Iggy Pop and how to deal with the knowledge your pop idol fucks kids

He didn’t lose his virginity until he was twenty, but once he did, he went on a decade-long sex bender. He had a penchant for girls in their early teens: At the age of twenty-one, he was briefly married to a fourteen-year-old; at the age of twenty-two, he had a child (his only, Eric, now thirty-three) by another teenager; and at one early point, he had a thing for a thirteen-year-old named Betsy, of whom he has said, “She looked at me penetratingly. So I suppose you can figure out what happened next.” After shows, he’d return home with some fan or other, have sex with her and tell her to get lost.

Rolling Stone (19 November 2003)

There’s no point feigning outrage at Iggy Pop having sex with children. And anyway, rock fans tend to be more sympathetic when it’s their idol under fire. It’s hard to cut ties with a figure that so brilliantly carried the vision of a hero. A man standing at the front of a riot apropos of nothing screaming at the man, apropos of everything. The eternal adolescent. Iggy, like Jerry Lee Lewis and all the rest, has through historical actions become bound. He can no longer be the cool (gran)dad of rock. He’s no longer the gleaming drugs mule. He is just a washed up idol from another époque. From a world we’ll never truly understand.

He’s the guy who wrote Sweet 16, and in Dog Food writes about Betsy, “I’m hanging around that same old scene/ My girlfriend Betsy she’s just fourteen… Dog food is my whole life/ Dog food composes my wife.” And: “Show you my explosion sweet 16… Now baby I know that’s not normal/ But I love you, I love you, I love you sweet 16/ Everywhere I go I love it.” He’s the creep.

There’s an analogy for paedophilia in the music industry. I can’t remember who concocted it but I have a feeling it was a tour manager. They likened it to coal mining. The defence, or at least the explanation goes that if you’re going to go down the mine, you’re going to come out covered in coal. The idea that sex with children was an industrial hazard. From this premise comes the grooming anecdote. Tales of mothers presenting their daughters to the musicians. A broken caste system arranged by cocaine scales. That’s if you are to believe it was in fact the girl’s mother, and then this scenario is even partially comprehendible. Let alone a valid defence. The alternative is about how the rock and roll circus was its own lawless society. It’s about artists and catharsis. It’s about the creation of chaos. About being able to say and do things others wouldn’t. The cover of the new record captures Iggy caught in a suicide vest under a cross hair. It’s a rockstar’s job to break taboos and society’s constructs. It’s society’s job to protect children.

To anyone outside of the 70s rock complex the laconic tone which I’ve heard these arguments made is saddening. Although I often imagine throwing out the old guard to make more room in this retirement home of a music biz, surely child molesting should be the backstage maze that leads to the fire exit. But we were meant to be on stage 10 minutes ago. I think it’s best you get back on the tour bus and head home.

One of the things about the witch hunt is that it’s really been about taking down people civil society can’t really be bothered with anymore. The visually creepy and artistically bankrupt Gary Glitter, for example. For many musicians their misdemeanours don’t find themselves in police files, but biographies. Legendary tales played out in interviews. Knights of the realm, and some who have refused such an honour, caked in coal.

Following yesterday’s news that he returns with a new album editors will be ring fencing pages and photographers developing scratched negatives. But to take down Iggy, to confront him about these things will be playing on the minds of rock writers today. Will I ask him? Probably not after this article. Although the man and the group are legends, proper legends, they’re not the powerhouse they used to be. Their last record was atrocious. Really bad. And Iggy was mocked for his work in advertising. Because all of a sudden he was the man. The man his twenty year old self would have run bare foot across broken glass to beat up. I guess it’s quite sad.

Do I want to see all my childhood idols in the dock? No, not really. Should a lot of them be there?Probably. According to the press blurb, “The results are the closest thing to a time capsule to 1973”. It’s enough to make my skin crawl. Reaching for the stamp in my draw that prints pastiche. There are hundreds of reasons old bands should pack it in and retire gracefully*. To make way for a new generation of upsetters. To keep their heads down hoping their discrepancies will stay in the past. Neglected in the attic with boxes of old rock mags. Here there is a major reason. Pack it in Jim. We want to move on.

*Disclaimer: despite the many reasons for why rock groups of retirement age should retire, all of which are entirely valid and in no need of listing, it’s worth noting that this doesn’t apply to The Fall. They can stay.