Note: I've redacted profanity from the lyrics but left the rest. It's a somewhat graphic description from the fetus' perspective. Certainly doesn't hold to the "a fetus is not a life" perspective.
BODIESShe was a girl from Birmingham
She just had an abortion
She was case of insanity
Her name was Pauline she lived in a tree
She was a no one who killed her baby
She sent her letter from the country
She was an animal
She was a bloody disgrace
Bodies I'm not an animal
Bodies I'm not an animal
Dragged on a table in factory
Illegitimate place to be
In a packet in a lavatory
Die little baby screaming
Body screaming ****ing bloody mess
Not an animal
It's an abortion
Bodies I'm not animal
Mummy I'm not an abortion
Throbbing squirm,
gurgling bloody mess
I'm not an discharge
I'm not a loss in protein
I'm not a throbbing squirm
**** this and **** that
**** it all and **** the ****ing brat
She don't wanna baby that looks like that
I don't wanna baby that looks like that
Body I'm not an animal
Body an abortion
Bodies I'm not an animal
Bodies I'm not an abortion
I'm not an animal..... Mummy!
I found an analysis from last year by someone who just didn't get it Bodies: Sex Pistols and Abortion Art .
The reporter's use of phrases like "anti-choice" put him squarely in the pro-abortion camp and yet he never addresses the song's discussion of not being a discharge or blob of protein. This doofus thinks that the songs champions women because he thinks that this abortion is liberating this woman. "And it is women, not those young male Pistols, who when universally given their right to choice, can finally assert they're no longer animals domestically penned for breeding."
While I'm on this digression, I'd like to quote one more paragraph from the linked essay:
French feminist Ginette Paris has written of "the sacrament of abortion", turning a very difficult yet necessary event into a holy moment of sacrifice for the greater good of a household with only planned, wanted children. This concept-- that such an important choice would be sanctified and given meaning in any faith-- resonates with me.
The "sacrament" of abortion a "necessary event"? Then he should support Andrea Yates killing her kids because she believed that she had already failed them. Sacrifice for the greater good of a household and all that.
I checked Lydon's autobiography. Not much in it about this song (just saying that Pauline was a demented fan). The full text from the passage in the book appears in his article but it has been cut and pasted to appear to be longer than it is (or maybe to give the impression that it says things that aren't there). Nothing written by the Sex Pistols in that passage defends or condemns her abortion but I think that the lyrics are quite damning.
I did more research online and found that some on the left take it as pro-abortion (with little support for this argument), one even claimed that Pauline was raped (historically she was a promiscuous groupie with a mental disorder). It looks like Veruca Salt may have even changed the lyric to "I'm not an animal, it's just an abortion".
Others interpret the song as being anti-abortion (but don't necessarily support the politics). "...the first rock song ever to portray abortion as something hateful (and in that case Lydon's anger is a good match for the subject matter of the tune)." Spin Magazine quotes Johnny saying that it "was not so much anti-abortion as it was anti-flesh". Even a Harvard text online called it an "anti-abortion tirade".
John Lydon's politics are hard to pin down. He puts the blame for the violence in Ireland on both sides feeling that neither side ever wants it to end (it is not about concessions). He disliked the Clash and digs at them for Marxist politics in some of their early songs. He even disliked hippies (even though he roadied for Hawkwind). I wouldn't classify him as a conservative but we've got some common ground at least with some of the songs.
Heck, "we" cast the monarchy aside, God Save The Queen, Johnny.
Your song "You Can't Be Too Strong" was one of the first anti-abortion songs in rock, apart from the Sex Pistols' "Bodies." How did that one come about?I just wrote the stuff when I was drunk or out of my head. I literally wrote that song one night after I'd gone to see Wreckless Eric live at Guilford University. I was well tanked up, and he asked me onstage to sing "Johnny B. Goode," which is the worst thing you can do, of course, so we couldn't do anything. Then I drove home-I was staying at my parents' home-I just came home. I was sitting in my parents' living room, ripped out of my head, and I just started playing that song. I wrote it as a kind of up-tempo country song. And it remained like that until Jack Nitzsche heard it. And he said, "It's pretty serious. Slow it down." We did it in one take and it was like this big powerful thing came out.
Note: I've redacted profanity from the lyrics but left the rest. It's a somewhat graphic description from the fetus' perspective. Certainly doesn't hold to the "a fetus is not a life" perspective.
BODIES
She was a girl from Birmingham
She just had an abortion
She was case of insanity
Her name was Pauline she lived in a tree
She was a no one who killed her baby
She sent her letter from the country
She was an animal
She was a bloody disgrace
Bodies I'm not an animal
Bodies I'm not an animal
Dragged on a table in factory
Illegitimate place to be
In a packet in a lavatory
Die little baby screaming
Body screaming ****ing bloody mess
Not an animal
It's an abortion
Bodies I'm not animal
Mummy I'm not an abortion
Throbbing squirm,
gurgling bloody mess
I'm not an discharge
I'm not a loss in protein
I'm not a throbbing squirm>
**** this and **** that
**** it all and **** the ****ing brat
She don't wanna baby that looks like that
I don't wanna baby that looks like that
Body I'm not an animal
Body an abortion
Bodies I'm not an animal
Bodies I'm not an abortion
I'm not an animal..... Mummy!
I checked Lydon's autobiography. Not much in it about this song (just saying that Pauline was a demented fan). The full text from the passage in the book appears in his article but it has been cut and pasted to appear to be longer than it is (or maybe to give the impression that it says things that aren't there). Nothing written by the Sex Pistols in that passage defends or condemns her abortion but I think that the lyrics are quite damning.
John Lydon's politics are hard to pin down. He puts the blame for the violence in Ireland on both sides feeling that neither side ever wants it to end (it is not about concessions). He disliked the Clash and digs at them for Marxist politics in some of their early songs. He even disliked hippies (even though he roadied for Hawkwind). I wouldn't classify him as a conservative but we've got some common ground at least with some of the songs.
Heck, "we" cast the monarchy aside, God Save The Queen, Johnny.
----------------------------
I was just getting ready to post about "Bodies," thanks.
I've always thought of John Lydon as being an independent--not a fence-sitter or a Jim Jeffords type, per se, but a person who doesn't like to be neatly placed into one particular political box. I'm like that in a lot of ways, even though most of my politics are pretty libertarian-leaning (I vehemently disagree with the LP's pro-abortion stance, however). I've seen him on [b]Politically Incorrect[/b] quite a few times and he comes across as very intelligent and articulate while debating the issues, definitely someone who knows his sh**. He has excellent wit too.
As for Lydon's distaste for hippies, that's something which has more or less been a part of punk rock from the very beginning.