Sex Pistols- Bodies

[EwokUtopia]

This song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjyqpxkKJCM) has allways confused me. The Sex Pistols, being hard enough to understand as it is, were the first mainstream band to make a song about abortion (and only, so far as I am aware). The lyrics are really confusing, and I cant tell whether they are pro choice or pro life or completely apathetic.

If it is a pro-life song, it is really surprising to see it coming from them. If anyone knows anything else about this song, please say so, because it confuses the shit out of me.

Lyrics-
She was a girl from birmingham
She just had an abortion
She was a case of insanity
Her name was pauline she lived in a tree
She was a no one who killed her baby
She sent her letters from the country
She was an animal she was a bloody disgrase

Body Im not an animal
Body Im not an animal

Dragged on a table in factory
Illegitimate place to be
In a packet in a lavatory
Die little baby screaming fucking bloody mess
Its not an animal its an abortion

Body Im not animal
Mummy Im not an abortion

Throbbing squirm, gurgling bloody mess
Im not an discharge, Im not a loss in
Protein, Im not a throbbing squirm

Fuck this and fuck that fuck it all and
Fuck the fucking brat
She dont wanna baby that looks like that
I dont wanna baby that looks like that
Body Im not an animal
Body Im not an abortion

Body Im not an animal
An animal
Im not an animal...
Im not an abortion...

Mummy! ugh!

[Lenin II]

I'm glad someone made a thread about this. As a big Sex Pistols fan, this song has always confused me as well.

i think the lyrics are reflective of a viral thinking that is the basic make up of the human race. They think that the biggest crime is to abort a thing that will just grow up to be controlled and toyed with like a fucking prisoner. They will loaud a woman for stopping a thing that will tear her insides out but praise a fucking machine that bascially turns nations into slaves and send young people out on a war pat that will kill millions and eventually billions.

[anarchista feminista]

From a Sex Pistols DVD I have, John Lydon stated that this song was neither pro or anti abortion. It was simply a song.

[Angry Young Man]

Wasn't Johnny Rotten raised a Catholic?
Also, I'd've thought he wouldn't think it any of his business. And the girl's probably a bloody mess because she's from Birmingham! :lol:

[EwokUtopia]

Originally posted by [email protected] 02, 2007 09:35 am
From a Sex Pistols DVD I have, John Lydon stated that this song was neither pro or anti abortion. It was simply a song.
Well isnt that nice :)

[seg4527]

I read online once on some sex pistol's website that it was about this f-d up punk groupie they had who had had many abortions, would get pregnant just to have them, and describe them in gory detail to Johnny Rotten. The song is about her, not abortion on a social level. I think most people would agree getting pregnant just to have an abortion is a little off...

If that's a true story or not...

[celtopunk]

THere was a similarly themed PiL song.

Here's the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56RICywExfw

[Tommy-K]

Originally posted by [email protected] 02, 2007 07:00 am
I'm glad someone made a thread about this. As a big Sex Pistols fan, this song has always confused me as well.
Me too :P

I think the explanations given seem rational.

I can't imagine the Sex Pistols being pro-life :S

[Sickle of Justice]

my best guess for why the song was written is that they wanted to fuck with people. most of what the sex pistols did was like that. their most serious songs are Schools are Prisons, EMI, God Save the Queen etc. from these they seem basically leftest, anti corporate, anti monarchy. if you just heard songs like "my way", "Belsen Was a Gas", "Bodies" etc, you could very well assume that they're nazi psychos. most of that was for shock value. sids swastika shirt, that kinda thing. i've also seen him with a karl marx patch on his shirt, so i wouldn't take the nazi stuff too seriously.

[TC]

wow what losers...


but seriously...has it occured to you guys that just cause you like someone's music doesn't mean they have good politics...like...being artistically talented and politically reactionary are so categorically different that they can hardly be presumed to be mutually exclusive...so i don't get why this is so confusing, they're just rightwingers so they wrote a rightwing song, that doesn't mean you can't enjoy their music for non-political reasons.


I read online once on some sex pistol's website that it was about this f-d up punk groupie they had who had had many abortions, would get pregnant just to have them, and describe them in gory detail to Johnny Rotten. The song is about her, not abortion on a social level. I think most people would agree getting pregnant just to have an abortion is a little off...


although that sounds like an extraordinarily implausible story that in no way explains or justifies the lyrics even if true, even if it were true (which realistically it is not) it would be none of their fucking buisness.

[EwokUtopia]

Originally posted by [email protected] 25, 2007 01:06 pm
wow what losers...


but seriously...has it occured to you guys that just cause you like someone's music doesn't mean they have good politics...like...being artistically talented and politically reactionary are so categorically different that they can hardly be presumed to be mutually exclusive...so i don't get why this is so confusing, they're just rightwingers so they wrote a rightwing song, that doesn't mean you can't enjoy their music for non-political reasons.


I read online once on some sex pistol's website that it was about this f-d up punk groupie they had who had had many abortions, would get pregnant just to have them, and describe them in gory detail to Johnny Rotten. The song is about her, not abortion on a social level. I think most people would agree getting pregnant just to have an abortion is a little off...


although that sounds like an extraordinarily implausible story that in no way explains or justifies the lyrics even if true, even if it were true (which realistically it is not) it would be none of their fucking buisness.
haha thanks


but seriously...has it occured to you guys that just cause you like someone's music doesn't mean they have good politics...like...being artistically talented and politically reactionary are so categorically different that they can hardly be presumed to be mutually exclusive...so i don't get why this is so confusing, they're just rightwingers so they wrote a rightwing song, that doesn't mean you can't enjoy their music for non-political reasons.

