I long loved John Lydon and his music, but by golly he sails “close to the edge”. I think he has passed his best, and he’s now more a “self-made man in the roadhouse bar” than the darkly intelligent character he once was. “SAD” as his potential friend would say.
And people complain about Morrissey
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Not convinced they’re the “least Punk things he’s ever said” – it’s just an opinion, and maybe his opinion at the moment he was asked the question – 30 seconds later he probably had a different response.
John has spent years being a contrarian – sometimes deliberately taking an alternative view just to spark debate, comment, or perhaps just to get a bit of different thinking going.
Maybe, just maybe, that shtick is getting a little worn now – doesn’t stop him though.
Away from the usual glare though, the recent interview in Mojo was more the John of old.
Article from 2017, although I hear he’s said similar things recently.
He is going through a difficult period, with his wife suffering from dementia, I fear for him when she is no longer around.
Well, I agree with number 5..
Nah, nonsense ’tis. I don’t know anyone who starts work at ten and hardly anyone finishes at 5. At least not down here in the south. Lunch break for most workers is from 1 to 4 (cos of the heat). At 5 people are just getting into their afternoon’s work, with most of them finishing at 8. Nice cars, sharp suits, good food? Reminds me of the Italians who think food in Britain is all disgusting and British people all wear bowler hats and carry umbrellas.
It’s pretty rich from a guy who, let’s face it, has never done a day’s work in his life. He’s still essentially living off 40-odd minutes of music he recorded in 1976. Nice, er, work if you can get it.
Number 10 is spot on, though.
Metal Box is brilliant (1979)
Sorry Gaz! I didn’t mean to slander a whole nation. It was the “that’s living” part I agreed with – me being a workshy fop, and that..
I’ve quoted this before (in fact I did recently on a Covid/Lockdown thread), but I’ll repeat it cos it’s such a totally accurate description of the attitude to life here; a friend’s husband once told me: “Italy has so many problems – the corruption, the inefficiency, the bureaucracy, the poverty, the crime etc etc etc… but then the summer comes, we all go to the beach and who cares about any of that!” I was told that over 30 years ago and it’s still the truest statement about Italy I’ve ever heard.
I used to think Johnny Rotten was the coolest fella on the planet. Then I admired John Lydon greatly for PIL. But now I just think he’s a cartoon pantomime fool. (I do respect the way he’s so clearly devoted to his wife though.)
Incredible, isn’t it, John Lydon is the go-to guy for compassion and love towards his life partner …
… The Prime Minister will have anyone down an alley, impregnate anything that moves, and yet his core support, the Daily Mail and Daily Express readers, still think that the Dave Clark Five are beyond the pale!
I’ve mentioned this before, but in a Mojo interview 3 or 4 years ago, one question was “When did you last cry, and why?”, and his totally unironic answer was (paraphrasing) “When George Michael died – I hate what this industry does to people…”
It fits. I’m in no danger of buying his records, but I quite like John Lydon. I too was saddened when George Michael died.
He’s almost certainly never had a day off either!
I’ve never been particularly convinced of his intelligence anyway, to be honest. His views have tended to be all over the place, so sometimes he’s seemed to be making a reasonable point, before following up by acting like an arse.
Nothing in those comments comes close to the bile spouted by Morrissey so a little confused with the headline.
I think these days Lydon is a cartoon character but I dont consider any of his comments offensive just slightly amusing.
Agreed.
To lump our Johnny in with someone as irredeemably odious as Morrissey is a bit rich.
He’s been saying pretty much anything that might keep his name current by putting people’s noses out of joint since day one.
He’s always been a contrarian, happy as Dylan to lie baldly to anybody credulous enough to believe him, on the record or off.
Over time I think he’s become trapped in public by the persona he originally created as armour to protect himself. He was a sparky, hip, angry and frustrated youngster from next to nothing who took his chance at an interesting moment & was extraordinarily effective in reflecting how others felt along similar lines. In the process, his latent creativity was able to bloom in ways that were beyond anything he could have expected. He was blazing & scathing & brave for a brief period of time & survived being a folk devil & his best mate dying in a publicly grisly fashion.
PIL were tremendous is some incarnations & he seemed content in his devoted private life.
The Pistols revival stuff was pretty good & he showed he still had some edge, but as Steve Jones said in his book, after an initial ‘ nice to see you lot again’, he’d quickly become an anti social surly drunk again & again.
In more recent years, his disdain for ‘middle class journalists’ has morphed into a highly questionable ‘I’m working class, that’s why I like Trump‘ stance, clearly accompanied by plenty more booze, probably as a coping mechanism as his wife’s health is failing.
I think the beer has essentially swamped him & there isn’t much left of the fearless, snotty but honest bloke there used to be. We all have seen people who’ve gone under to this or that, & it’s often tragic. If he didn’t have pots of dosh, he’d quite likely be the bloke on the cider in the park that people whisper ‘he used to be so & so…’.
We will always have ‘ I Wanna Be Me’ & ‘Submission’, even if he’s become an embarrassment.
I think he is just an attention seeker and the only way he can get any media attention is by saying something “controversial”. Who gives a flying one what he thinks about Trump or Farage? In the embarrassingly unimaginative minds of too many media people he, like Trump and Farage, is a rebel, so they drag him out to fill space.