The Postcard
A postally unused Quaint Kiddies Series postcard that was published by the Inter-Art Co. of Southampton House, London W.C. The artwork was by Fred Spurgin, and the card was printed in England.
Although the card was not posted, someone has written a name and address on the right-hand side of the divided back:
Miss E. Graves,
The Roebuck,
King's Road,
Chelsea.
There was also a brief message on the left-hand side:
"All's safe.
Love."
The Roebuck
John Lydon (Johnny Rotten) met the rest of the Sex Pistols in the Roebuck at 354, King's Road Chelsea in August 1975, a few days after meeting Malcolm McLaren in his nearby boutique, Sex.
McLaren's assistant, Bernie Rhodes (later manager of The Clash), decided that Rotten's chutzpah was just the sort of "attitude" that he and McLaren were looking for in a singer to front a new band.
An intrigued Rotten turned up and, in front of Steve Jones, Paul Cook and Glen Matlock, sang along to Alice Cooper's "I'm Eighteen" so voraciously he immediately got the gig.
John Lydon
John Joseph Lydon, also known by his former stage name Johnny Rotten, is an English-American singer and songwriter. He was the lead vocalist of the punk rock band the Sex Pistols, which was active from 1975 to 1978, and again for various revivals during the 1990's and 2000's.
He is also the lead vocalist of post-punk band Public Image Ltd (PiL), which he founded and fronted from 1978 until 1993, and again since 2009.
Lydon's outspoken personality, rebellious image and fashion style led Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren to invite Lydon to join the group as its lead vocalist.
With the Sex Pistols, John penned singles including "Anarchy in the U.K.", "God Save the Queen" and "Holidays in the Sun", the content of which precipitated what one commentator described as:
"The last and greatest outbreak of
pop-based moral pandemonium in
Britain."
The band scandalised much of the media, and Lydon was seen as a figurehead of the burgeoning punk movement. Because of their controversial lyrics and disrepute at the time, they are regarded by many as one of the most influential acts in the history of popular music.
After the Sex Pistols disbanded in 1978, Lydon founded his own band, Public Image Ltd, which was far more experimental in nature and described in a 2005 review by NME as:
"Arguably the first post-rock group".
The band produced eight studio albums and a string of singles, including "Public Image", "Death Disco", and "Rise", before they went on hiatus in 1993, reforming in 2009.
In subsequent years, Lydon has hosted television series in the UK, US, and Belgium. In 2004 he appeared on I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here! in the UK.
John also appeared in advertisements on UK television promoting Country Life, a brand of British butter. He has written two autobiographies, and produced solo musical work, such as the studio album Psycho's Path (1997).
In 2005, he released a compilation album, The Best of British £1 Notes.
In 2015, there was a revival of a 1980's movement to have Lydon knighted for his achievements with the Sex Pistols, although he has declined efforts to award him an MBE for his services to music. Q magazine remarked that:
"Somehow he's assumed the
status of national treasure".
John Lydon - The Early Years
John Joseph Lydon was born in Finsbury Park, London, on the 31st. January 1956. His parents, Eileen Mary (née Barry), and John Christopher Lydon (died 2008), were working-class immigrants from Ireland who moved into a two-room Victorian flat in Benwell Road, in the Holloway area of north London.
The flat is adjacent to the Highbury Stadium (now Highbury Square), the former home ground of Premier League football club Arsenal F.C. of whom Lydon has been an avid fan since the age of four.
At the time, the area was largely impoverished, with a high crime rate and a population consisting predominantly of working-class Irish and Jamaican people.
Lydon spent summer holidays in his mother's native County Cork, where he suffered name-calling for having an English accent, a prejudice he claims he still receives today even though he travels under an Irish passport.
In his autobiography, Rotten – No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs (1993), Lydon wrote of being from an Irish background in London in the 1960's:
"Londoners had no choice but to accept the
Irish because there were so many of us, and
we do blend in better than the Jamaicans.
When I was very young and going to school,
I remember bricks thrown at me by English
parents... We were the Irish scum. But it's fun
being scum, too."
Lydon, the eldest of four brothers, had to look after his siblings due to his mother's regular illnesses. As a child, he lived on the edge of an industrial estate and would often play with friends in the factories when they were closed.
He belonged to a local gang of neighbourhood children, and would often end up in fights with other groups, something he would later look back on with fond memories:
"Hilarious fiascos, not at all like the knives
and guns of today. The meanness wasn't
there. It was more like yelling, shouting,
throwing stones, and running away giggling.
Maybe the reality was coloured by my youth."
Describing himself as a "very shy" and "very retiring" kid who was "nervous as hell", he hated going to school, where he would get caned as punishment and where he had several embarrassing incidents:
"I would shit my pants and be too scared
to ask the teacher to leave the class. I'd
sit there in a pants load of poo all day long."
At the age of seven, Lydon contracted spinal meningitis and spent a year in St. Ann's Hospital in Haringey, London. Throughout the entire experience, he suffered from hallucinations, nausea, headaches, periods of coma, and a severe memory loss that lasted for four years.
