As BFD readers are no doubt aware, I often caution against paying attention to the blatherskite of celebrities. Mostly because most of them are as dumb as a box of rocks, and groupthinkers who live by Homer Simpson’s “Code of the Schoolyard”: Never say anything unless you’re sure everyone feels exactly the same way you do.
Occasionally, though, an actor or singer will surprise us with something not only halfway intelligent, but definitely not approved by the echo-chamber of their peers. For instance, this week, of all people Tina Arena launched a blistering attack on the Branch Covidians
‘I didn’t hear anybody complaining during lockdown other than me: “Why are we locked up? Where’s your science? What? Why?” The fear was so much for me; it was choking me, I was like, I can’t cope with all of you being so fear-driven like this, and compliant.’
Naturally, the “I Stand With Dan” cultists on Twitter erupted in spluttering fury. But what was even more surprising was Arena’s appeal to the spirit of punk and the arch-rebel himself, John “Johnny Rotten” Lydon:
“What we try and advocate in the music industry is that your job is to be a f..king rebel, actually. Your job is to challenge societal perspectives. It doesn’t mean you have to be right, but we all stood up and listened when Johnny Rotten wrote God Save the Queen.”
For his part, John Lydon would likely agree that getting it right runs a distant second to being prepared to give the finger to the prigs and bullies. Lydon famously disdained the idea of reviving his own youthful anthem in the wake of the Queen’s death.
“John wrote the lyrics to this historical song, and while he has never supported the monarchy, he feels that the family deserves some respect in this difficult time, as would be expected for any other person or family when someone close to them has died.”
“Half of what I wrote was dimwitted, but if you write constantly you’re gonna strike it rich every now and then,” Lydon says. “The Sex Pistols were right for the time period and the culture, and it makes me scream with anger when American journalists claim we copied the punk movement because it was totally different. If anyone has allegiance to me it was Mud, the Sweet, T. Rex, Mott the Hoople. I was working on a building site with a bunch of Paddies when Virginia Plain by Roxy Music came on. It was the most remarkable thing I had ever heard.”
And, like Arena, Lydon is passionate about standing up for what you believe, even if, especially if, it risks the opprobrium of your peers.
All of this goes against the idea, propagated by McLaren, that the Sex Pistols rejected and destroyed all that came before them. In July 1977 Lydon played a selection of his favourite songs on Tommy Vance’s show on Capital Radio, including records by Neil Young, David Bowie and Peter Hammill. “I declared my musical tastes to be very wide early on and (McLaren) and the boys were furious,” he says. “ ‘It’s going to ruin our image.’ F..k off! I am the image, ya clowns!” […]
“They wrap you in a box and put a ribbon on top and if you dare wander outside of their fantasy … well, you’ll get hate mail for starters,” he says. “And the internet has given everyone the ability to denigrate people for practically no purpose beyond self-aggrandisement.”
Lydon’s stance on Brexit particularly irked the followers and sheep of the supposedly rebellious music industry, who slavishly lined up to bleat a chorus of “Remain”. As Lydon said, while he originally supported Remain, he changed after seeing the Remain camp becoming a solid lineup of finger-wagging elites, hectoring and shouting at working-class Brexiteers. For the same reason, Lydon preferred to side with the Trump wave than the Clintonian Establishment.
Infuriating the Guardian-readers even further, Lydon took aim at the Establishment left: “We can’t take much more of you, you talk twaddle. Everything you do, you just miss the point of who the general population are.”
“I never thought I’d see the day when the right wing would become the cool ones giving the middle finger to the establishment, and the left wing becoming the snivelling, self-righteous, twatty ones going around shaming everyone.”
John Lydon
“Liars, Fakes, Cheats and Frauds,” Lydon spells out, the song comparing Pistol to Mickey Mouse (the biopic was screened on Disney+). “They have done their best to destroy any legendary status the Sex Pistols had, with that unmasterful TV production by Danny Boyle-on-the-bum, and they insisted on taking me to court when I was in the middle of looking after Nora,” he says.
“It was murder on my soul to argue in a British law court when I had to leave my babbie, and they knew that. They wanted to cause as much damage and hurt to me as they possibly could. Well, hello! I’m here! I’ve got a good album and you c…s don’t!”
But Lydon is here for the first time in decades without his beloved wife Nora, who died recently after a years-long battle with Alzheimer’s.
“Actually it has been much harder than I thought,” the 67-year-old says […] “I thought I would be able to handle this side of it, but it is, if anything, worse. I like to sleep with Nora’s ashes in the cupboard next to the bed because there is no expectancy of meeting her in this life again. And if there is a hereafter …”
A grin of mischief breaks through. “Some of them rules I haven’t been following could prove a problem.”
The Australian
If there’s one thing our Johnny has never been, it’s one to follow the “rules”.
And gorblessim for it. Of all the heroes of my youth, Johnny is the one who’s never let me down yet.