Pussy Riot and the politics of grrrl punk

I wonder, as they sit in their separate cells, what songs the three jailed members of Pussy Riot sing to themselves to keep their spirits strong. My vote: “Resist Psychic Death” by the early 1990s punk feminist band Bikini Kill. The verse offers a four-word summation of the refusal to be mentally imprisoned: “Your world, not mine.” And the chorus provides a bullet-point mantra of determination and survival: “I’ll resist with every inch and every breath/ I’ll resist this psychic death.”

By Evelyn McDonnell

September 13, 2012