No One Is Innocent
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| "No One Is Innocent" | ||
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| Single by Sex Pistols | ||
| from the album The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle | ||
| Released | June 1978: Worldwide | |
| Format | Vinyl single: Worldwide | |
| Recorded | London, England | |
| Genre | Punk | |
| Length | 2:59 | |
| Label | Virgin Records | |
| Writer(s) | Paul Cook Steve Jones Ronnie Biggs |
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| Producer(s) | Dave Goodman | |
| Chart positions | ||
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| Sex Pistols singles chronology | ||
| "Holidays in the Sun" (1977) |
"No One Is Innocent" (1978) |
"Something Else" (1979) |
"No One Is Innocent" is the fifth single by the British punk band the Sex Pistols and was released on June 30, 1978. It was recorded after the band's breakup by Cook and Jones, with the vocals performed by notorious British criminal Ronnie Biggs. The writing credits for the song are Paul Cook, Steve Jones, and Biggs.
The lyrics reference "God Save the Queen", by beginning each verse "God save...", followed by many, often unsavoury, characters, starting with the Sex Pistols themselves. They refer to Bill Grundy, the television host who started a great controversy two years earlier when Steve Jones swore on his live show (egged on by Grundy), as well as Martin Bormann and "Nazis on the run". Notorious child murderers Myra Hindley and Ian Brady, are mentioned, along with politicians and the police (referred to as "pigs"), Idi Amin, and finally Biggs himself. The chorus goes,"Ronnie Biggs was doing time, until he done a bunk, now he says he's seen the light, and he's sold his soul for punk."
The final lines of the last verse are "God save the good samaritan and God save the worthless creep". Associating all the characters together, both good and bad (including themselves) while claiming that "no one is innocent" is exemplary of the nihilistic attitude of the Sex Pistols.
Bormann is also mentioned in Biggs' recording of the earlier Pistols song "Belsen Was A Gas", which also makes light of the holocaust ("No One is Innocent", while calling Brady "horrible", dismisses the Nazis as "only having fun"). Bormann was for years thought to have fled to Brazil to escape prosecution for war crimes following World War II, much like Biggs himself had done following his escape from prison after 1963's great train robbery.
The title of the song was originally supposed to be "Cosh the Driver" ("cosh" being British slang for bludgeon), a reference to the near-fatal beating that the train driver took in Biggs' robbery years before. Virgin Records vetoed the idea, the song eventually appearing as "No one is innocent (a punk prayer by Ronnie Biggs)". On the 12" pressing, the title is "The Biggest Blow", and the original title appears on the sleeve of the first pressing of the album The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle.
The song appears on the albums The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle and Flogging A Dead Horse. The B-side of "No One Is Innocent" was Sid Vicious's famous rendering of Frank Sinatra's "My Way". It peaked at number six on UK pop charts.
| Sex Pistols |
|---|
| Johnny Rotten | Steve Jones | Glen Matlock | Paul Cook | Sid Vicious |
| Discography |
| Studio albums: Never Mind the Bollocks, 1977 |
| Singles: Anarchy in the UK, 1976 | God Save the Queen, 1977 | Pretty Vacant, 1977 | Holidays in the Sun, 1977 | No One Is Innocent, 1978 |
| Live and compilation releases: Some Product: Carri on Sex Pistols, 1979 | The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle, 1980 | Flogging a Dead Horse, 1980 |
| Related articles |
| Public Image Ltd. | Malcolm McLaren | Jamie Reid | Ronnie Biggs | Edward Tudor-Pole | The Professionals | The Filth and the Fury | Punk rock |
