Anarchy in the UK remains one of my favorite songs by The Sex Pistols. It's a pretty easy to play using basic barre chords (G, F, E, D, C.) and has a couple of nice manageable solos.
The riff was by original bass player Glen Matlock, beefed up by Steve Jones and lyrics by Johnny Rotten. Here's how the Pistols described the song coming into being in the liner notes to the 2003 Box Set.
Glen: I had this idea for a sort of 'theme tune' and had been knocking ideas about at home, but nothing concrete. We'd had yet another ruck about who and who wasn't pulling their weight. Steve was short of ideas and snapped at me, “You're so f**king clever, what have you got!?” Well, not a lot, but he'd well and truly put me on the spot, so with this vague fanfare idea in mind, I jammily came up with the whole chord sequence, there and then. John came up with these amazing lyrics half an hour later, the rest, history. The only thing that bugged me about this was the dreadful 'Antichrist' / 'Anarcheeest' rhyme...
Steve: Glen came up with a clever riff. Ditto John's lyrics. I turned up the guitar and thrashed away. Paul somehow held it all together, a classic.
John: I kept really quiet that evening. I had written the words down while they were in the corner arguing. I used to have terrible trouble rehearsing because I was so f**king shy about it. I always wanted to be brilliant, excellent, loved and adored right from the start. When I finally finished the words, Glen was absolutely furious. He thought it was appalling and a silly idea for a song. I proved him right.
Paul: It was Glen's riff originally, and Steve beefed it up. Glen felt a little precious about it being his song. He was upset about John’s terrain being thrown over the top. John and Glen had such different ideas, and Steve and I were in the middle. But I thought the tension was working. 'Anarchy' was the classic example of everything working perfectly.
The main riff is pretty straight forward. It's an A shape barre chord at the 10th fret, then the 8th, the 7th, the 5th, the 3rd frets. Here's the Chorus as shown in Tab notation in GuitarPro format from TabScout. (Click on the graphic to enlarge.) Although the Pistols had a reputation for playing fast, in fact most of their songs are at a modest speed, this one around 131 beats per minute.
And here's most of the first solo. You can click on the graphic to make it full size. Remember, Steve Jones couldn't read music, so it's less complicated than it looks. It's basically three fingers on 12, 13, 14th frets on the strings (high) E, B and G, sliding down two frets, then repeat four times and then close it out with some power chords. If you're using GuitarPro, slow it down until you get the hang of it.
And if you want a completely authentic version, here's a video of Steve Jones from the Classic Albums Series on the making of "Never Mind the Bollocks" where he illustrates his guitar playing on several songs. (Skip ahead to 2:45 to get to "Anarchy.") It's a great DVD and well worth it just to see Steve showcase his guitar chops on many of the Pistols finest songs.
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