‘Bodies’: the Sex Pistols’ ode to their biggest fan
No other band has established itself as punk’s core archetype. The martial stomp of Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols‘ jackboots that open the first track ‘Holidays in the Sun’ hit as much as a cultural relic as the opening string preparation to Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. While falling victim to hagiographical tales of 1970s malaise and killing prog overnight victor written folklore, it still can’t be overstated how shocking Sex Pistols were to the UK’s stagnant class society still musty with Victorian residue.
Their singles ‘Anarchy in the UK’ or ‘God Save the Queen’ grab historical attention with their treasonous incitements, but their sole album boasts some fantastic cuts that give their ‘hits’ a run for their money. While the establishment was distracted by their ‘The Filth and the Fury’ headlines and the gleeful profanity on Bill Grundy’s ill-fated Today show, the Pistols’ unleashed their most controversial song (that actually merits recognition), shedding light on a disturbed fan and Lydon’s complicated relationship with abortion.
‘Bodies’ details the tragic case of Pauline, a young woman with mental health issues who fled suspected abuse from a Birmingham institute and sought sanctuary in London’s punk scene. “She turned up at my door once wearing a see-through plastic bag,” Lydon explained on the Sex Pistols official site. “She did the rounds in London and ended up at everybody’s door. There’s a line in the song about Pauline living in a tree. She actually had a treehouse on the estate of this nuthouse. The nurses couldn’t get her down, and she’d be up there for days. Apparently, punk rock pulled her out of her cocoon”.
Lydon added: “She might have had wealthy parents who buggered up her life, probably like Nancy Spungen, really. She was one of many lunatics that used to attach themselves to us.”
She was also carrying a bloody bag containing her aborted fetus. This visceral image would shake anyone but triggered a distinctly visceral response from Lydon, who had a history of dealing with his mother’s miscarriages and was sent to flush the remains down the outside toilet as a boy. Fuelling Nevermind the Bollocks‘ most ferocious cut conceptually and in delivery, ‘Bodies’ towers over the rest of the record in notoriety as their only album nears half a century.
Discussing the topic of abortion with brutal sentimentality and frankly confessing his moral fog in the erratic jump between lyrical points of view, ‘Bodies’ has won the admiration of the Conservative right, who view the track as a useful arm in their pro-life propaganda.
“The song is about abortion, and yes, it is a woman’s right (to choose) absolutely because she has to bear the child and all the issues thereinafter,” Lydon stressed to Rolling Stone in 2017. “Is it wise to bring an unwanted child into the world? No, I don’t think it is, but again that is just my opinion because I always would leave it to the woman. Always. In that song, I raise both sides of the agenda and actually put myself in there, too. If it wasn’t for the grace of God, my mother could have had an abortion, and I wouldn’t be here.”
In a climate of renewed Christian nationalism and the US Supreme Court’s repeal of Roe v Wade’s federal protection, ‘Bodies’ lands with deeper disquiet now than it ever did back in 1977. Made all the more unsettling by its lack of moral clarity in the face of an uncertain political future, troubled further by his reactionary support for the MAGA movement, the Pistols’ queasy ode to their biggest fan grows ever more unsettling.
