Earlier entries of this series can be found here: http://www.acclaimedmusic.net/forums/vi ... ive#p45337
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“Don't ask us to attend/ 'Cause we're not all there”
105. Sex Pistols – Pretty Vacant
The facts:
Year: 1977.
Genre: Punk rock.
Country: United Kingdom.
Album: Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols.
Acclaimed Music ranking: #495.
Song ranking on Acclaimed Music in the artist’s discography: 3rd.
Ranks higher than Ain’t No Sunshine by Bill Withers, but lower than Desolation Row by Bob Dylan.
Place in the Acclaimed Music Song Poll 2015: Unranked.
The people:
Produced by Chris Thomas, Bill Price & Dave Goodman.
Written by Paul Cook, Steve Jones, John Lydon & Glen Matlock.
Lead vocals by Johnny Rotten.
Backing vocals by Steve Jones.
Guitar by Steve Jones.
Bass by Steve Jones.
Drums by Paul Cook.
The opinion:
This isn’t the first case where an artist has popped up for the second time in this series. Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder and LL Cool J already did, as well as Lou Reed in solo and band (The Velvet Underground) form. This however is the first time I get to talk about a song from an album I already talked about. Earlier, my subject was the great classic Anarchy in the UK, still the highest ranking song I wrote about.
That review was mostly about the way the Sex Pistols performed their songs: wild, unhinged, low on technical skills and getting by a lot on Johnny Rotten’s mad-dog vocals. As the covers of that song proved, it looked simple, but it was a song that was surprisingly hard to copy in it’s furious feeling. Anarchy in the UK probably captured best what the Sex Pistols and a large part of punk was about: a threat to order and establishment. It was a sociological movement captured in song.
It also created an image for the Pistols that was hard to live up to. In a way they didn’t have to, as the band disbanded quickly. But they did release more than one song. In fact they made one of the biggest classic albums of rock: Never Mind the Bollock’s, Here’s the Sex Pistols. In a way, that album carries the same reputation of Anarchy in the UK: a belligerent, dangerous entity of destruction. A lot of the times it lives up to this, but every now and then things miss their mark.
No, I do not think Pretty Vacant is a highlight of Never Mind the Bollocks. It is the third highest ranked song from the album on Acclaimed Music, but I would probably rank it at the bottom three. Compared to the best of the Pistols it misses some of the wildness that the group not only excels in, but honestly needs to be interesting. I mean, it still sounds sloppy and raw. Johnny Rotten still doesn’t sound like a nice guy. But nothing here comes close to match the filth and fury of the best tracks of the album. It sounds tame for these guys.
There is also something weird about the concept. As the title already says and the chorus repeats, the Pistols are pretty vacant, at least that is what they should be. It’s a statement that rings almost paradoxically hollow. There are a lot of nasty things you could say about this band (and they wanted you to), but not that they were vacant. The word ‘vacant’ has several meanings, but none seem to fit the Pistols. Indifferent? No matter how much they say “I don’t care”, they are way too political to make such a statement stick. Blank? They are the least blank band in rock history. Absent? Again a lyric matches this (“We’re not all there”), but a band this loud will never seem absent and we have to face that these guys craved attention back in the day. Empty? This makes the most sense I guess, but the appeal here was that their threats didn’t seem empty.
Pretty Vacant is perhaps a song Kurt Cobain might have considered. He could rock hard while still singing convincingly about being numbed to the bone. Johnny Rotten anno 1977 couldn’t do this if his life depended on it. He is too engaged, too wired, too anxious to pick a fight. His roars don’t match the lyrics about vapid personalities. And if the band doesn’t sound as on fire as they do on other tracks, it is still too energetic to convince in this context. In some ways the song misses on two accounts: as a track about being vacant it is too brash and loud, while as a punk song it is too subdued. It is not even that a subject like this doesn’t work on punk rock, as a lot of the works by the Ramones might have been titled Pretty Vacant. It’s just that it isn’t the Sex Pistols.
Many people seem to find interest in these lyrics somewhere else. It’s in the way Rotten phrases the word ‘vacant’ as “va-cunt”. The Sex Pistols performed it on live television on Top of the Pops. Most of their songs weren’t allowed on public broadcast, certainly not God Saves the Queen, but Pretty Vacant seemed innocent enough. Sadly for the programmers, the loud screams of “cunt” where missed. It made the reputation of the track. At concerts fans would delight in singing that particular word.
I’m sorry if I don’t find this all too interesting. Maybe it is just that we are 40 years further and swearing in a song isn’t anything special anymore. It probably doesn’t help that I’m from a country where you can use even the worst swear words on radio or television with nobody giving a damn. I’ve become pretty insensitive to it all myself. Of course, in historic context it is somewhat funny, but pretty much any lyric in most Sex Pistols songs is sharper and more dangerous than this rather lame pun.
