Sex Pistols - Bodies ( L2 )

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 letters from the country
She was an animal
She was a bloody disgrace

Body! I'm not an animal
Body! 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 fucking bloody mess
Not an animal
It's an abortion

Body! I'm not animal
Mummy! I'm not an abortion

[Spoken]
Throbbing squirm,
gurgling bloody mess
I'm not a discharge
I'm not a loss in protein
I'm not a throbbing squirm

Fuck this and fuck that
Fuck it all and fuck a fucking 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

Body! I'm not an animal
Body! I'm not an animal
An animal
I'm not an animal.....
I'm not an abortion.....

Mummy! UGH!

Sex Pistols ( B40 )

 

Singles

Year	Single	UK
1976	"Anarchy in the U.K."	38
1977	"God Save the Queen"	2
	"Pretty Vacant"	6
	"Holidays in the Sun"	8
1978	"No One Is Innocent"/"My Way"	7
1979	"Something Else"/"Friggin' in the Riggin'"	3
	"Silly Thing"/"Who Killed Bambi?"	6
	"C'mon Everybody"	3
	"The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle"	21
1980	"(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone"	21
	"Black Leather"/"Here We Go Again"	—
1981	"Who Killed Bambi?"	—
1992	"Anarchy in the U.K." (reissue)	33
	"Pretty Vacant" (reissue)	56
1996	"Pretty Vacant" (live)	18
2002	"God Save the Queen" (reissue)	15
2007	"Anarchy in the UK" (2nd reissue)	70
	"God Save the Queen" (2nd reissue)	42
	"Pretty Vacant" (2nd reissue)	65
	"Holidays in the Sun" (reissue)	74

Sex Pistols ( B39 )

 

1985	Anarchy in the UK: Live at the 76 Club Type: Live	–	–	–	–	–	–	–
1992	Kiss This Type: Compilation	10	–	–	46	–	–	–	UK: Gold
1993	Early Daze Type: Compilation		–
1996	Filthy Lucre Live Type: Live	26	–	–	–	–	–	–
2001	Live at Winterland 1978 Type: Live	–	–	–	–	–	–	–
2002	Jubilee Type: Compilation	29	–	–	–	–	–	–
	Sex Pistols Type: Compilation (box set)	–	–	–	–	–	–	–
2004	Raw and Live Type: Live	–	–	–	–	–	–	–
2008	Agents of Anarchy Type: Compilation	–	–	–	–	–	–	–
2008	Live & Filthy Type: Live continuare	–	–	–	–	–	–	–

Sex Pistols ( B38 )

 

Discography

Studio album

Year	Album details	Peak chart positions							Certification
		UK	AUS	US	SWE	NOR	ESP	NZ
1977	Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols Type: Studio album	1	23	106	12	11	100	27	UK: 2 x Platinum  US: Platinum

Other albums

Year	Album details	Peak chart positions							Certification
		UK	AUS	US	SWE	NOR	ESP	NZ
1977	Spunk Type: Early recordings for album; leaked by Dave Goodman	–	–	–	–	–	–	–
1979	The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle Type: Various artists soundtrack	7	44	–	–	–	–	26	UK: Gold
	Some Product: Carri on Sex Pistols Type: Interviews and radio spots	6	–	–	–	–	–	–	UK: Silver
1980	Flogging a Dead Horse Type: Compilation	23	–	–	–	–	–	49	UK: Silver
	Sex Pack Type: Compilation continuare

Sex Pistols ( B37 )

 According to Pistols tour manager Noel Monk and journalist Jimmy Guterman, Lydon was much more than "the band's mouthpiece. He's its raging brain. McLaren or his friend Jamie Reid might drop a word like 'anarchy' or 'vacant' that Rotten seizes upon and turns into a manifesto, but McLaren is not the Svengali to Rotten he'd like to be perceived as. McLaren thought he was working with a tabula rasa, but he soon found out that Rotten has ideas of his own". On the other hand, there is little disagreement about McLaren's marketing talent and his crucial role in making the band a subcultural phenomenon soon after its debut. Temple adds that "he catalyzed so many people's heads. He had so many just extraordinary ideas". Though, as Jon Savage emphasises, "In fact, it was Steve Jones who first had the idea of putting the group, or any group, together with McLaren. He chose McLaren, not vice versa."