No, im not wondering if they are right wing, Im just wondering what the fuck they are getting at. Have you heard the song? It confuses the shit out of me. I think they are just ignoring the politics behind it and screaming "Abortion!!!!". If it was right wing music, ok, I can deal with that, but they are not right wingers, they are just dumbasses singing a song about abortion just for kicks. Just like they scream "Anarchy!" for kicks without doing much else. Come to think of it, Sex Pistols just suck, Im listening to some reagan youth, because Im stoned and I cant take their shittyness.

[EwokUtopia]

Like what the fuck is this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JH-7kc4Qm2Y) about, they arent leftists or rightists, they are just dumbasses going for shock value.

They were fun when I was 17 though, but I was still confused about what they were getting at.

[Sickle of Justice]

pffft. its a shock value song. nuff said. they are not really a political band, though "God Save the Queen" is fairly genuine. but the thing is, for most of their career the pistols were mclaren controlled, the same guy who made the new york dolls seem soviet for shock value. its shock value. but Johnny "Rotten" lydon did a few radio shows without Mclaren's permission. they had previously said that God Save the Queen was about their hatred for britan, but Lydon said "you don't write a song like God Save the Queen because you hate the english race. you write it because you love 'em and your sick of them being so damn mistreated."

[midnight marauder]

I've always wondered what this was about...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2f/Nancy_Spungen.jpg

Shock value?

[EwokUtopia]

Originally posted by [email protected] 01, 2007 10:10 pm
I've always wondered what this was about...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2f/Nancy_Spungen.jpg

Shock value?
Same as this I gather
http://warshop.cz/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2006/02/prince_harry_nazi.jpg

Rich people who think they can get away with it.

[KC]

Yeah, they're not taking either side. They wrote a song about it to be provocative. That's the same reason that the swastika is popular in some punk groups; they're not nazis, they're just against society and are showing that through wearing the swastika.

I mean, it's rather obvious they're not right wing, so I don't know what TC's talking about. This whole thing was rather obvious.

[RebelDog]

Originally posted by [email protected] 02, 2007 05:27 am
Same as this I gather
http://warshop.cz/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2006/02/prince_harry_nazi.jpg

Rich people who think they can get away with it.
You leave Harry alone, he's really worried about going to Iraq and doing his bit for granny and country.

[EwokUtopia]

Originally posted by The [email protected] 02, 2007 06:54 am
You leave Harry alone, he's really worried about going to Iraq and doing his bit for granny and country.
As well he should be, What if his entire bodyguard is killed and those pesty Iraqi Peasants make him miss tea?

[Fightin Da Man]

Originally posted by [email protected] 01, 2007 10:10 pm
I've always wondered what this was about...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2f/Nancy_Spungen.jpg

Shock value?
It was pretty common for punks back then to wear swastikas for shock value. Can you think of a better way to piss off people who had lived through the London Blitz than to walk around with that shirt on?

[Sickle of Justice]

Originally posted by The Dissenter+May 02, 2007 06:54 am--> (The Dissenter @ May 02, 2007 06:54 am)
[email protected] 02, 2007 05:27 am
Same as this I gather
http://warshop.cz/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2006/02/prince_harry_nazi.jpg

Rich people who think they can get away with it.
You leave Harry alone, he's really worried about going to Iraq and doing his bit for granny and country. [/b]
right. same as all the other rich emperialistic brainwashing bastards out there.

[socialistpunk]

LOL !! i never understood why harry did that cause he knows its a symbol that is offensive to some groups of people and the song is probaly pro-choice even though john lydon may say its not but he may just be saying that to not go into a huge explanation of what the song was about and sid vicious isn't a nazi in one of the sex pistols videos on you tube he is seen with a marx face on his jacket so he's only wearing the swastika to provoke a reaction out of the establishment

[IcarusAngel]

It was common for some British punk bands to wear the Nazi symbol even though they were apolitical or leftist. Siouxsie and The Banshees also did it as well. I believe some of the reasoning used by Rotten was that felt they were living under a fascist state. I'm glad the sex pistols came along with a different more outrageous style, otherwise all punks might have looked like Dee Dee Ramone.

Of course, few if any punk bands generally had Marxist beliefs anyway. They were usually anarchist or democratic.

[gilhyle]

I have seen an interview with Johnnie Lydon where he says this song is based on a true story about a girl who came down from Birmingham to bang on his door ac claim he had got her pregnant. However, Lydon cannot be trusted.

I thin its about this: whether or not abortion shoudl be legal or not, it remains what it is - an undesirable act of destruction which, potentially, degrades the woman and which is not called what it is.

YOU, I repeat, YOU can decide that saying that is pro-life. Intrinsically, it is not pro-life or pro-choice. It is quite reasonable to hold the view that abortion is a right and still to believe that it is deeply challenging for the woman who must go through it. It is equally possible to hold the opposite view : that abortion degrades a woman and shouuld not be allowed for that reason.

The key phrase is 'not an animal'. The song is an affirmation of the distinctiveness of the human character in the face of the animalistic character of daily life, a life in which things are not recognsied as what they are. In other words Lydon draws a contrast between the acts people engage in in this society and their intrinsic character