Once upon a time… there was a girl with a colorful imagination and powerful voice who stood out from the crowd.

Her name… was Poly.

Poly was born to an English mother and Somalian father with a different name, Marianne Joan Elliot-Said. She was raised in a town in London, England called Brixton.

It was the 1960s and 70s, and Brixton was transforming into a multicultural community full of people from across the UK and the West Indies. Music from Brixton’s mixed residents boomed onto the high streets, inspiring the music of the next generation.

Being mixed race in England, however, was still uncommon, causing Mariane’s family to stand out from the others in the neighborhood. Being different would be difficult for Mariane, but eventually she’d use her difference, as well as her creativity, to break barriers!

She would also create a legacy within a subculture, called… PUNK!

I’m Celeste Bell. And this is Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls.

A fairy tale podcast about the rebel women who inspire us.

On this episode: Poly Styrene– the first multiracial woman to lead a punk band.

Marianne’s mother raised her and her siblings as a single parent, and had to work a lot… so, summers were spent with the freedom for her and her siblings to create their own adventures… afternoons were spent swimming at the local pool, or jumping trains to go to the beach.

With a mind that was always dreaming and thinking of ways to entertain others, she and her sister would put on plays for the neighborhood kids. When she wasn’t designing costumes for these plays, she was fashioning jewelry or scavenging scraps of cloth she found around the house to make bags she’d later sell to neighbors.

School wasn’t exactly a safe space for Marianne or her siblings. She was often teased by the white kids for not being white enough, and the Black kids for not being Black enough. Because there weren’t a lot of mixed people in the area, people didn’t understand her family– there were those who thought Black and white people shouldn’t mix. Marianne was also called terrible names when walking to and from school. Though these experiences deeply affected her, it also caused her to learn how to speak up when she felt like something wasn’t right.

In fact the very first song she wrote was a protest song, of sorts. You see, Mariane decided to become an almost-vegetarian at the age of 12 (she still ate sausage at this time). During the 60s, being a vegetarian in England wasn’t very common, but for Mariane, it was the right thing to do. When it was time for her to eat at school, she’d sneak the meat given to her into her pocket and throw it away when she got home.

When the woman in the cafeteria tried to make her eat the meat, this made Mariane angry! She channeled this anger by writing a song that she taught the other children in school:

“Hey Mrs. Johnson, wagging your finger, who do you think you are?!” she sang.

She got into so much trouble for these lyrics, but this was only the beginning for Mariane. She would continue writing songs about topics that mattered to her.

In 1976, at the age of 19, Mariane started to channel her creativity by starting a business. She took her talents from her childhood and started a little store in Beaufort Market where she sold cheap jewelry, bags and brightly colored accessories. She called the store X-Ray Spex. She then created her own fashion line and named it Poly Styrene, after the synthetic material. These names would soon inspire another one of her creations….

During this time, a subculture was forming, and Marianne and her little shop were in the middle of it all. Beaufort Market attracted rebellious young people dressed in leather, spikes, and big boots, who felt like misfits from larger society, and who listened to loud energetic music called punk.

One day, Marianne went to a concert by a punk band named the Sex Pistols. She was captivated by the vivacious energy of the band. After the concert, she decided she wanted to be just like them, and, so she formed her own band called Xray Spex, and appointed herself the lead singer, as well as song writer and creator of all promotional material.

She was now known as… Poly Styrene.
One of Xray Spex’s first gigs was at a place called The Roxy. It was a small, hot sweaty venue that filled with as many people that could squeeze into it.

Most of the bands consisted of young, white men, with spikes and leather, but Xray Spex looked a little different.
Standing at 4 feet 5 inches, and dressed in kitten heels, a tank helmet and a dress made of synthetic material, Poly Styrene — the mixed young woman from Brixton– was the leader of this band. Accustomed to being different from everyone else, this didn’t intimidate Poly. She’d step onto the stage with her band members, eager to entertain the way she did when she was a little girl performing for the neighborhood kids. Xray Spex also stood out because, unlike other punk bands, it featured a saxophonist played by a woman named Lara Logic.

Dancing with her entire body and belting out lyrics about the expectations of girlhood and consumerism, Poly’s voice reached every sweaty attendee in the room. In fact, her voice was so strong, people believed she’d trained as an opera singer, but that wasn’t true. Her voice was simply magnetic and powerful… so powerful that it would eventually reach fans living across the pond.

In 1977, Xray Spex signed onto Virgin Records and recorded their hit single “Oh Bondage Up Yours.” It begins with Poly coyly saying, “Some people think little girls should be seen and not heard, but I think,” and suddenly she screams …“OH BONDAGE UP YOURS!”
The song was inspired by clothing she’d seen at her friend Vivienne Westwood’s shop in Beaufort Market . It made her think about how in society we say we have freedom, but we’re all bonded up or tied up to buying a bunch of stuff we don’t need. This was a big concern for Poly and this theme is heard throughout the album that Xray Spex released at the end of 1978 called Germfree Adolescents.

While the release of this song got a huge following for Xray Spex, not everyone understood what she was talking about, and it wasn’t played on the radio often.

But that didn’t stop them from gaining popularity. They made TV appearances on Britain’s top shows, and had a residency at a pub called Man in the Moon. Punk kids from all over England traveled to see Xray Spex, and the lead singer who wore braces and funky outfits. Poly’s lyrical genius made her a favorite among this growing subculture and her bright dayglo sweaters and kitten heels werewas a reminder that punk could look many different ways.

Her difference was inspiring people everywhere, and it would eventually get Xray Spex a chance of a lifetime– to play for two weeks at a punk club called CBGB’s in New York City!