Band members

Official members Johnny Rotten – lead vocals (1975–1978, 1996–2001, 2002–2003, 2007–2008) Steve Jones – guitar, bass, backing vocals (1975–1978, 1996–2001, 2002–2003, 2007–2008) Paul Cook – drums (1975–1978, 1996–2001, 2002–2003, 2007–2008) Glen Matlock – bass, backing vocals (1975–1977, 1996–2001, 2002–2003, 2007–2008) Sid Vicious – bass, backing vocals (1977–1978; died 1979) Guest musicians Musicians other than the band members who recorded songs with Steve Jones and Paul Cook on The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle: Ronnie Biggs – lead vocals on "No One Is Innocent", "Belsen Was a Gas" Edward Tudor-Pole – lead vocals on "The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle", "Who Killed Bambi?", "Rock Around the Clock" Malcolm McLaren – lead vocals on "God Save The Queen (Symphony)", "You Need Hands" Dave Goodman – bass on "The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle" Andy Allan – bass on "Silly Thing (single version)" continuare

Sex Pistols ( B36 )

 It is also hard to ascribe the effect of the Sex Pistols' early Manchester shows on that city's nascent punk scene to anyone other than the musicians themselves. Matlock later wrote that at the point when he left the band, it was beginning to occur to him that McLaren "was in fact quite deliberately perpetrating that idea of us as his puppets.... However, on the other hand, I've since found out that even Malcolm wasn't as aware of what he was up to as he has since made out." By his absence, Matlock demonstrated how crucial he was to the band's creativity: in the eleven months between his departure and the Pistols' demise, they composed only two songs.

Music historian Simon Reynolds argues that McLaren came into his own as an auteur only after the group's break-up, with The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle and the recruitment of Ronnie Biggs as a vocalist. Much subsequent commentary on the Sex Pistols has relied on taking seriously McLaren's onscreen proclamations in the film, whether lending them credence or not. As music journalist Dave Thompson noted in 2000, "[T]oday, Swindle is viewed by many as the truth" (despite the fact that the movie purveys, among other things, a completely illiterate Steve Jones, a talking dog, and Sid Vicious shooting audience members, including his mother, at the conclusion of "My Way"). Temple points out that McLaren's characterization was intended as "a big fucking joke—that he was the puppetmeister who created these pieces of clay from plasticine boxes that he modeled away and made Johnny Rotten, made Sid Vicious. It was a joke that they were completely manufactured." (In his final onscreen scene in the film, McLaren declares that he was planning the Sex Pistols affair, "Ever since I was ten years old! Ever since Elvis Presley joined the army!" [1956 and 1958, respectively].) Temple acknowledges that McLaren ultimately "perhaps took this too much to heart."

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Sex Pistols ( B35 )

 In 1980, critic Greil Marcus reflected on McLaren's contradictory posture:

It may be that in the mind of their self-celebrated Svengali...the Sex Pistols were never meant to be more than a nine-month wonder, a cheap vehicle for some fast money, a few laughs, a touch of the old épater la bourgeoisie. It may also be that in the mind of their chief terrorist and propagandist, anarchist veteran...and Situational artist McLaren, the Sex Pistols were meant to be a force that would set the world on its ear...and finally unite music and politics. The Sex Pistols were all of these things.

A couple of years before, Marcus had identified different roots underlying the band's merger of music and politics, arguing that they "have absorbed from reggae and the Rastas the idea of a culture that will make demands on those in power which no government could ever satisfy; a culture that will be exclusive, almost separatist, yet also messianic, apocalyptic and stoic, and that will ignore or smash any contradiction inherent in such a complexity of stances." Critic Sean Campbell has discussed how Lydon's Irish Catholic heritage both facilitated his entrée into London's reggae scene and complicated his position for the ethnically English working class—the background his bandmates had in common.

Johnny Rotten on stage in Paradiso, Amsterdam, January 1977

Critic Bill Wyman acknowledges that Lydon's "fierce intelligence and astonishing onstage charisma" were important catalysts, but ultimately finds the band's real meaning lies in McLaren's provocative media manipulations. While some of the Sex Pistols' public affronts were plotted by McLaren, Westwood, and company, others were evidently not—including what McLaren himself cites as the "pivotal moment that changed everything", the clash on the Bill Grundy Today show. "Malcolm milked situations", says Cook, "he didn't instigate them; that was always our own doing."

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Sex Pistols ( B34 )

  "Its authenticity stands out against the karaoke ersatz culture of today, where everything and everyone is for sale.... [P]unk is not, and never was, for sale." Or they were a cynical con: something with which "to sell trousers", as McLaren said in 1989; a "carefully planned exercise to embezzle as much money as possible out of the music industry", as Jon Savage characterises McLaren's core theme in The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle; "cash from chaos" as the movie repeatedly puts it.

