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"Belsen Was a Gas" is a song by the English punk rock band the Sex Pistols, about one of the Nazi concentration camps in Nazi Germany liberated by British troops in 1945, Bergen-Belsen. [1]
According to the ASCAP, credited songwriters are Sid Vicious, Paul Cook, Steve Jones, and John Lydon. Others generally accept Vicious wrote it while in his earlier band the Flowers of Romance. [2] Its title is a pun on the poison gases used in many Nazi concentration camps, referencing a "gas" as slang for a fun time. In fact, there were no gas chambers at Bergen-Belsen, as it was not one of the extermination camps; most of the around 37,000 deaths there were due to typhus or starvation. [3]
The song's darkly humorous lyrics were intended to irritate the generation the group believed were responsible for many of the political and social problems in Britain at that time. Later, Lydon said that he felt that this song crossed the line into gratuitous bad taste. In an interview conducted for Q magazine in 1996 he stated "[the song] was a very nasty, silly little thing... that should've ended up on the cutting room floor." [4]
"Belsen Was a Gas" appears in two versions on The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle album, first a live version from the Sex Pistols' last concert (San Francisco, 14 January 1978), then in an altered studio version with Ronnie Biggs on vocals. Biggs insisted on adding an additional verse; he later said because he had read the published diary of Anne Frank. The second verse describes some of the treatment Jews received:
Dentists searched their teeth for gold
Frisk the Jews for banknotes rolled
When they found out what they'd got,
"Line them up and shoot the lot.
The version with Biggs is also altered in its musical composition. In the original version done with Rotten, the main theme is a power chord riff that goes D, C, D, E♭ (plays with "Belsen was a gas, I heard the other day"). When rerecorded for the Biggs version, that theme is drastically altered to D, C, B♭, C, a much more conventional progression. Biggs did not receive writing credit for the revised lyrics. The Biggs version was originally slated to be a single, but after an airplay and record shop ban on the earlier Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle single, "No One Is Innocent" (due to Biggs being the lead vocalist), this idea was dropped. The Biggs remake also ends with a saxophone solo, the first on a Pistols record.
The live version from San Francisco ends with Johnny Rotten haranguing the listener to "Be a man / Kill a man / Be someone / Kill someone / Be a man / Kill yourself!" as the music abruptly stops. Of this version of the song, Lester Bangs wrote, "It's one of the most frightening things I've ever heard. You wonder exactly what you might be affirming by listening to this over and over again. On one level Johnny Rotten/Lydon is an insect buzzing atop the massed ruins of a civilization leveled by itself, which I suppose justifies him right there, on another level he's just another trafficker in cheap nihilism with all that it includes—cheap racism, sexism, etc. I'm still not comfortable with 'Bodies.' But then I never was, which may be the point. But then I wonder if he is. After which I cease to wonder at anything beyond the power of this music." [5]
On most versions of the album, the live version is listed in grammatically-incorrect German, using Gothic script, as "Einmal Belsen war vortrefflich" (roughly, "Once Belsen was excellent") and Biggs' version is "Einmal Belsen war wirklich vortrefflich" (roughly, "Once Belsen was really excellent"). The first UK sleeve gave the titles as "Belsen Was a Gas" and "Belsen Vos a Gassa".
The Sex Pistols (2002) box set includes another live version of "Belsen Was a Gas" on disc 3. This version was recorded on January 10, 1978 at the Longhorn Ballroom, Dallas, Texas, a concert that was filmed and has been released on home video. The Longhorn version of the song is notable for Lydon sneering "Join the army!" in the song's closing tirade.
"Belsen Was a Gas" was played by The Sex Pistols at the Crystal Palace Silver Jubilee show in 2002 when they played all of their catalogue in one night. When The Sex Pistols reformed for a reunion tour of the U.S. in 2003, after the start of the Iraq War, they performed an adapted version of the song, called "Baghdad Was a Blast", as an attack on President George W. Bush's policies in the region. At the first of the band's Brixton Academy shows in November 2007, the song was performed in a further adapted version, this time as "Brixton Was a Blast".
John Lydon's successor band, Public Image Ltd, performed the song in concert from 1978 to 1979 in a set that mostly featured work from the band's first album, Public Image: First Issue (1978). At the Kings Hall in Manchester in 1979, Lydon introduced the song by saying, "The next one is sarcasm, in case you get it wrong." [6] On a recording of the December 1978 Rainbow Theatre concert he responds to crowd complaints by saying "if you make as much fuss about the next fucking bus you've got to wait for, you might be better off, know what I mean?" [7]
Vicious performed and released a version on his solo album, Sid Sings , introduced on the album as "[written] by Sid Vicious!". [8]
Cover versions of the song have been performed and recorded live and in studio by bands including British punk group the Exploited who played theirs as early as 1983. Chaos UK also covered the song. The song was covered in 1996 by the neo-Nazi skinhead band No Remorse.
A long-lost demo version of the song was rediscovered during a move from Virgin Records to Universal Music Catalogue in January 2012. [9] It was included in the Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols box set and released that 24 September. It includes very faint reverberating vocals. A different version, "Belsen Was a Gas Demo 2", was released in a box on 19 April 2014.
The Sex Pistols are an English punk rock band formed in London in 1975. Although their initial career lasted just two and a half years, they became one of the most culturally influential acts in popular music. The band initiated the punk movement in the United Kingdom and inspired many later punk, post-punk and alternative rock musicians, while their clothing and hairstyles were a significant influence on the early punk image.
Public Image Ltd are an English post-punk band formed by lead vocalist John Lydon, guitarist Keith Levene, bassist Jah Wobble, and drummer Jim Walker in May 1978. The group's line-up has changed frequently over the years; Lydon has been the sole constant member.
