Very nice! “Did You No Wrong” by the Sex Pistols. This song was never included on their most famous album, Never Mind the Bollocks, here’s the Sex Pistols, one of the greatest rock albums ever made that did more than any other record to kick start the punk rock movement. This song was only released as a B-side to God Save the Queen, which was released in May 1977.
The album was not released until October. It somehow went to #1 on the charts even though it caused a wave of outrage because it pretty much insulted the queen and by extension, the UK itself. It was actually banned by the BBC! After it was banned, the group rented a boat on the Thames River that flows through London and played the song at a very loud volume as the boat floated down the river. I remember when this song came out.
I believe either my brother or I purchased it in Summer 1978. Keep in mind that no one was into punk rock back then. Instead everyone was a pothead hippie, and this new punk rock music was universally reviled by such folks. I was a pothead hippie too of course, but I took to the new punk rock like a fish to water.
It was very unpopular to be a punk back then. You basically had just about no friends. Well, none of your friends agreed with your new music choice, let’s put it that way. Punks were basically reviled and rejected by everyone, which is actually sort of the whole idea of the movement, so in a way it was perfect! It was hard to be a punk though. I wore the buttons, cut my hair in an insane punk rock haircut with short hair but a long “tail” going down my neck. People would laugh at me and ridicule me when I went out.
Even though we bought the single a year after it came out, my brother and I were some of the only people into this new music. But we knew we had hit gold. The Sex Pistols were just rock roll, straight from Little Richard and Chuck Berry through the Rolling Stones, the Velvet Underground and the Stooges to glam and the New York Dolls all the way to the logical next extension, punk rock. It was all a long, unbroken string, the same music being reincarnated and improved with each new generation.
At this time, rock had gotten away from rock music proper and was off into progressive rock like Genesis, Yes, and Emerson, Lake and Palmer (well, at least they rocked). Pretty much stoner music with lots of synthesizers. It was very nice, but rock and roll it wasn’t. Punk rock was supposed to be a rebellion against all that stuff and a straight, back to the basics approach. The Pistols had more in common with Chuck Berry than they did with Genesis.
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