While Malcom McLaren convinced an entire country of his Antichrist inclinations, and Jeffrey HymanJoey Ramone assured directionless teenagers everywhere that what they really wanted was, in fact, to sniff some glue, an equally ticked-off cast of musicians simmered in the background—and don’t you dare call them punkettes.

Or so they tell me.

Don’t worry. This isn’t the part where I start some reverent rant about Suzi Quatro or The Adverts. Nor, for that matter, is this the part where I shameless plug The Slits’s upcoming US tour. Their song “Love Und Romance” should be sufficient.

However, numerous members of my generation hear the words “punk” and “woman” in the same sentence and experience difficulty identifying those who preceded the Riot Grrrl movement of the 90s. Before said generation waves Patti Smith in my face (it’s always Patti Smith), please know I have something a little different in mind.

While Soulseeking, I came across an album hidden deep within a user’s shared files labeled “My Girlfriend Was A Punk: Rare Early Female Punk Rockers.”

Vicki (saying “my girlfriend” would make this pointless) called attention to the irony/chauvinism in titling an all-female effort with feminist leanings after its relation to male counterparts.

Nevertheless, I loaded the album and found myself before not only female punk rockers, but foreign ones to boot. They helped me remember why I enjoy punk music as much as I do. With punk there isn’t much room for misinterpretation—people are angry in every language and in every place you can imagine, period. ICI PARIS’s “Le Centre du Monde” is raw, unashamed, and although I have no clue what she’s saying, I can feel the sweat on my lips and the fire in my veins.

I type and pulse and my fingers slow and stick to this plastic keyboard. Listening to Anouschka et les Prives’s “Control” places the wax in my hair, and my newfound, figurative Mohawk points furiously at some higher power with reckless abandon.

The aforementioned songs communicate first and foremost through their sound, and I doubt this the product of any foresight by the bands in question. While I’m not one of the astounding scores of individuals who ignore lyrics, I find myself inexplicably drawn toward this unknown even if a significant amount of the album is in English.

This is not an attack on words, or to say that music sung in English is somehow a mediocre form of expressing one’s thoughts. But these punk songs simply have no boundaries; they have bodies, but no boundaries. This striking means of communication isn’t a matter of novelty, but a tribute to the notion that something does not have to be tangible for it to be palpable. There’s a lot to be said for that, and there’s a lot to be said for these women.

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