Maybe "Color My World"? Or "I Wanna Make It With You"?

So my wife comes downstairs from her shower and she asks, "What's the first punk song ever?"

Something by the Stooges or the MC5, I suppose, is my reply.

"No! No! No! That's so cliche. And don't give me the Velvet Underground either."

Well, what do you think the first punk song ever is?

"The Kinks - 'You Really Got Me.' It's raw. It's got the driving guitars. It's got lots of attitude. It doesn't sound like anything that came before it. It's young. It's kind of snotty. It's punk rock."

Well, I said, how about "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On?" by Jerry Lee Lewis? It's raw. It's got a pounding piano. It's got lots of attitude. It doesn't sound like anything that came before it. Besides it's probably the best song about masturbation ever and it got to #3 in the pop charts (#1 in the "Black charts" and #1 country) in 1957! Plus the guy married his 13-year-old cousin. What's more punk rock than that?

"I don't buy that," my wife said effectively ending the discussion.

What was only touched upon in this discussion is how one defines punk rock. To my wife, volume and attitude come first and foremost. But at the risk of going all Greil Marcus on your ass, I believe it goes much further than that. I think punk rock essentially has to rewrite the rules. It has to effectively destroy what was in its wake and create a new vocabulary. And since rock 'n' roll at its best is constantly doing this, to define a single starting point is a bit of a mug's game.

For the record, I can't throw my support behind "You Really Got Me." It is loud. It's got a great guitar solo and it's certainly snotty. But at it's core it's a lust song, one that's one or two steps removed from the R&B that the Brothers Davies adored in their two-up two-down in Muswell Hill. If someone wants to make a case that "You Really Got Me" is the first heavy metal song, I could be persuaded. But punk rock? I think not.

(For further research: seek ye Marcus' Lipstick Traces. It takes the Sex Pistols as its starting point and traces back punk movements and their equivalents in their historical contexts back to the 5th century. At 447 pages, it is both the apotheosis and the nadir of rock criticism. Not ironically, it could be argued that the Sex Pistols occupy the same place in the annals of punk rock.

Full disclosure: I've tried reading Lipstick Traces no less than six times, stalling out at around the page 120 mark every time.

Full disclosure II: I've played Never Mind The Bollocks in its entirety exactly once. I take nothing away from "Anarchy In The U.K.," "God Save The Queen," and "Holiday In The Sun." But on the whole, it's not a very good album and it's aged badly).

But I can't resist a challenge. So here's a best guess at the first punk songs in no particular order.
1) That's All Right, Mama - Elvis Presley
2) Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On - Jerry Lee Lewis
3) Folsom Prison Blues - Johnny Cash: He did shoot a man in Reno, just to watch him die
4) That'll Be The Day - Buddy Holly (courtesy of my brother in law): "The girl is screwing with him and he tells her to fuck off. That's punk rock." Plus he's one of the first white guys to play the Apollo. That's kind of punk rock.
5) Get Up Stand Up - Bob Marley
6) Life In The Fast Lane - The Eagles
7) The Harder They Come - Jimmy Cliff
8) Kick Out The Jams - MC5: It should be noted that this album is awfully overrated. The line between this and the Grateful Dead is very thin indeed
9) I Wanna Be Your Dog - The Stooges: I guess. Truth be told, other than Raw Power and Lust For Life, I don't think I'm much of an Iggy fan. (Hey, how about "Lust For Life" being used in Carnival Cruise ads? Now that's punk rock. "Come sail to the Caribbean. We have swimming, shuffleboard, and heroin. Line forms to the left, folks.")
10) White Riot - The Clash
11) Blitzkrieg Bop - The Ramones
12) Heroin - Velvet Underground
13) Anarchy In The U.K. - Sex Pistols
14) Psychotic Reactions - Count Five
15) Double Shot Of My Baby's Love - Swinging Medallions
16) Unchained Melody - The Righteous Brothers
17) Louie Louie - The Kingsmen
18) Born To Run - Bruce Springsteen
19) Yer Blues - The Beatles
20) Papa's Got a Brand New Bag - James Brown
21) Like A Rolling Stone - Bob Dylan
I'm sure there are others. Let the shitstorm begin.