But when Poly Styrene got to New York, she quickly realized that the bustling city, and, possibly, even the punk scene, was no longer a good fit for her. Lara Logic had since left, leaving Poly in an all male band, and she didn’t always feel connected to her male bandmates.
The performances were intense… one after the other, full of screaming fans, pulling at Poly, sometimes even ripping off the costumes she carefully curated for her shows!

People kept telling her they loved her, but she felt it was all fake– how could they love someone they didn’t even know?

When she’d go back to the hotel, she couldn’t relax. The hotel was in the middle of Times Square with the constant buzz of people partying all night, cars blaring their horns and bright colored lights illuminating ads for things people didn’t even need! The environment was the opposite of what she believed in and she soon found herself going mad!

In fact, shortly after the gig in New York, Poly had a mental breakdown. She started to see things that other people didn’t see, and was checked into a place where they tried to understand her mind.You see, since Poly was a little girl, she struggled with mental health issues. But during this time,doctors didn’t know a lot about how to care for people whose minds worked differently.

She was misdiagnosed as schizophrenic, but eventually found out she had acute bipolar disorder. This would be something she’d have to navigate the rest of her life…

Though Poly was starting to become disillusioned by fame when she returned from New York, she wasn’t completely done. Especially when an organization called Rock Against Racism asked Xray Spex to be a part of a huge concert they were hosting.

It was 1978, and a group called the United National Front was gaining popularity. They were made up of people who believed that nonwhite people should leave the United Kingdom. They’d harass anyone who wasn’t white by calling them names and causing physical harm.

Leaders within the party were trying to gain political power, and in order to gain momentum, recruited white punk kids to join their movement, and were successful in doing so. The punk scene, which was once for all people who felt like they didn’t belong to the larger society, was starting to become divided.

Organizers of Rock Against Racism wanted to combat this division. So, they invited punk bands, as well as reggae bands to perform a free concert and show solidarity amongst Britain’s multicultural population.
Xray Spex was the opening act.

Before the concert, 100,000 concert goers marched from Trafalgar Square to Victoria Park, which is located in the East End of London– a popular spot for the National Front. It rained the night before until the next morning, but by the time Xray Spex played their first song, the sun was shining and they were playing for a few hundred people. By the time they got to the second song, the march had arrived to Victoria Park and they were playing to thousands of punk kids, hippies, and other people in support of antiracism.

Having dealt with racism since her childhood, Rock Against Racism was deeply personal for Poly.

Dressed in a vintage suit with a long wool skirt, her head was wrapped with a thick scarf, and, as usual, she stood out from the other punk singers. But Poly was in her element and she had a message for the audience.

In the middle of her set, she started to slowly take off the scarf that was wrapped around her crown, revealing a head that lacked her usual thick curly hair. Patches of curls sprung from her scalp, but otherwise, she was bald. Her bandmates were stunned by the sudden act, not because they didn’t know about her new hairdo, but because only moments before she’d promised their manager she wouldn’t take off her scarf.

You see, the night before, she’d been hanging out with members of the Sex Pistols– the very same people who’d inspired her to start a band. Although they all hung out regularly, the boys of the band weren’t always kind to Poly, or to women in general. Once Poly asked one of them where the restroom was, and he pointed to a door which was actually a small cupboard and locked her there for an hour!

The night before the concert, she was hanging out with them and other friends of the group, and they just ignored Poly, acting like she wasn’t there.
This particular evening, Poly had enough! She left the boys to their conversation, went to the bathroom, and, about 30 minutes later, returned with a shaved head!
Some say she did this in protest of being treated differently because she was a woman in the punk scene. Others have said it was an act against the racism she experienced, with her hair often being what signified her Blackness.

Whatever the case may be, it made a loud statement to those guys, as well as the people at the concert that day…

Shortly after Rock Against Racism, Poly left Xray Spex. In 1981, she released a solo album called Translucence. The album was calmer than her album with Xray Spex and, unfortunately, wasn’t widely embraced. Though the poor response disappointed Poly, she was occupied by another one of her creations– in 1981, her daughter, Celeste Bell was born. Poly said, “Other people seemed far more worried about my having a baby when I was 24 than I was. I felt Celeste grounded me.”

As Poly transitioned into motherhood, she continued to search for her place in this world.

The music scene continued to be disappointing, so she searched for meaning elsewhere.

In 1983, she joined the Hare Krishna movement– a religious organization whose core beliefs and values are based on Hindu scriptures. Still struggling with her mental illness, she was drawn to the happy souls she saw walking through London’s SoHo streets chanting “Hare Krishna Hare Rama.” Poly changed her name to Maharani, and traded her tank helmets and vintage suits for sarees and Punjabi suits. She grew her hair long and wore it in a braid draped on her shoulder.

She raised her daughter, Celeste, amongst other devotees until 1988. During her time there, she even reunited with the original saxophonist from Xray Spex, Lara Logic, and, together, they recorded music, with the focus being Krishna. Though Poly, now known as Maharani, continued to struggle with mental illness, she continued to use music as her escape.

In 2008, she reunited with Xray Spex and they performed a sold out show at the Roundhouse in London. They were joined by her daughter’s band, Debutante Disco.

Sadly… on April 25, 2011, Poly Styrene died from breast cancer. The day prior to her death, her final album, Generation Indigo was released in the U.S.

Recently, her daughter, Celeste wrote a book about her mother called Dayglo, and in 2021, Celeste released a documentary exploring her relationship with her mother called Poly Styrene: I am a Cliche.

Poly didn’t believe that death marked the end of your existence. She believed in reincarnation– that after we die, we return in a new form. Whatever the case may be, Poly Styrene’s voice and message continue to live beyond her death.

To this day… women and multiracial punk bands continue to be inspired by the story and work of Poly Styrene…