"No One Is Innocent" was the fifth single by the British punk rock band the

Sex Pistols The Sex Pistols were an English punk rock band formed in London in 1975. Although their initial career lasted just two and a half years, they were one of the most groundbreaking acts in the history of popular music. They were responsible for ...

. It was released on 30 June 1978. The Pistols had split up early in 1978, losing bassist

Sid Vicious John Simon Ritchie (10 May 1957 – 2 February 1979), better known by his stage name Sid Vicious, was an English musician, best known as the bassist for the punk rock band Sex Pistols. Despite dying in 1979 at age 21, he remains an icon of the ...

and original lead vocalist

Johnny Rotten John Joseph Lydon (; born 31 January 1956), also known by his former stage name Johnny Rotten, is an English singer and songwriter. He was the lead singer of the late-1970s punk band the Sex Pistols, which lasted from 1975 until 1978, and agai ...

. "No One Is Innocent" was recorded by remaining members

Paul Cook Paul Thomas Cook (born 20 July 1956) is an English drummer and member of the punk rock band the Sex Pistols. He was also called "Cookie" by his friends on the punk music scene. Early life and career Cook was raised in Hammersmith and atte ...

and Steve Jones, with vocals performed by

Ronnie Biggs Ronald Arthur Biggs (8 August 1929 – 18 December 2013) was an English criminal who helped plan and carry out the Great Train Robbery of 1963. He subsequently became notorious for his escape from prison in 1965, living as a fugitive for 36 ye ...

, a British criminal notorious for his part in the

Great Train Robbery of 1963 The Great Train Robbery was the robbery of £2.6million from a Royal Mail train heading from Glasgow to London on the West Coast Main Line in the early hours of 8 August 1963 at Bridego Railway Bridge, Ledburn, near Mentmore in Buckinghamshi ...

. At the time of "No One Is Innocent" Biggs was living in Brazil, still wanted by the British authorities, but immune from

extradition Extradition is an action wherein one jurisdiction delivers a person accused or convicted of committing a crime in another jurisdiction, over to the other's law enforcement. It is a cooperative law enforcement procedure between the two jurisdict ...

. The song was credited to Cook, Jones and Biggs.

Lyrical content

The lyrics refer to "

God Save the Queen "God Save the King" is the national and/or royal anthem of the United Kingdom, most of the Commonwealth realms, their territories, and the British Crown Dependencies. The author of the tune is unknown and it may originate in plainchant, bu ...

", 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 Martin Ludwig Bormann (17 June 1900 – 2 May 1945) was a German Nazi Party official and head of the Nazi Party Chancellery. He gained immense power by using his position as Adolf Hitler's private secretary to control the flow of information ...

and "

Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...

on the run". Notorious child murderers

Myra Hindley The Moors murders were carried out by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley between July 1963 and October 1965, in and around Manchester, England. The victims were five children—Pauline Reade, John Kilbride, Keith Bennett, Lesley Ann Downey, and Edward E ...

and

Ian Brady The Moors murders were carried out by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley between July 1963 and October 1965, in and around Manchester, England. The victims were five children—Pauline Reade, John Kilbride, Keith Bennett, Lesley Ann Downey, and Edward E ...

are mentioned (with Hindley's surname mispronounced "Hind-ley"), along with politicians and the police (referred to as "pigs"),

Idi Amin Idi Amin Dada Oumee (, ; 16 August 2003) was a Ugandan military officer and politician who served as the third president of Uganda from 1971 to 1979. He ruled as a military dictator and is considered one of the most brutal despots in modern w ...

, 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 HM Prison Wandsworth is a Category B men's prison at Wandsworth in the London Borough of Wandsworth, South West London, England. It is operated by His Majesty's Prison Service and is one of the largest prisons in the UK. History The prison w ...

and the UK.) The final lines of the last verse are "God save the

Good Samaritan In most contexts, the concept of good denotes the conduct that should be preferred when posed with a choice between possible actions. Good is generally considered to be the opposite of evil and is of interest in the study of ethics, morality, ph ...

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 Nihilism (; ) is a philosophy, or family of views within philosophy, that rejects generally accepted or fundamental aspects of human existence, such as objective truth, knowledge, morality, values, or meaning of life, meaning. The term was pop ...

attitude of the Sex Pistols. In an interview in the ''Daily Mirror'' around the time the record was released drummer Paul Cook said that 'god should save everyone, even evil people'. Bormann, prankishly pictured as the band's uniformed bass player on the 12" pressing, is also mentioned in Biggs's recording of the earlier Pistols song "

Belsen Was A Gas "Belsen Was a Gas" is a song by the English punk rock band the Sex Pistols. The song is about one of the Nazi concentration camps in Nazi Germany, Bergen-Belsen, which was liberated by British troops in 1945. History According to the ASCAP, cred ...

", another song which makes light of

The Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

("No One Is Innocent", while calling Brady "horrible", dismisses the Nazis as "they wasn't being wicked/it was their idea of fun"). Fleeing prosecution for war crimes following

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, Bormann was for years thought to have escaped, like Biggs, to

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

. The title of the song was originally supposed to be " Cosh the Driver", a reference to the near-fatal beating that the train driver had suffered in Biggs's robbery years before.

Virgin Records Virgin Records is a record label owned by Universal Music Group. It originally founded as a British independent record label in 1972 by entrepreneurs Richard Branson, Simon Draper, Nik Powell, and musician Tom Newman. It grew to be a worldwid ...

vetoed the idea, and the song eventually appeared as "No One Is Innocent (A Punk Prayer by Ronnie Biggs)". On the 12" pressing, the title became "The Biggest Blow", but subsequent releases on albums reverted to the original title. The song reached number seven on the UK singles chart, and appears on the albums ''

The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle ''The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle'' is a 1980 British mockumentary film directed by Julien Temple and produced by Don Boyd and Jeremy Thomas. It centres on the British punk rock band Sex Pistols and, most prominently, their manager Malcolm Mc ...