What is left of Pretty Vacant? Taken out of context of its bands career and out of the album it is a solid punk song; short and punchy as it should be. The main riff is memorable. Apparently it comes from Abba’s S.O.S. I have a hard time hearing it, but the fact that Sex Pistols took inspiration from pretty much the most unlikely source is perhaps the most amusing bit of trivia of the song. Pretty Vacant is okay in my book, but I don’t see why it is so highly regarded.
6/10
Other versions:
There is something about Sex Pistols that seems to inspire weird covers. After the odd playlist build around Anarchy in the UK I present you something similar for Pretty Vacant. Anything goes, or so it seems.
Pretty Vacant lends itself better to reinterpretation than Anarchy in the UK, so perhaps that’s why I enjoyed this playlist more. Nothing here sounds quite vacant, so there is nothing to be gained there. In fact, many of these covers are still punk in nature and most of them are solid but uninteresting to talk about, but there are some oddities here. Nothing as weird as the ukulele version I found for Anarchy, but there still… Wait a minute. Is that a lullaby version of Pretty Vacant? Yes, it is. In fact, a cover of the complete Never Mind the Bollocks album is made by a group named Twinkle Twinkle Little Rock Star. Every song there has been listened to for over more than 1.000 times on Spotify. Humanity is inexplicable. It doesn’t end there. A group actually named Tunes for Babies That Don’t Drive You Crazy also did Pretty Vacant. Indeed it didn’t drive me crazy, it drove me insane. (There is another baby version in the playlist below, but I leave that for you to discover).
Let’s get back on track (and towards dignity) with the real highlights. Joan Jett rocked out on the track and although her own take is more polished than the Pistols (well, everything is more polished than the Sex Pistols) she best them in pure adrenaline. The Ukrainians, who also appeared on the Anarchy on the UK playlist, did an Ukrainian cover named Tsilkom Vakantni that rocks like a real beast. There is Irish-folk influenced take by Mr. Irish Bastard that explodes into punk. The operatic aria cover by The Anarchy Arias is even less vacant than the Pistols, but it works. Why not add a doo wop interpretation to the mix, Delltones? Or electronica punk, Nasty Inc.? Hillbilly, Ja-13? The weirdest cover is by Thorne. I mean, I don’t have a clue what genre that is. Freak disco? Post-punk is more expected, but who expected Shelton San to best John Lydon’s own take with Public Image, Ltd.? Biggest surprise, the sexy chill version by Sofia actually suits the song well.
Sometimes stuff goes wrong too. Paul Jones has apparently the most famous cover. Very poppy and cheery. More important: it grates on the nerves. The low-key approach by LE-LI is also uninspiring.
More of interest is the way the song has been used in other songs. It has hardly been sampled, but the riff was “borrowed”. Oh well, the guys took it from ABBA too. Joey Ramone didn’t cover Pretty Vacant sadly enough, but he did use the Pretty Vacant riff for a cover of another song… Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World. I’m not kidding you. This version was covered by metal band Ghoul. Keep track guys: Ghoul cover Joey Ramone who covers Louis Armstrong while using a riff based on The Sex Pistols borrowing a riff from ABBA. Yes, dear readers, we just found the first metal song based on punk, jazz and disco pop at the same time. Is this the ultimate gathering of everything music or what?
Let’s get back on track again. Other songs found inspiration with Pretty Vacant. Somewhere, somehow, somebody decided that there should be cover of Vanessa Williams’ Save the Best for Last with the riff of Pretty Vacant and oddly enough this song by Me First and the Gimme Gimmes is the most vacant of the lot. For the Sex Pistols based mockumentary named The Great Rock ‘n Roll Swindle the group Black Arabs recorded a song named Black Arabs which is a reggae-like medley of several Sex Pistol songs, including Pretty Vacant. It is quite good. Legião Urban also did a rock medley, which contains a lot of Rolling Stones songs, but also Pretty Vacant. Not amazing, but a bit of fun regardless.
Best of all? A mash-up of Madonna’s Ray of Light with three Sex Pistol songs (Anarchy in the UK, God Save the Queen and of course Pretty Vacant), by Go Home Productions. The end result is so glorious it is actually required listening.
Oh, and The Damned covered the song. They are big enough to deserve a mention, don’t they? I have not much to say about their live track, but there you are.
The playlist:
Sex Pistols at Top of the Pops anno 1977
Sex Pistols performing Pretty Vacant final concert at Winterland in 1978, sometimes regarded as their finest moment.
Sex Pistols vs Madonna – Ray of Gob
Paul Jones – Pretty Vacant
