No, it’s not a new single by IDLES (though their fans would probably believe it was if they put their name on it)… it’s the debut single by Sham 69.

A genuinely working-class group, in contrast to the many art-school types forming punk bands, Sham had a belt-and-braces punker-than-punk sound.

And in Jimmy Pursey they had a rabble-rousing front man who wore his rage on his sleeve – never more so than when he broke up the band in tears after far-right skinheads adopted the band as their own.

Sham were all about aggression – angry vocals singing angry lyrics set to angry guitars backed by angry rhythms – a natural soundtrack for the social and musical revolution of punk. But also to the National Front and its legion of shaven-headed halfwits.

To their growing concern, Sham swiftly attracted a violent following of National Front-supporting skinheads whose far-right politics were a far cry from Pursey’s and it all ended in tears (and blood, and broken seats) at the Rainbow Theatre in 1979. I was there.

I was also there when Sham played the Roundhouse and a mob of far-right skins smashed in the doors, using a railway sleeper as a battering ram, to get in. It was terrifying.

I can still remember going nervously to the Gents to find half a dozen of them lining the walls inside and hearing a bottle break behind me just as I was going about my business. Thankfully it went no further than that.

This, their debut single, was recorded a month after Squeeze’s debut EP Packet Of Three at the same studio – Pathway in Newington Green – with the same producer, John Cale, and the B-sides, Ulster and Red London.

Written by front man Jimmy Pursey and guitarist Dave Parsons, I Don’t Wanna set out their nihilist agenda: “I don’t wanna work in no factory / I don’t want no strike / And I don’t want no dole queue… I don’t wanna work to 65 / And I don’t want no gold watch / And I don’t want no pension book.”

It was never entirely clear what Jimmy did want, though his philosophy – and the band’s appeal – was summed up at their gigs in the set closer, a song (released to fans as a free single as Song Of The Streets) called “What ‘Ave We Got”, the title bellowed out by Pursey, to which the audience would respond: “Fuck all!”

What they actually got was a deal with a major label, Polydor, and was followed by hits like the genuinely great Borstal Breakout and terrace anthems including If The Kids Are United and Hurry Up Harry, with its memorable chorus: “We’re going down the pub.”