'' and ''

Flogging a Dead Horse Flogging a dead horse (or beating a dead horse in American English) is an idiom ascribed to Anglophones which means that a particular effort is futile, being a waste of time without a positive outcome, e.g. such as Flagellation, flogging a dead ...

''. The B-side of both the 7" and 12" pressings was

's infamous rendering of

Claude François Claude Antoine Marie François (; 1 February 1939 – 11 March 1978), also known by the nickname Cloclo, was a French pop singer, composer, songwriter, record producer, drummer and dancer. François co-wrote the lyrics of "Comme d'habitude" (c ...

Jacques Revaux Jacques Abel Jules Revaud (; born 11 July 1940), known as Jacques Revaux (), is a French songwriter, most famous for his 1968 writing collaboration with singer Claude François on the song "Comme d'habitude", whose text was reworked by Canadian si ...

and

Paul Anka Paul Albert Anka (born July 30, 1941) is a Canadian-American singer, songwriter and actor. He is best known for his signature hit songs including " Diana", " Lonely Boy", "Put Your Head on My Shoulder", and " (You're) Having My Baby". Anka also ...

's "

My Way "My Way" is a song popularized in 1969 by Frank Sinatra set to the music of the French song "Comme d'habitude" composed by Jacques Revaux with lyrics by Gilles Thibaut and Claude François and first performed in 1967 by Claude François. Its E ...

Recording sessions

"No One Is Innocent"

The song was recorded at an unknown 16-track studioPhil McNeill: ''"Pistols' 'Nazi' Single"'' (''

New Musical Express ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...

'', 24 June 1978, page 11) in Rio de Janeiro during Jones' and Cook's stay from mid-January to late February 1978. Lyrics and vocals were provided by Ronald Biggs: "The record was made in a church studio in Rio with the priest present, who seemed very happy. We were rather drunk by the time we came to make the recording, which explains why it may have appeared a little out of tune. We also recorded 'Belsen Was A Gas', which I must say I wasn't too happy about, and I was relieved that it didn't appear on the other side of 'No One Is Innocent', I did find these words a little disgusting." The second song recorded, "Belsen Was A Gas", turned up on the movie soundtrack album of ''

'' in 1979. Overdubs to both songs were recorded at

Wessex Studios Wessex Sound Studios was a recording studio located at 106a Highbury New Park, London, England. Many renowned popular music artists recorded there, including Sex Pistols, King Crimson, the Clash, Theatre of Hate, XTC, the Sinceros, Queen, Talk Tal ...

in London with engineer Bill Price.

"My Way"

The backing track of the song was recorded at Studio de la Grande Armée in Paris on 10 April 1978 with engineer Emmanuel Guyot. French session musicians were used - Claude Engel on guitar, with the rhythm section from the disco band

Voyage Voyage(s) or The Voyage may refer to: Literature *''Voyage : A Novel of 1896'', Sterling Hayden * ''Voyage'' (novel), a 1996 science fiction novel by Stephen Baxter *''The Voyage'', Murray Bail * "The Voyage" (short story), a 1921 story by ...

(Sauveur Mallia on bass guitar and Pierre-Alain Dahan on drums). The vocals were recorded on the same day, the final single version consisting of three different vocal takes. Overdubs were recorded back at

in London with engineer Bill Price. Steve Jones added guitars and

Simon Jeffes Simon Harry Piers Jeffes (19 February 1949 – 11 December 1997) was an English classically trained guitarist, composer and arranger. He formed, and was the primary performer of, the Penguin Cafe Orchestra. He was the composer of the ballet ''Sti ...

arranged an orchestral intro to the song. The original backing track coupled with one of the three vocal takes was released on the album '' Sid Sings''. Producer Dave Goodman stated he did an unreleased mix of the song at Berwick Street Studios in London in June 1978, but the studio bill was not paid in time so his mix was delivered to the record company too late to be used on the single.

Charts

*In the UK, the single spent 10 weeks in the Top 75 and reached #7 on 8 July 1978. For the 12 inch version, the song title was changed to "The Biggest Blow (A Punk Prayer by Ronald Biggs)".''Theofficialcharts.com'' website *

released the single in West Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and Greece, but it did not chart. *

Barclay Records Barclay is a French record company and label founded by Eddie Barclay in 1953. Eddie Barclay was a bandleader, pianist, producer, and nightclub owner. With his wife, Nicole, who was the vocalist in his band, he started Barclay. The catalogue inc ...

released the single in France (with the song title changed to "Cosh The Driver (A Punk Prayer By Ronnie Biggs)" and A- and B-sides reversed), but it did not chart. *Wizard Records released the single in Australia, but it did not chart. For the 12 inch version, the song title was changed to "The Biggest Blow (A Punk Prayer By Ronald Biggs)". *

Nippon Columbia , often pronounced ''Korombia'', operating internationally as , is a Japanese record label founded in 1910 as Nipponophone Co., Ltd. It affiliated itself with the Columbia Graphophone Company of the United Kingdom and adopted the standard UK C ...

released the single in Japan in August 1978, but it did not chart. *The Sex Pistols' US label

Warner Brothers Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American Film studio, film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios, Burbank, Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, Califo ...

decided not to release the single in the USA.

References

{{authority control Sex Pistols songs 1978 singles Songs written by Steve Jones (musician) 1978 songs Virgin Records singles Songs against capitalism Songs about crime Music controversies