Music Box: Sex Pistols

I was very young and deeply ensconced in my Olivia Newton-John period the entire time the Sex Pistols were around. (Get serious, people: '77 wasn't THE YEAR of punk. It was THE YEAR "Making a Good Thing Better" came out!) But a few years later when new wave -- punk's sanitized distant cousin -- washed up on the shores of America then swept me out to sea, a lot of the angrier kids I grew up with were still being drawn to Sid Vicious and the gang, so I was more than casually acquainted with "Never Mind the Bollocks," the its impact on music. I tried, but truth be told pseudo-punker chicks like Debbie Harry, Siouxsie Sioux and Chrissie Hynde were always more my speed. (Exene Cervenka was about as scary as I was willing to go!)

But while my interest in the Sex Pistols was tepid, my fascination with Sid's crazy girlfriend Nancy Spungen was boiling over in 1983 when I read Deborah Spungen's harrowing tale of her daughter's life and death, "And I Don't Want to Live This Life." In it, Deborah describes Nancy as someone who spent her life trying to piss people off. Born in the Philly 'burbs in 1958, she said Nancy was difficult from birth: impossible to console, prone to tantrums, hostile, insatiable, demanding, and a bully to her younger siblings. "A 7-year-old ran our household," Deborah wrote. "When she wanted something, no matter how big or small, she hollered and screamed and backed us into a corner until we were the ones to back down. We gave in to her. Why? Because there was absolutely no peace in the house until she got what she wanted." Later, before running off to New York City, Deborah says Nancy attacked her with a hammer. (I remember wondering WHO would ever want to have a baby if this was a possibility?)

But in a fascinating new piece in New York magazine, Karen Schoemer revisits Nancy Spungen, and finds several people who remember her quite differently from the heinous groupie she's been portrayed ("Siiiiiid!") in the 30 years since her murder beneath a sink at the Chelsea Hotel. Schoemer notes that it's been easy to hate Nancy, but asks, has it been too easy? Read the article HERE.

A tribute to Nancy:


The Sex Pistols: 'Anarchy in the U.K.' (which sounds awfully tame today):