Death Disco

"Death Disco"
Single by Public Image Ltd
from the album Metal Box
A-side	7" – "Death Disco" 12" – "½ Mix"
B-side	7" – "No Birds Do Sing" 12" – "Megga Mix"
Released	29 June 1979 (UK)
Format	7" & 12" vinyl
Genre	Post-punk
Length	4:11
Label	Virgin VS 274
Producer(s)	Public Image Ltd
Public Image Ltd singles chronology
"Public Image" (1978) "Death Disco" (1979) "Memories" (1979)
Alternative cover 12" cover

"Death Disco" is a song by Public Image Ltd. The record was released in both 7" and 12" single formats with a "1/2 mix" of the song and "Megga mix" (an instrumental re-recording of "Fodderstompf" from First Issue) on the 12" version. It reached number twenty on the UK Singles Chart.

The song was released in an alternate version as "Swan Lake" on the group's second album, Metal Box, with slight changes at the end. The title change reflects the quote from Tchaikovsky's score that surfaces in Keith Levene's guitar part.

"Death Disco" was also included on the 1983 album Live in Tokyo.

In his autobiography, Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs, Lydon stated that the song was written for his mother, who had died of cancer not long before. In a BBC TV news interview at 09:10 on 7 July 2010, he spoke of how his mother was treated badly by the church and that they would not give her the Last Rites in the hospital where she died. The song expressed his feelings about this as a kind of 'shout therapy'.

"I watched her die," he told Select in 1990. "She was tough, my mum. She asked me to write a disco song for her funeral. This was hardly happy stuff."^[1]

Track listing

7" vinyl

1. "Death Disco" – 4:11
2. "No Birds Do Sing" – 4:37

12" vinyl

1. "½ Mix" - 6:42
2. "Megga Mix" - 6:51

References