The song Glen Matlock wishes he wrote
Towards the end of the 1970s, punk rock was designed to be the antithesis of all the straight media happening at the time. It didn’t feel like the man on the street could breathe the same air as a band like Led Zeppelin, and acts like The Sex Pistols tore down the barriers between the band and the audience by being as authentic as possible. Glen Matlock may have been at the heart of The Pistols in their early days, but he always had a far more eclectic music taste than his counterparts.
Although part of Johnny Rotten’s charm in the early days was to take the piss out of every other rock band, Matlock was far more musically gifted, writing the first songs for The Pistols like ‘Pretty Vacant’. When talking to the NME about a song he wishes he had written, Matlock singled out David Bowie before anyone else, counting his song ‘Heroes’ as one of his favourites.
Listening back to the song, Matlock praised all of the compositional elements of the tune, remarking, “It’s just majestic. It’s got a lot of hope in the lyrics and the playing on it is fantastic. It’s kind of that medium-paced song I try to delight in”. While the song is the epitome of a slow burn, Bowie creates an experience in the listener’s mind, as if he’s someone at the end of the bar wondering if there’s a chance for them to be heroes just for a moment.
Matlock also acknowledges the fact that this kind of slow burn had an impact on the early demos for The Sex Pistols, adding, “People always said Pistols stuff is really fast, but it’s not, it’s just right. It’s a bit like a cup of tea and a haircut, y’know, ‘How would you like it, sir?’ Just right”. Although most of the punk ethos was about playing harder and faster than the opposing band, The Pistols always had a mid-tempo groove to get their tunes to move hearts, like the lurch of ‘Anarchy in the UK’.
Matlock’s knowledge of musical theory actually hindered The Sex Pistols in the early days, with their mission to be the anti-rock band from the word go. Despite the crime of actually knowing how to play his instrument, Matlock took the basis of his musical knowledge and put it into songs like ‘Anarchy’ and ‘God Save the Queen’, all while the rest of the band made fun of him for what they called ‘Beatle chords’.
Elsewhere in the interview, Matlock also brings up his love for ‘60s rock and roll, being a particular fan of The Kinks’ ‘You Really Got Me’ and the first album he bought being Sgt. Peppers by The Beatles. That kind of musical taste didn’t last as long in The Sex Pistols, with the band soon moving on with punk rock icon Sid Vicious, bringing a slew of controversy in his wake. While Glen Matlock might have been a bit too much of a fan to be in The Pistols for long, he did slip in some classic rock fairy dust into those early tunes.
