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The second song on The Sex Pistols' landmark album Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols, “Bodies” describes abortion in grisly detail, focusing on one of the crazy people frontman John Lydon got to know. Lydon has always been adamant that the song is neither pro choice nor pro life. In an interview with Spin Magazine, Lydon says:

I don’t think there’s a clearer song about the pain of abortion. The juxtaposition of all those different psychic things in your head and all the confusion, the anger, the frustration, you have to capture in those words."

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These events are based on the personal experiences of Pistols frontman, John Lydon.

Pauline was a girl who used to send these letters to me from some nuthouse up North in Birmingham. She was in a mental asylum. She turned up at my door once wearing a see thru plastic bag. She did the rounds in London and ended up at everyone’s door. She had a very curious way of finding out where people lived. Like most insane people, she was very promiscuous. The fetus thing is what got me. She’d tell me about getting pregnant with the male nurses at the asylum or whatever. There’s a line in the song about Pauline living in a tree. She actually had a tree house on the estate of the nuthouse. The nurses couldn’t get her down and she’d be up there for days. Apparently punk rock pulled her out of her cocoon. She didn’t seem to have a problem either… one of the many lunatics that used to attach themselves to us.

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East Germans came up with many creative ways to try to get over the Berlin Wall and escape into West Germany, due to the severe economic hardship within the Soviet bloc.

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Back then, Berlin located in the Communist part of Germany, the East. West Germany was the only capitalist piece of land in mostly communist surroundings.

While the German Democratic Republic or East Germany was overrun by the Soviets, the West was free.

This line has a symbolic meaning. While living in the West, the people were constantly taught that the ideology applied in GDR was erroneous. But, as the line states:

I’m looking over the wall, and they’re looking at me.

Rotten really plays the role of a paranoid tourist here. While he’s been told to fear communism since it is the greatest evil, he’s shocked to find out that some people on the other side of the wall see the exact same in him.

While some believe this song mocks communism or it’s ideology, it neither condones or condemns both capitalism or communism.

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The Cold War was an ongoing “conflict” between the United States and the USSR. Conflict is in quotes because there was never actual combat between the two forces, however had this happened it would have been World War III.

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The Berlin Wall was a literal wall that ran through Berlin (in Germany), dividing the democratic west, and the communist east

The wall was built in 1961, and its destruction began in 1989
It serves as the figurative fall of the Soviet Union, and the end of the Cold War.

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The Punk movement was a movement lead by teenagers. The lyrics here are describing how these kids are the future of England

This would scare the establishment

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The Queen of England isn’t a human being, she’s a puppet of the aforementioned Fascist Regime

She doesn’t exist as a human, but as a figurehead for the state and as a continuation of an old tradition. Or maybe they just really don’t like her.

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Ross is living life like Tony Montana

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Track 12 from French’s debut album Excuse My French, “We Go Wherever We Want” samples the song “Ice Cream” (produced by RZA) off of Raekwon’s classic debut album Only Built 4 Cuban Linx… French pay’s homage to the original song by having Rae as a guest feature.

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