What was the Sex Pistols’ most controversial song?
Controversy has always been one of the greatest marketing tools, particularly when it comes to pop music. Any and every song that is deemed too dangerous or offensive for mainstream audiences will inevitably reach a much larger audience than it would have without being branded as controversial. This was particularly true during the age of punk when groups like the Sex Pistols used controversial topics in their songwriting to subvert the society of 1970s Britain and sell lots of records in the process.
As one of the most prominent groups within the first wave of British punk, the Sex Pistols laid many of the foundations for the scene. Inevitably, therefore, the band had their fair share of controversies. Although later groups would often be more shocking, distasteful, or subversive, few reached the same media coverage as the Pistols. For instance, the infamous moment in which Johnny Rotten swore on national television while appearing on the Bill Grundy Show brought punk into living rooms across the country.
Expectedly, for a band that could regularly be seen donning swastikas and other references to horrific atrocities, the Sex Pistols would often strive to be shocking within their music itself, as well as their various media appearances. It is difficult to gauge what their most controversial song was, as it is largely dependent on how you measure that fairly abstract concept.
On a surface level, it would be easy to identify the band’s 1977 single ‘God Save the Queen’ as their most controversial, given the incredible stir it caused within British society at the time. Released during the Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, the song was so controversial that it was banned by many record retailers and the BBC, who were also accused of fixing the UK singles chart to prevent the track from reaching the number one spot.
For all the fuss that ‘God Save the Queen’ caused, its actual lyrical content was reasonably tame by Sex Pistols standards. Accusing the monarchy of presiding over a “fascist regime” might have been shocking at the time, but it’s hardly a revolutionary statement, particularly considering some of the other tracks on Nevermind the Bollocks. The band’s sole album contained songs about abortion – ‘Bodies’ – the Cold War – ‘Holiday In The Sun’ – and even sadomasochism – ‘Submission’.
No, in terms of lyrics and theming, you would have to go some way to beat the Sex Pistols’ track ‘Belsen Was a Gas’. As you can probably guess from the title, the song draws upon the Holocaust, specifically the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Nazi Germany and the method of using gas chambers to exterminate large volumes of prisoners. It goes without saying that using the Holocaust as a source of deliberately controversial punk music steps over the line of acceptability by some way.
Originally written by Pistols’ bassist Sid Vicious, during his time with The Flowers of Romance, the song was updated by Johnny Rotten, who used the song as a pastiche of T-Rex’s ‘Life’s A Gas’. Understandably, the song was never given an official release by the band, though it did appear as a live track at many of their concerts, and a recording of the live track appeared on one version of The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle album.
It is easy to say, now, that the song has not aged well, but, truly, it is difficult to envision a time period in which ‘Belsen Was a Gas’ was, in any way, acceptable. Of course, it is meant to be an ironic song, rather than the Sex Pistols voicing support for the Holocaust, but it still does not come across very well. Even Johnny Rotten himself later admitted that the song was too much, once telling Q Magazine that it “was a very nasty, silly little thing… that should’ve ended up on the cutting room floor.”