Simon John Ritchie, 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 the age of 21, he remains an icon of the punk subculture; one of his friends noted that he embodied "everything in punk that was dark, decadent and nihilistic."
Glen Matlock is an English musician, best known for being the bass guitarist in the original line-up of the punk rock band the Sex Pistols. He is credited as a songwriter on 10 of the 12 songs on the Sex Pistols' only officially released studio album, Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols, although he had left the band early in the recording process, credited as bassist and backing vocalist on only one song on the album, "Anarchy in the U.K.". However, on the bootleg album Spunk, Matlock played bass on all the songs, which included earlier studio recordings of 10 of the 12 songs that later appeared on the Bollocks album.
The Flowers of Romance was an early punk band, formed in mid-1976 by Jo Faull and Sarah Hall, girlfriends at the time of Steve Jones and Paul Cook of the Sex Pistols. The band did not release any recordings and, like London SS and Masters of the Backside, are more famed for the number of band members that later became well known, including: Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols, Keith Levene, and Palmolive and Viv Albertine of The Slits, and Kenny Morris. Morris replaced Palmolive on drums in the last months of the band's existence in late 1976. The band ended in January 1977 when Vicious joined Sex Pistols and Morris rehearsed with Siouxsie. Despite never playing live, they were interviewed by SKUM fanzine in which Sid Vicious proclaimed "I'll just be the yob that I am now".
Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols is the only studio album by English punk rock band the Sex Pistols, released on 28 October 1977 through Virgin Records in the UK and on 11 November 1977 through Warner Bros. Records in the US. As a result of the Sex Pistols' volatile internal relationships, the band's lineup saw changes during the recording of the album. Original bass guitarist Glen Matlock left the band early in the recording process, and while he is credited as a co-writer on all but two of the tracks, he only played bass and sang backing vocals on one track, "Anarchy in the U.K." Recording sessions continued with a new bass player, Sid Vicious, who is credited on two of the songs written by the band after he joined. While Vicious's bass playing appeared on two tracks, his lack of skill on the instrument meant that many of the tracks were recorded with guitarist Steve Jones playing bass instead. Drummer Paul Cook, Jones and singer Johnny Rotten appear on every track. The various recording sessions were led alternately by Chris Thomas or Bill Price, and sometimes both together, but as the songs on the final albums often combined mixes from different sessions, or were poorly documented who was present in the recording booth at the time, each song is jointly credited to both producers.
The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle, also known as The Great Rock and 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 McLaren.
Flogging a Dead Horse is a compilation album of singles by Sex Pistols, released after their break-up, and includes the four songs issued as singles A-sides that were included on Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols, three of their B-sides, and the six A-sides taken from The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle and one B-side, "My Way".
Sid Sings is the first released solo live album by English punk rock musician Sid Vicious. It was released posthumously in 1979 and entered the British album charts on 15 December where it peaked at number 30.
"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 Jones and Biggs.
Vicious White Kids were an English punk rock band from London that formed for only one concert on 15 August 1978, staged at the Electric Ballroom in London. The former bassist of Sex Pistols, Sid Vicious, was the lead singer. It was his final concert in England, as he died of a heroin overdose the following February.
"Bodies" is a song by the Sex Pistols, from their 1977 album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols. The song tackles the subject of abortion with lyrics described as "some of the most uncompromising, gut-wrenching lyrics imaginable".
The Ex Pistols were an English punk rock band from London, England formed in 1979 by former Sex Pistols producer Dave Goodman. Goodman put the group together after his services were substituted for those of other producers on the Sex Pistols album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols.
Sex Pistols is a box set anthology of the career of the punk band The Sex Pistols with singer Johnny Rotten. It was released on 3 June 2002. The set comprises three themed CDs and an 80-page booklet.
Live at Winterland 1978 is a live album by Sex Pistols, first released in its entirety in 2001. The last two songs were released by Warner Bros Records on their two-disc 1980 Loss-Leader sampler, Troublemakers, bookending the compilation.
The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle is the soundtrack album of the film of the same name by the Sex Pistols.
D.O.A.: A Right of Passage is a 1980 rockumentary film directed by Lech Kowalski about the origin of punk rock. The rockumentary takes interview and concert footage of some of punk rock's earliest bands of the late 1970s scene. It features live performances by the Sex Pistols, The Dead Boys, Generation X, The Rich Kids, X-Ray Spex, and Sham 69, with additional music from The Clash, Iggy Pop, and Augustus Pablo.
"Silly Thing" is a song by the Sex Pistols that was released in 1979. It was the 3rd single released in promotion of the film The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle. It was written by drummer Paul Cook and guitarist Steve Jones, and recorded after the band's original lead singer, Johnny Rotten, left the band. Typically, Jones also played bass in the studio, rather than suffer the ineptitude of the band's official bassist, Sid Vicious.
John Joseph Lydon, also known by his former stage name Johnny Rotten, is a singer, songwriter, author, and television personality. He was the lead vocalist of the punk rock band the Sex Pistols, which was active from 1975 to 1978, and again for various revivals during the 1990s and 2000s. He is also the lead vocalist of post-punk band Public Image Ltd (PiL), which he founded and fronted from 1978 until 1993, and again since 2009.
Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs is an autobiography by John Lydon, former singer, songwriter, and front man of the punk band Sex Pistols. Co-authors of the autobiography are Keith and Kent Zimmerman. The book was first published in 1994 by St Martin's Press (USA) and Hodder & Stoughton (UK), a second edition became available in 2008 by Plexus Publishing (UK) and Picador (US).