Synopsis

Megadeth perform their aggressive cover of the Sex Pistols' "Anarchy in the U.K." amid a barrage of concert footage, animated political imagery, newsreel-style scenes, riots, warfare, and social unrest. The video opens with a young man being taken to a brainwashing machine, evoking the forced-conditioning sequence from "A Clockwork Orange." As the performance intensifies, the imagery connects the song's rebellious punk spirit with broader themes of propaganda, violence, political authority, and manufactured conformity.

Factoids & Trivia

• The video was released in 1988 to promote Megadeth's third studio album, *So Far, So Good... So What!*, which included the band's version of the Sex Pistols classic.

• Former Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones played guitar on Megadeth's studio recording, giving the cover a direct link to the original band.

• Dave Mustaine later acknowledged that some of the song's lyrics were recorded incorrectly because he had misheard Johnny Rotten's delivery.

• The video's brainwashing imagery draws on the "Ludovico Technique" sequence from Stanley Kubrick's *A Clockwork Orange*, although the clip uses the reference as part of a broader political and media-satire collage.

• The approximately four-minute video combines staged band performance footage with animation, historical conflict imagery, riot footage, and caricatured political figures.

• The song became an unusual entry in Megadeth's catalog: it brought a British punk standard into the band's tightly played American thrash-metal style.

• Mustaine later stopped performing the song live, citing its anti-Christ reference as one reason.