Lydon, in turn, dismissed McLaren's influence: "We made our own scandal just by being ourselves. Maybe it was that he knew he was redundant, so he overcompensated. All the talk about the French Situationists being associated with punk is bollocks. It's nonsense!" Cook concurs: "Situationism had nothing to do with us. The Jamie Reids and Malcolms were excited because we were the real thing. I suppose we were what they were dreaming of." According to Lydon, "If we had an aim, it was to force our own, working-class opinions into the mainstream, which was unheard of in pop music at the time."

Toby Creswell argues that the "Sex Pistols' agenda was inchoate, to say the least. It was a general call to rebellion that falls apart at the slightest scrutiny." Critic Ian Birch, writing in 1981, called "stupid" the claim that the Sex Pistols "had any political significance.... If they did anything, they made a lot of people content with being nothing. They certainly didn't inspire the working classes." While the Conservative triumph in 1979 may be taken as evidence for that position, Julien Temple has noted that the scene inspired by the Sex Pistols "wasn't your kind of two-up, two-down working class normal families, most of it. It was over the edge of the precipice in social terms. They were actually giving a voice to an area of the working class that was almost beyond the pale." Within a year of "Anarchy in the U.K." that voice was being echoed widely: scores if not hundreds of punk bands had formed across the country—groups composed largely of working-class members or middle-class members who rejected their own class values and pursued solidarity with the working class.

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Sex Pistols ( B33 )

 While the manner of his death signified for many the inevitable failure of punk's social ambitions, it cemented his image as an archetype of doomed youth. British punk fashion, still widely influential, is now customarily credited to Westwood and McLaren; as Johnny Rotten, Lydon had a lasting effect as well, especially through his bricolage approach to personal style: he "would wear a velvet collared drape jacket (ted) festooned with safety pins (Jackie Curtis through the New York punk scene), massive pin-stripe pegs (modernist), a pin-collar Wemblex (mod) customised into an Anarchy shirt (punk) and brothel creepers (ted)." Christopher Nolan, director of the Batman movie The Dark Knight, has said that Rotten inspired the characterization of The Joker, played by Heath Ledger. According to Nolan, "We very much took the view in looking at the character of the Joker that what's strong about him is this idea of anarchy. This commitment to anarchy, this commitment to chaos."

Conceptual basis and the question of credit

The Sex Pistols were defined by ambitions that went well beyond the musical—indeed, McLaren was at times openly contemptuous of the band's music and punk rock generally. "Christ, if people bought the records for the music, this thing would have died a death long ago," he said in 1977. The degree to which the Pistols' anti-establishment stance resulted from the members' spontaneous attitudes as opposed to being cultivated by McLaren and his associates is a matter of debate—as is the very nature of that stance itself. Deprecating the music, McLaren elevated the concept, for which he later took full credit.

He claimed that the Sex Pistols were his personal, Situationist-style art project: "I decided to use people, just the way a sculptor uses clay." But what had he supposedly made? The Sex Pistols were as substantial as pop culture could get: "Punk became the most important cultural phenomenon of the late 20th century", McLaren later asserted.

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SexPistols ( B32 )

  Critic Toby Creswell locates the primary source of inspiration somewhat differently. Noting that "[i]mage to the contrary, the Pistols were very serious about music", he argues, "the real rebel yell came from Jones' guitars: a mass wall of sound based on the most simple, retro guitar riffs. Essentially, the Sex Pistols reinforced what the garage bands of the '60s had demonstrated—you don't need technique to make rock & roll. In a time when music had been increasingly complicated and defanged, the Sex Pistols' generational shift caused a real revolution."

Although much of the Sex Pistols' energy was directed against the establishment, not all of rock's elder statesmen dismissed them. Pete Townshend of the Who said:

When you listen to the Sex Pistols, to "Anarchy in the U.K." and "Bodies" and tracks like that, what immediately strikes you is that this is actually happening. This is a bloke, with a brain on his shoulders, who is actually saying something he sincerely believes is happening in the world, saying it with real venom, and real passion. It touches you and it scares you—it makes you feel uncomfortable. It's like somebody saying, "The Germans are coming! And there's no way we're gonna stop 'em!"

