
of his life, or Beethoven’s interest in red wine (“Stravinsky: The Last Interview by Igor
Stravinsky”; Bumbar). There rarely comes a scene in the music world that dedicates itself and
promotes the message to abstain from such things as drugs, tobacco, alcohol, and in some cases
promiscuous sex. Nowadays, they call this being straight edge (also symbolized as “sXe”). The
sXe movement has influenced many for those who have come across it, especially in the punk
music scene, because it carries an important message. That message is to be clean and keep the
human body healthy. Rock and roll was the driving force of creating this movement; in other
words, being straight edge is to rebel against the typical rock and roll lifestyle.
It has been a common question among rock enthusiasts to ask, “[d]o musicians need
drugs to be successful?” (Ritchie 438). While this is a rather biased question, the answer is false.
Depending on what you consider successful, groups like Black Flag and Minor Threat are widely
known in the punk scene and they carry the keep-yourself-clean message that sXe does. As a
matter of fact, these two groups where what helped create the sXe movement. Punk came from
rebellion and justice, and the straight edge movement is one of the examples of punk’s message.
For instance, the messages given by Ian MacKaye of Minor Threat helped influence the straight
edge movement to start, even though he never intended it to be a movement (Barcella). The title
of the movement, “Straight Edge,” has been stated many times to have come from Ian’s band
Minor Threat, in particular from the song titled the same name, “Straight Edge.” This song has
lyrics that relate to the message of the movement, such as,
I’m a person just like you/But I’ve got better things to do/Than sit around and
smoke dope/’Cause I know I can cope/Laugh at the thought of eating ludes/Laugh
