according to the ascap, credited songwriters are john beverley (sid vicious), paul cook, steve jones, and john lydon. however, vicious is generally accepted to have written the song while in his earlier band the flowers of romance. its title is a pun on the zyklon b gas used in many camps, referencing "a gas" or "gasser" as 1950s-1970s street slang for a fun time. in fact, there were no gas chambers at bergen-belsen, as it was not one of the extermination camps; most of the around 37,000 deaths there were due to typhus or starvation.