Along with their abundant musical influence, the Sex Pistols' cultural reverberations are evident elsewhere. Jamie Reid's work for the band is regarded as among the most important graphic design of the 1970s and still influences the field in the 21st century. By the age of twenty-one, Sid Vicious was already a "t-shirt-selling icon".

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Sex Pistols ( B31 )

 The Sex Pistols' 4 June 1976 concert at Manchester's Lesser Free Trade Hall was to become one of the most significant and mythologised events in rock history. Among the audience of merely forty people or so were many who became leading figures in the punk and post-punk movements: Pete Shelley and Howard Devoto, who organised the gig and were in the process of auditioning new members for the Buzzcocks; Bernard Sumner, Ian Curtis and Peter Hook, later of Joy Division; Mark E. Smith, later of The Fall; punk poet John Cooper Clarke and Morrissey, later of The Smiths. Anthony H. Wilson, founder of Factory Records, saw the band for the first time at the return engagement on 20 July. Among the many musicians of a later time who have acknowledged their debt to the Pistols are members of the Jesus and Mary Chain, NOFX, The Stone Roses, Guns N' Roses, Nirvana, Green Day, and Oasis. Calling the band "immensely influential", a London College of Music study guide notes that "many styles of popular music, such as grunge, indie, thrash metal and even rap owe their foundations to the legacy of ground breaking punk bands—of which the Sex Pistols was the most prominent.''

Nothing would have happened without the Pistols. It was like, "Wow, I believe in this." What they were saying was: "It's a load of shite. I'm going to do what I do and I don't care what people think." That was the key to it. People forget that, but it was the main ideology for me: we don't care what you think—you're shit anyway. It was the attitude that got people moving, as well as the music.

– Pauline Murray

According to Ira Robbins of the Trouser Press Record Guide, "the Pistols and manager/provocateur Malcolm McLaren challenged every aspect and precept of modern music-making, thereby inspiring countless groups to follow their cue onto stages around the world. A confrontational, nihilistic public image and rabidly nihilistic socio-political lyrics set the tone that continues to guide punk bands." 

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Sex Pistols ( B30 )

  Rolling Stone has argued that the band, "in direct opposition to the star trappings and complacency" of mid-1970s rock, came to spark and personify one of the few truly critical moments in pop culture—the rise of punk." In 2004, the magazine ranked the Sex Pistols No. 58 on its list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time." Leading music critic Dave Marsh called them "unquestionably the most radical new rock band of the Seventies."

Although the Sex Pistols were not the first punk band, the few recordings that were released during the band's brief initial existence were singularly catalytic expressions of the punk movement. The releases of "Anarchy in the U.K.", "God Save the Queen" and Never Mind the Bollocks are counted among the most important events in the history of popular music. Never Mind the Bollocks is regularly cited in accountings of all-time great albums: In 2006, it was voted No. 28 in Q magazine's "100 Greatest Albums Ever", while Rolling Stone listed it at No. 2 in its 1987 "Top 100 Albums of the Last 20 Years". It has come to be recognised as among the most influential records in rock history. An AllMusic critic calls it "one of the greatest, most inspiring rock records of all time".

The Sex Pistols directly inspired the style, and often the formation itself, of many punk and post-punk bands during their first two-and-a-half-year run. The Clash, Siouxsie and the Banshees, the Adverts, Vic Godard of Subway Sect, and Ari Up of the Slits are among those in London's "inner circle" of early punk bands that credit the Pistols.

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Sex Pistols ( B29 )

 In August, after performing at the Dutch festival A Campingflight to Lowlands Paradise, Lowlands director Eric van Eerdenburg declared the Pistols' performance "saddening": "They left their swimming pools at home only to scoop up some money here. Really, they're nothing more than that." That same year, they released the DVD There'll Always Be An England, recorded at their Brixton Academy appearance on 10 November 2007. In 2010, Fragrance and Beauty Limited announced the release of an authorised Sex Pistols scent. According to a statement from the cosmetics firm, "the fragrance exudes pure energy, pared down and pumped up by leather, shot through with heliotrope and brought back down to earth by a raunchy patchouli." The band signed with Universal Music Group in 2012 to re-release Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols.

On 30 October 2018, former Sex Pistols members Steve Jones and Paul Cook joined up with Billy Idol and Tony James, both formerly of another first wave English punk rock band Generation X, to perform a free entry gig at The Roxy in Hollywood, Los Angeles under the name Generation Sex, playing a combined set of the two former bands' material.

