April 25th, 2008
Sex Pistols – “No Feelings”/”Liar”/”Holidays In The Sun”
It’s amazing how time – and to a different extent sad, tarnished Malcolm McLaren – has changed how people view Sex Pistols; the way shock value has changed over the decades since punk rock as well, probably. When this mangy bunch of characters were assembled, had learned how to play their instruments (to a limited extent), desired fame and rebelled at boredom with wit, few points of ethic and great tunes, people were shocked. Of course.
Before the Sex Pistols, bands like The Modern Lovers, Television, the New York Dolls, the Ramones were fresh, had a simple, hard, guitar-based sound, came from the USA and turned things around for a lot of British youngsters, bringing simple songs you could play your guitar to with lyrics that you could relate to. No wonder punk became a massive movement, the very ethos of which is do-it-yourself.
The artists that were popular just before punk rock came had become dinosaurs, no longer on the tip of their toes, too rich for their own good, creating music that was far too complex to be played by their fans with lyrics that didn’t connect. Artists like Emerson, Lake & Palmer, The Eagles, Genesis, Linda Ronstadt, The Doobie Brothers…and, sadly, even Bowie. They weren’t in touch with younger generations who desperately dreamed of something that they could connect with. Hippies singing about golden arcs in the sky with phantom dreams of forlorn…Hotel California didn’t say anything to those whose lives that were being mauled by Margaret Thatcher and teachers who told them they weren’t going to amount to much. From the mouth of Johnny Ramone:
They were writing songs about their cars, about making out with girls. We didn’t have that. We wrote songs about boredom and sniffing glue.
From necessity came punk rock.
Sex Pistols were a lot more than the filth and fury that the rag mags made them out to be; just see the seminal documentary about them – “The Filth and The Fury” – to know more. Their songs were at times designed to be crude and offensive, but considering just something like the political situation at the times, little wonder! People like to beat down on John Lydon for being a lazy sod, an opportunist, a puppet in the hands of McLaren, an anti-intellectual, but he wasn’t1. Instead, he had intelligence, wit and a personality that very few lead singer ever have matched.
The track “No Feelings” isn’t apathetic. It’s self-lovin’:
I got no feelings, a no feelings
No feelings for anybody else
Except for my self
My beautiful self, dear
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That, paired with the wonderful “Liar” that casts aside all curtains in all its simplicity:
I know where you go everybody you know
I know everything that do or say
So when you tell lies
I’ll always be in your way
I’m nobody’s fool and I know all
‘cos I know what I know
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The first line in “Holidays In The Sun” says it all: a holiday in other peoples’ misery!
I don’t wanna holiday in the sun
I wanna go to new Belsen
I wanna see some history
’cause now I got a reasonable economy
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They’re up for a week and then gone.
- Except, of course, for being a lazy sod.[back]
