"No One Is Innocent" | ||||
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Single by Sex Pistols | ||||
from the album The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle | ||||
Released | 30 June 1978 | |||
Format | Vinyl single | |||
Recorded | Rio de Janeiro and London | |||
Genre | Punk rock | |||
Length | 2:59 | |||
Label | Virgin Records | |||
Writer(s) |
Steve Jones Ronnie Biggs |
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Producer(s) | Dave Goodman | |||
Sex Pistols singles chronology | ||||
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"No One Is Innocent" was the fifth single by the British punk rock band the Sex Pistols. It was released on 30 June 1978. The Pistols had split up early in 1978, losing bassist Sid Vicious and original lead vocalist Johnny Rotten. "No One Is Innocent" was recorded by remaining members Paul Cook and Steve Jones, with vocals performed by Ronnie Biggs, a British criminal notorious for his part in the Great Train Robbery of 1963. At the time of "No One Is Innocent" Biggs was living in Brazil, still wanted by the British authorities, but immune from extradition. The song was credited to Cook, Jones and Biggs.
The lyrics refer to "God Save the Queen", by beginning each verse "God save...", followed by many, often unsavoury, characters, starting with the Sex Pistols themselves. There are references to Bill Grundy, the television host who had caused 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 (with Hindley's surname mispronounced "Hynd-ley"), 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." (In UK slang, to "bunk", or "do a bunk", is to leave without permission; most frequently used to indicate skipping school or work, here it refers to Biggs' escape from the HM Prison Wandsworth and the UK.)
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.