28 October 1977

By the time this album came out thirty years ago today the initial impact of Punk rock and the Sex Pistols had begun to fade. The album had been preceded by the bands first four (and best) singles: Anarchy In The U.K, God Save The Queen, Pretty Vacant and Holidays in The Sun. The album wasn't even the first to be released by a British punk/new wave group, The Clash, The Jam and The Damned had all beaten them, The Stranglers had actually released their first two albums before The Sex Pistols hit the shops.

Hitting the shops caused some controversy in itself when a record shop owner in the Midlands was taken to court under some obscure law regarding the displaying of material that could be deemed offensive, rather than being offensive in its own right. The Judge, in a rare moment of the English judiciary displaying common sense, threw the case out.

So what of the album itself? Well thirty years on it doesn't sound as exciting musically as the albums by the bands contemporaries that I've mentioned before. I think this has as much to do with the fact that Steve Jones and Paul Cook (guitar and drums respectively) were good rock band musicians and not reinventing the musical wheel, the sound they created could have been at any time during the past forty years. What makes this album stand out is Johnny Rotten's voice (to keep things contemporary) the snarling, the anger, the resentment, you can hear all of it on all of the eleven or twelve tracks, depending on which version you own. Rotten's drawing out of the second syllable on the track Pretty Vacant sound as obvious today as they did back then and no less shocking. The tracks released as singles are the stand-outs but Bodies is absolutely brilliant and is still relevant today as a social commentary on the ease and availability of abortions as a form of contraception.

She was a girl from Birmingham

She just had an abortion

She was a 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 fucking bloody mess

Its not an animal its an abortion

Body 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

Fuck this and fuck that fuck it all and

Fuck the 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 I'm not an abortion

Body I'm not an animal

I'm not an animal...

I'm not an abortion...

Mummy! ugh!