Legacy

Cultural influence

Graffiti of the Sex Pistols

Graffiti of Rotten in Los Angeles, 2008

An image of Vicious lacrimosa in Madrid, 2006

The Sex Pistols are regarded as one of the most groundbreaking acts in the history of popular music. The Trouser Press Record Guide entry on the Sex Pistols remarks that "their importance—both to the direction of contemporary music and more generally to pop culture—can hardly be overstated".

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Sex Pistols ( B28 )

 

Reunions and later group activities

Gibson Les Paul Custom signed by the Sex Pistols, Hard Rock Cafe, London

The original four Sex Pistols reunited in 1996 for the six-month Filthy Lucre Tour, which included dates in Europe, North and South America, Australia and Japan. The band members' access to the archives associated with The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle facilitated the production of the 2000 documentary The Filth and the Fury. This film—directed, like its predecessor, by Temple—was formulated as an attempt to tell the story from the band's point of view, in contrast to Swindle's focus on McLaren and the media. In 2002—the year of the Queen's Golden Jubilee—the Sex Pistols reunited again to play the Crystal Palace National Sports Centre in London. In 2003, their Piss Off Tour took them around North America for three weeks.

On 9 March 2006, the band sold the rights to their back catalogue to Universal Music Group. An anonymous commentator for Australian newspaper The Age called this a "sell out". In November 2006, the Sex Pistols were inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The band rejected the honour in coarse language on their website. In a television interview, Lydon said the Hall of Fame could "Kiss this!" and made a rude gesture. According to Jones, "Once you want to be put into a museum, Rock & Roll's over; it's not voted by fans, it's voted by people who induct you, or others; people who are already in it."

The Sex Pistols reunited for five performances in the UK in November 2007. In 2008, they undertook a series of European festival appearances, titled the Combine Harvester Tour.

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Sex Pistols ( B27 )

 In Temple's description, he and McLaren conceived it as a "very stylized...polemic". They were reacting to the fact that the Pistols had become the "poster on the bedroom wall of the day where you kneel down last thing at night and pray to your rock god. And that was never the point.... The myth had to be dynamited in some way. We had to make this film in a way to enrage the fans". In the film, McLaren claims to have created the band from scratch and engineered its notorious reputation; much of what structure the loose narrative has is based on McLaren's teaching a series of "lessons" to be learned from "an invention of mine they called the punk rock".

Cook and Jones continued to work through guest appearances and as session musicians. In 1980, they formed The Professionals, which lasted for two years. Jones went on to play with the bands Chequered Past and Neurotic Outsiders. He also recorded two solo albums, Mercy and Fire and Gasoline. Now a resident of Los Angeles, he hosts a daily radio program called Jonesy's Jukebox. Having played with the band Chiefs of Relief in the late 1980s and with Edwyn Collins in the 1990s, Cook is now a member of Man Raze. Following The Rich Kids' break-up in 1979, Matlock played with various bands, toured with Iggy Pop, and recorded several solo albums. He is currently a member of Slinky Vagabond.

The 1979 court ruling had left many issues between Lydon and McLaren unresolved. Five years later, Lydon filed another action. Finally, on 16 January 1986, Lydon, Jones, Cook and the estate of Sid Vicious were awarded control of the band's heritage, including the rights to The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle and all the footage shot for it—more than 250 hours. That same year, a fictionalised film account of Vicious's relationship with Spungen was released: Sid and Nancy, directed by Alex Cox. In his autobiography, Lydon lambastes the film, saying that it "celebrates heroin addiction", goes out of its way to "humiliate [Vicious's] life", and completely misrepresents the Sex Pistols' part in the London punk scene.

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Sex Pistols ( B26 )

 McLaren himself takes the mic for a couple of numbers. Several tracks feature Rotten's vocals from early, unissued sessions, in some cases with re-recorded backing by Jones and Cook. There is one live cut, from the band's final concert in San Francisco. The album is completed by a couple of tracks in which other artists cover Sex Pistols classics.

Four Top Ten singles were culled from the Swindle recordings, one more than had appeared on Never Mind the Bollocks. The 1978 "No One Is Innocent"/"My Way" was followed in 1979 by Vicious's cover of "Something Else" (number three, and the biggest-selling single ever under the Sex Pistols name); Jones singing an original, "Silly Thing" (number six); and Vicious's second Cochran cover, "C'mon Everybody" (number three). Two more singles from the soundtrack were put out under the Pistols brand—Tudor-Pole, among others, singing "The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle" and a Rotten vocal from 1976, "(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone"; both fell just shy of the Top Twenty. On 21 November 1980, the final "new" studio recordings attributed to the Sex Pistols were released by Virgin: "Black Leather" and "Here We Go Again", recorded by Jones and Cook during the mid-1978 Swindle sessions, were paired as one of a half-dozen 7-inch records (the other five reconfiguring previously released material) sold together as Sex Pack.

