Public Image Limited - Death Disco - 1/2 Mix & Megga Mix - Virgin Records - 1979

Apologies for placing up a record so obvious to those that might know me in person.
I like the record, I especially like the 12” version of ‘Death Disco’, in fact, I wish even that version lasted a little longer.
Still, six minutes and forty seconds of perhaps the best bass-line in post-punk courtesy of Jah Wobble, and a guitar-line from Keith Levene so sharp you could cut glass with it, ain’t so bad, considering.
The B - side 'Megga Mix' is 'Fodderstomp' although far less ‘dread’ compared to 'Death Disco', just an instrumental but a rather hypnotic instrumental nonetheless. Six minutes and fifty-five seconds of interference-like noise mixed slightly higher than the slightly faster and slightly funkier bass-line (as I hear it at least). You know, perhaps more 'disco', perhaps complementing the title of the master song!
It’s a shame, to me at least, that Lydon has turned somewhat ‘Gammon’ over the last few years, but back in the days when he could hold a tune, ‘Death Disco’ is up there with the very best.
Background to ‘Death Disco’ according to the allmusic website below.
John Lydon’s cancer-stricken mother asked her son to write a song for her. Her son’s band responded with “Death Disco” (also known as “Swan Lake,” a different mix found on Metal Box), and she found it to be funny. The U.K. public liked the song enough to place it in their top 20. Hardly a laugh-riot, the song features Lydon at his most desperate and stark. Lydon’s mother seems to have had a dark sense of humour. The song is built on a dense groove informed equally by dub and disco - bassist Jah Wobble and drummer Richard Dudanski (actually David Humphrey, a session musician, according to Discogs and Wiki) lock into place on a 4/4 rhythm, and Wobble’s bass throbs and bobs with a simple hypnotic pattern. Keith Levene scrawls and screeches on top, dishing out shards of guitar that complement the rhythm one moment and then shift into horrific riffing the next. Despite the ugliness of the guitar, it is hardly any competition for Lydon’s vocals. Throat be damned, he lets loose the grim imagery: “Choking on a bed/Flowers rotting dead”; “Watch her slowly die/Saw it in her eyes.” Cathartic, to say the absolute least. Over the course of the next few decades, various songs would be referred to as “death disco,” but none of them ever approximated the violence, depth, or bleak thrill of the reference point.
Seeing in your eyes
Words can never say the way
Told me in your eyes
Final in a fade
Never no more hope away
Final in a fade
Seeing in your eyes
Seeing in your eyes
Never really know
Never realize
Silence in your eyes
Silence in your eyes
Never really know
Till it's gone away
Never realize
The silence in your eyes
Seen it in your eyes
Seen it in your eyes
Never no more hope away
Final in a fade
Watch her slowly die
Saw it in her eyes
Choking on a bed
Flowers rotting dead
Seen it in her eyes
Ending in a day
Silence was a way
Seeing in your eyes
Seeing in your eyes
Seeing in your eyes
I'm seeing through my eyes
Words cannot express
Words cannot express
Words cannot express
Photograph of John Lydon courtesy of Jeanette Lee from her book of Polaroids entitled 'Private Image'.
The art on the record sleeve was the work of John Lydon.

[@gaztop411]

WAY BEFORE ITS TIME WE NEED THIS NOW

[@gaztop411]

REBEL MUSIC 🔥🔥🔥🔥

[@BillPappas-e8n]

Totally agree 💯,

[@EdwardHuntley-e4k]

Great artwork for the single cover, and mega mix is just sublime, play it loud .

[@BillPappas-e8n]

👣Gang of four sound👣killer sound

[@richardmumford2708]

Had this on 12 ...beautiful

[@eckstatic5163]

another gem mr. b so, many thanks..and, taped...

[@saraivatoledo1842]

And this is why there never will be another Keith Levene ...how many You(s) before you reaaaaalizeee ...silence in your eeeeeyeeeees !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@bazzhandler]

B side is Fodderstompf - not a version of Death Disco :)

[@vicenteleiva]

!!! very true!!

[@daviddavis3155]

Nice one

[@matthiasbanaschewski7329]

totally agreed with you

[@melthebell33]

Great 12", and sadly i agree on latter day Lydon, hes like one of those blokes down the pub that never shuts up, always knows everything about everything and complains about everything.

[@kobalt77]

Totally agree and the man was my hero for a LONG time. He has not moved on at all, I can't listen to him any more, embarrassing for a middle age man.

[@aboutsoundandvision]

@@kobalt77 Middle aged?

[@avietri9592]

Ha! What? Sir, I understand that you feel very full of your great analytical talents, but man, you are giving folks this analysis and you don't even realize that the "B" side you refer is a completely different song, Fodderstompf? How embarrassing.