Music Video Of The Day: Anarchy in the U.K. by The Sex Pistols (1976, directed by Julien Temple)

Posted on January 31, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

Today is John Lydon’s 64th birthday so today’s music video of the day features him at his best.

For the record, John Lydon (or Johnny Rotten, as he was known when he was the Sex Pistols’s lead singer) is not an anarchist. The famous lyrics that start off Anarchy in the U.K, came about because “I am an anarchiste” was the best rhyme that Lydon could come up with for “I am an Antichrist.” Lydon has described anarchism as being “mind games for the middle class.” Lydon’s right, of course.

Remarkable, John Lydon has gone from being regarded as a symbol of everything that was wrong with British youth (a representation of what the Daily Mail famously called “The Filth and the Fury” after drummer Paul Cook called Simon Grundy a “fucking rotter” on national television) to being a national treasure. Songs that once scandalized Britain are now unofficial anthems and, remarkably, Lydon’s gone from hated to beloved without changing a thing about his outlook or even his attitude. Listening to an interview with Lydon from the Sex Pistols-era is not that much different from listening to an interview that Lydon may have given last month. He may now be doing butter commercials and appearing on I’m A Celebrity! Get Me Out Of Here! but he remains that same Johnny Rotten who once scared the Hell out of anyone with a pension.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Public Image by Public Image Ltd. (1978, directed by ????)

Posted on November 8, 2019 by Jedadiah Leland

‘Public Image’, despite what most of the press seemed to misinterpret it to be, is not about the fans at all, it’s a slagging of the group I used to be in. It’s what I went through from my own group. They never bothered to listen to what I was fucking singing, they don’t even know the words to my songs. They never bothered to listen, it was like, ‘Here’s a tune, write some words to it.’ So I did. They never questioned it. I found that offensive, it meant I was literally wasting my time, ’cause if you ain’t working with people that are on the same level then you ain’t doing anything. The rest of the band and Malcolm never bothered to find out if I could sing, they just took me as an image. It was as basic as that, they really were as dull as that. After a year of it they were going ‘Why don’t you have your hair this colour this year?’ And I was going ‘Oh God, a brick wall, I’m fighting a brick wall!’ They don’t understand even now.

— John Lydon in Melody Maker, 1978

After the spectacular collapse of their 1978 American tour, the members of the Sex Pistols found themselves at loose ends. Sid Viscous pursued an ill-fated solo career. Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren took off to Brazil with Paul Cook and Steve Jones and attempted to recruit fugitive Ronnie Briggs to be the band’s new lead singer. Meanwhile, the band’s former lead singer, Johnny Rotten, returned to the UK and announced to the world that he still had more to say.

Of course, he wouldn’t be saying it as a Sex Pistol nor would he be using the name Johnny Rotten, though whether that was primarily by choice or due to legal issues with McLaren and the Sex Pistols’s management team depends on which source you consult. Using his real name, John Lydon reemerged as the founder and lead singer of Public Image Ltd. With PiL, Lydon retained the anger and the wit that made him such an exciting figure with the Sex Pistols but he also took control of his own musical destiny.

PiL’s first single (and hit) was Public Image and, appropriately, it was a song that Lydon had originally written to express his displeasure with the direction of the Sex Pistols. The song criticized the Pistols (and McLaren, specifically) for being more concerned with maintaining the right image than with actually saying anything. The video, which came out before MTV, shows that Lydon didn’t need the Sex Pistols to get across his withering message.

Enjoy!

A Quickie With Lisa Marie: Death Disco a.k.a. Swan Lake (by Public Image, Ltd.)

Posted on July 2, 2010 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Recently, I’ve been reading Clinton Heylin’s history of punk rock, Babylon’s Burning: From Punk To Grunge. Not surprisingly, one of the main characters in this book is John Lydon (a.k.a. Johnny Rotten). Along with detailing Lydon’s time as the lead singer for the Sex Pistols, the book also examines Lydon’s subsequent career as the frontman for Public Image, Ltd. The book also inspired me to track down and listen to one of PIL’s earliest efforts, a song that was originally called Death Disco (though it was also released under the name Swan Lake for reasons that become obvious once you listen to the song).

Death Disco was written after and in response to the death of Lydon’s mother. Though the song is now over 30 years old, it remains a powerful and cathartic cry of pain and loss.

As an added bonus, here’s two interviews with Lydon, one from the late 70s that was recorded shortly before he formed Public Image, Ltd. (and in which he looks so incredibly young and, dare I say it, rather adorable in his bratty way) and one from 2007 in which he discusses the meaning of life.