The Sex Pistols film was completed by Temple, who received sole credit for the script after McLaren had his name taken off the production. Finally released in 1980, The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle still largely reflects McLaren's vision. It is a fictionalized, farcical, partially animated retelling of the band's history and aftermath with McLaren in the lead role, Jones as second lead, and contributions from Vicious (including his memorable performance of "My Way") and Cook. It incorporates promotional videos shot for "God Save the Queen" and "Pretty Vacant" and extensive documentary footage as well, much of it focusing on Rotten.

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Sex Pistols ( B25 )

 Actor and heroin dealer Rockets Redglare, who delivered pills to the apartment, has been mentioned as a possible alternative to Vicious as Spungen's killer.

While free on bail, Vicious smashed a beer mug in the face of Todd Smith, Patti Smith's brother, and was arrested again on an assault charge. On 9 December 1978 he was sent to Rikers Island jail, where he spent 55 days and underwent enforced cold-turkey detox. He was released on 1 February 1979; sometime after midnight, following a small party to celebrate his release, Vicious died of a heroin overdose. He was twenty-one years old. Reflecting on the event, Lydon said, "Poor Sid. The only way he could live up to what he wanted everyone to believe about him was to die. That was tragic, but more for Sid than anyone else. He really bought his public image."

On 7 February 1979, just five days after Vicious's death, hearings began in London on Lydon's lawsuit. Cook and Jones were allied with McLaren, but as evidence mounted that their manager had poured virtually all of the band's revenue into his beloved film project, they switched sides. On 14 February, the court put the film and its soundtrack into receivership—no longer under McLaren's control, they were now to be administered as exploitable assets for addressing the band members' financial claims. McLaren, with substantial personal debts and legal fees, took off for Paris to sign a record deal for an LP of standards, including "Non, je ne regrette rien". A month later, back in London, he disassociated himself from the film to which he had devoted so much time and money. McLaren went on to carry out a one-month consultancy for Adam and the Ants and manage their offshoot Bow Wow Wow. In the mid-1980s he released a number of successful and influential records as a solo artist.

The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle, the soundtrack album for the still-uncompleted film, was released by Virgin Records on 24 February 1979. It is mostly composed of tracks credited to the Sex Pistols: There are the new recordings with vocals by Jones, Vicious, Cook, and Ronnie Biggs, as well as Edward Tudor-Pole, who recorded a scene for the Sex Pistols' film.

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Sex Pistols ( B24 )

 In return for agreeing to record "My Way", Vicious had demanded that McLaren sign a sheet of paper declaring that he was no longer Vicious's manager. In August, Vicious, back in London, delivered his final performances as a nominal Sex Pistol: recording and filming cover versions of two Eddie Cochran songs. The bassist's return to New York in September put an end to McLaren's dreaming.

After the break-up

After leaving the Pistols, Johnny Rotten reverted to his birth name of Lydon, and formed Public Image Ltd. (PiL) with former Clash member Keith Levene and school friend Jah Wobble. The band went on to score a UK Top Ten hit with their debut single, 1978's "Public Image". Lydon initiated legal proceedings against McLaren and the Sex Pistols' management company, Glitterbest, which McLaren controlled. Among the claims were non-payment of royalties, improper usage of the title "Johnny Rotten", unfair contractual obligations, and damages for "all the criminal activities that took place". In 1979, PiL recorded the post-punk classic Metal Box. Lydon performed with the band through 1992, as well as engaging in other projects such as Time Zone with Afrika Bambaataa and Bill Laswell.

Vicious, relocated in New York, began performing as a solo artist, with Nancy Spungen acting as his manager. He recorded a live album, backed by "The Idols" featuring Arthur Kane and Jerry Nolan of the New York Dolls—Sid Sings was released in 1979. On 12 October 1978, Spungen was found dead in the Hotel Chelsea room she was sharing with Vicious, with a stab wound to her stomach and dressed only in her underwear. Police recovered drug paraphernalia from the scene and Vicious was arrested and charged with her murder. In an interview at the time, McLaren said, "I can't believe he was involved in such a thing. Sid was set to marry Nancy in New York. He was very close to her and had quite a passionate affair with her."

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