I loved the Sex Pistols. They came along just as my teen angst – to ridiculously understate it – needed some sympathetic resonance. They didn't have school shootings when I was a kid, so punk rock had to suffice. The Sex Pistols and their sort arrived just after a tedious run of rarefied rock godz with pubic hairs climbing all up their bare chests, and spuds wiggling around in their pants, condescending to us nobodies in suburbs and small towns, reminding us that our money was going toward their raping coked-up groupies on their private airline jets. The Sex Pistols were nobodies-made-famous, in the process of which they called attention to the absurdity and arbitrariness of rock-stardom.
Even so, although the Sex Pistols were essentially feral, they were also processed by an image-maker named Malcolm McLaren. When McLaren first took the band under his wing – before they recruited Johnny Rotten as the vocalist – he had them jettison a founding member, the guy at whose house they had practiced, the one who'd started writing their original material. Wally Nightingale just couldn't rock the look and look the rock. One of his songs lingered in their repertoire, however, after they began recording. "Did You No Wrong" was even the B-side of the "God Save the Queen" single. It seems to sit apart from the rest of the Sex Pistols' songs, as though having survived, intact, from the primordial era of the early '70s. The song chugs along, almost boogieing; the guitar breaks sound like they're from some song that you've heard before but can't quite pinpoint.
When Wally's song was released (with new lyrics by Johnny Rotten), his name was nowhere in the credits. He had likewise been socially shunned by his former bandmates. After 20 years, he finally received writer credit for "Did You No Wrong." The first check for back-royalty payment arrived in his mailbox the day after he died, destitute, of an illness related to past drug abuse.