By The Beachwood Civil Unrest Affairs Desk
Anarchy reigns and a nation struggles to understand why
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Artist: The Sex Pistols
Recorded: October 17, 1976
Released: November 26, 1976
B-Side: I Wanna Be Me
Album: Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols
Wikipedia:
* Originally issued in a plain black sleeve, the single was the only Sex Pistols recording released by EMI.
* In the documentary The Filth and the Fury, John Lydon described the composition of the song’s opening lyrics, explaining that the best rhyme he could devise for the first line, “I am an Antichrist,” was the second line, “I am an anarchist.”
* The lyrics endorse a particularly sensational, violent concept of anarchy that reflected the pervasive sense of embittered anger, confusion, restlessness, economic frustration and social alienation which was being felt by a generation of disenfranchised youth amidst the repression and squalor of British life in the 1970s.
* Covered by Megadeth, Motley Crue
Songfacts:
* Sid Vicious had not yet joined the band. Vicious replaced original bass player Glen Matlock after this was released.
* John Lydon told Mojo magazine July 2008 about writing this song: “It flowed quite naturally to me. These are just long, long-term motivations that are there and you can’t, can’t, can’t ever underestimate the sheer driving energy poverty will bring you. Being denied everything and access to everything. Government, schools, the lot, tell you that you don’t count. You are scum. Go with flow or else. That’s an incredible driving energy, to be better than their estimation of you.”
Lyrics:
Right now! ha ha ha ha ha
I am the antichrist
I am an anarchist
Don’t know what I want but
I know how to get it
I wanna destroy the passerby, ’cause
I wanna be anarchy!
No dogs body
Anarchy for the U.K it’s coming sometime and maybe
I give a wrong time stop a traffic line
your future dream is a shopping scheme, ’cause
I wanna be anarchy!
In the city
How many ways to get what you want
I use the best I use the rest
I use the enemy I use anarchy, ’cause
I wanna be anarchy!
The only way to be!
Is this the M.P.L.A
Or is this the U.D.A
Or is this the I.R.A
I thought it was the U.K or just
another country
another council tenancy
I wanna be an anarchist
Oh what a name
Get pissed destroy!
YouTube:
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Comments welcome.
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Previously in Song of the Moment:
* Iron Man
* The Story of Bo Diddley
* Teach Your Children
* Dream Vacation
* When The Levee Breaks
* I Kissed A Girl
* Theme From Shaft
* Rocky Mountain High
* North to Alaska
* Barracuda
* Rainy Days and Mondays
* Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?
* Baby, It’s Cold Outside
* Man in the Mirror
* Birthday Sex
* Rio
* My Sharona
* Alex Chilton
* Surfin’ Bird
* By The Time I Get To Arizona
* Heaven and Hell
* Sunday Bloody Sunday
* Lawless One
* Tell It Like It Is
* The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
* Lake Shore Drive
* On, Wisconsin!
Posted on August 10, 2011