I used to think the original British punks were terribly served by the movies. In the 1980s, it seemed like only three films depicting the scene were ever shown, and each was more depressing than the next. First, there was Don Letts’ The Punk Rock Movie (1978), a super-8 compilation of live performances at the Roxy that suffered from atrocious sound, complete lack of context, and some exploitative shock-horror audience footage. Then there was D.O.A.–A Rite of Passage (1980), which depicted the Sex Pistols’ disastrous final tour through the southern United States; it’s an absorbing if ugly document, a kind of punk Gimme Shelter that captures the last desperate moments when everything fell apart. Finally, there was Sid and Nancy (1986), a well-acted but willfully lurid biopic about British punk’s least inspiring figure. (John Lydon: “To me this movie is the lowest form of life.”)

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Deaf School were Liverpool’s main claim to fame in the peculiar era between the end of Merseybeat and the post-punk renaissance led by The Teardrop Explodes and Echo and the Bunnymen. Not as serious as Roxy Music and not quite as smartass as Sparks, but exploring similarly theatrical art/glam/camp territory, they deserve a lot more credit than they ever received at the time.

In the movie Bob Roberts (1992), writer/director/star Tim Robbins had some fun with the notion of a Republican senate candidate who doubles as a right-wing folk singer, and regales his followers with protest anthems like “Drugs Stink” and “Times Are Changin’ Back.” That the concept seems intrinsically absurd points to the perennial dearth of musical inspiration on the right. Few conservatives would bother to deny that, ideology aside, the lefties have all the best tunes.

And yet, amid all the progressive sentiment that dominated the pop charts in the 1960s, a few lonely voices cried out against the prevailing trends and released singles denouncing the perceived permissiveness and anti-Americanism of the young. Some of them were substantial hits.

What follows are five of the most notable counter-counterculture records of the ’60s, in ascending order of tackiness.

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Here’s a young Ian Dury in his first BBC appearance, fronting the pub-rock combo Kilburn & the High Roads. The guitarist is Nick Cash, later the singer for 999.