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Slice Paper Wrists - Poison the Well |
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Sid himself, dazzled by images of stardom and fame at last, immediately accepted, despite never playing bass before. With Sid in the Pistols, the group shot to nortoriety in the UK, with their singles God Save The Queen and Pretty Vacant, not to mention their infamous anti-royalist protest gig on a boat down the Thames during Jubilee Week. And through it all, Sid was loving every moment. However, soon it was all to go disastrously wrong.
In early 1977, Johnny Thunders(ex-New York Dolls), brought his new group The Heartbreakers to the UK, anxious to be part of the London punk scene. With them however, also came a young American groupie whose own longing for fame and affection was just as great, if not greater. Her name was Nancy Laura Spungen, a Philadelphia-born junkie who had her own history of mental problems and shared Sid's fascination for masochism and death. She had came to London for one purpose: to bed a Sex Pistol.
After being rejected by Johnny Rotten, she turned her attentions to Sid Vicious. Something clicked, and the two fell in love. However, soon Sid too was addicted to, not only Nancy, but her heroin too. His bandmates could only watch in despair as Sid fell further and further into oblivion.
By the end of the ill-fated American tour, Sid was useless as function within the Sex Pistols, lashing out at crowds with his bass guitar and cutting himself on stage. His antics were a major factor in the group's eventual split at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco, on January 14th 1978. Rotten's snarl summed it all up: "Ever got the feeling you're being cheated?"
After the Pistols' split, Sid returned to Nancy, who decided to act as his manager and get him a solo career. Sid played a few gigs at Max's Kansas, but his half-hearted, weak impressions of Johnny Rotten were a complete disaster, and soon gig offers became few and far between.
By far Sid Vicious' biggest achievement in his lifetime was his punk version of My Way("And now the end is near/And so I face the final curtain/you cunt, I'm not a queer/I'll state my case/Of which I'm certain") which he recorded in Paris alongside former bandmate Steve Jones, with Nancy looking proudly on.
By late 1978 however, the unhappy couple's reliance on heroin had reached massive proportions, and their relationship became violent and dangerous. However, it is not to doubted that they loved each other, and were known to many as punk's Romeo and Juliet. Together, they bought a room in New York's fabled Chelsea Hotel.
Yet Nancy's fascination with death and controlling attitude towards Sid, could only have ended in disaster. And their relationship came to a violent and sudden end.
On the night of the 12th October 1978, screams and loud bangs could be heard from Room 100 in the Hotel. The next morning, police were sent in and found 20 year-old Nancy's bloodstained body slumped beneath the bathroom sink. She had died from a single stab wound in her abdomen, and had bled to death during the night.
Sid was arrested with her murder but was let out on bail, paid by Malcolm McLaren. it has never been proven whether he killed her or not, but those who knew Nancy could well believe she could have goaded him into it. However, life without Nancy was one he could not bear.
One night, astonished hotel workers were greeted with a sobbing Sid, wielding a knife. he proceeded to cut a four-inch deep gash in his arm, whilst screaming: "I want to be with my Nancy! I want to be left alone."
After a series of drunken brawls, Sid was finally sent to Riker's island, and was released, yet again, on the 1st February 1979. Anne Beverley, concerned that her son would be arrested again whilst trying to negotiate with street dealers, flew out to America to be with him, and bought him a suppliy of heroin herself, and watched him inject before her eyes. then she went to sleep.
However, that night Sid decided to take his own tortured life, the pain of living without Nancy was too great. His mother had bought him pure heroin, and so he took the lot.
Sid Vicious died on the 2nd February 1979. He was only twenty-one years old.
Distraught, Anne desperately rang Deborah Spungen(Nancy's mother), and asked her if she could bury her misunderstood son next to his true love. Horrified, Deborah refused.
However, this had been Sid's last wish. So during the night, a few days after he had been cremation, Anne secretly climbed the walls of the King David Jewish Cemetery in Bensalem, Pennsylvania. There, she scattered her son's ashes in the snow on Nancy's grave, so they could be together forever.
Many speculations have been cast over Vicious' death, as to whether it was suicide or accidental, but when asked this, Anne simply smiled wryly and produced a worn note Sid had scrawled, found on him when he died, simply entitled "Nancy":
"You were my little baby girl/And I knew all your fears/Such joy to hold you in my arms/And kiss away your tears/But now you're gone/There's only pain/And nothing I can do/And I don't want to live this life/If I can't live for you."
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