The treatments administered by the nurses involved drawing fluid out of his spine with a surgical needle, leaving him with a permanent spinal curvature.
The meningitis was responsible for giving him what he would later describe as the "Lydon stare"; John has noted:
"This experience was the first step
that put me on the road to Rotten".
With his father often away, employed variously on building sites or oil rigs, Lydon got his first job aged ten as a minicab despatcher, a role he kept up for a year while the family was in financial difficulty.
He disliked his secondary school, the St. William of York Roman Catholic School in Islington, where initially, he was bullied, but at fourteen or fifteen he "broke out of the mould" and began to fight back at what he saw as the oppressive nature of the school teachers:
"They instigated and encouraged the
children to all be the same and to be
anti-anyone-who-doesn't-quite-fit-
the-mould."
Following the completion of his O-Levels at school, John got into a row with his father, who disliked Lydon's long hair, and so, agreeing to get it cut, the teenager not only had it cut, but in an act of rebellion, he dyed it bright green.
As a teenager, he listened to rock bands like Hawkwind, Captain Beefheart, Alice Cooper, and the Stooges – bands his mother also used to like, which somewhat embarrassed him – as well as more mainstream acts such as David Bowie, T. Rex and Gary Glitter.
Lydon was kicked out of school at the age of fifteen after a run-in with a teacher, and went on to attend Hackney College, where he befriended Simon John Ritchie, before attending Kingsway College.
Lydon gave Ritchie the nickname "Sid Vicious", after his parents' pet hamster. Lydon and Vicious began squatting in a house in the Hampstead area with a group of ageing hippies and stopped bothering to go to college, which was far away from where they were living. Meanwhile, he began working on building sites during the summer, assisted by his father.
Friends recommended him for a job at a children's play centre in Finsbury Park, teaching woodwork to some of the older children, but he was sacked when parents complained that somebody "weird" with bright-green hair was teaching their children.
Lydon and his friends, including Vicious, John Gray, Jah Wobble, Dave Crowe and Tony Purcell, began going to many of the London clubs, such as the Lacy Lady in Seven Kings, and frequented both reggae and gay clubs, enjoying the latter because "you could be yourself, nobody bothered you" there.
Lydon during this stage of his life was described as:
"The vilest geezer I ever met – all
misshapen, no 'air, 'unchback, flat
feet."
He later left England and moved to America because:
"It's become such a police state in England.
So 1984-like. It's very grim. That's why I left.
Also I don't get any support over there."
John Lydon's Career
1975–1978: the Sex Pistols and the Punk Movement
In 1975, Lydon was among a group of youths who regularly hung around Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood's fetish clothing shop Sex.
McLaren had returned from a brief stint travelling with American proto-punk band the New York Dolls, and he was working on promoting a new band formed by Steve Jones, Glen Matlock and Paul Cook called the Sex Pistols.
McLaren was impressed with Lydon's ragged look and unique sense of style, particularly his orange hair and modified Pink Floyd T-shirt (with the band members' eyes scratched out and the words 'I Hate' scrawled in felt-tip pen above the band's logo).
After tunelessly singing Alice Cooper's "I'm Eighteen" to the accompaniment of the shop's jukebox, Lydon was chosen as the band's lead vocalist.
In August 1977, the band released "God Save the Queen" during the week of Queen Elizabeth II's Silver Jubilee. During the media furore over the single, Lydon and producers Bill Price and Chris Thomas were subject to a razor attack outside a pub in Highbury, London. Lydon commented:
"Turn the other cheek too often
and you get a razor through it."
Lydon was interested in dub music. Dub is an electronic musical style that grew out of reggae in the late 1960's and early 1970's.
Dub consists of remixes of existing recordings, created by significantly manipulating the original, usually through the removal of vocal parts, and emphasis of the rhythm section (the stripped-down drum-and-bass track is sometimes referred to as a riddim).
Dub also involves the application of studio effects such as echo and reverb, and the occasional dubbing of vocal or instrumental snippets from the original version or other works.
McLaren was said to have been upset when Lydon revealed during a radio interview that his influences included progressive experimentalists like Magma, Can, Captain Beefheart and Van der Graaf Generator.
Tensions between Lydon and bassist Glen Matlock arose. The reasons for this are disputed, but Lydon claimed in his autobiography that he believed Matlock to be too white-collar and middle-class, and that:
"Matlock was always going on
about nice things like the Beatles".
Matlock stated in his own autobiography that most of the tension in the band, and between himself and Lydon, was orchestrated by McLaren.
Matlock quit and as a replacement, Lydon recommended his school friend Simon John Ritchie, who used the stage name Sid Vicious. Although Vicious was an incompetent bassist, McLaren agreed that he had the look the band wanted: pale, emaciated, spike-haired, with ripped clothes and a perpetual sneer.
In 1977, the Sex Pistols released their only and highly influential studio album 'Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols'.
Vicious' chaotic relationship with girlfriend Nancy Spungen, and his worsening heroin addiction, caused a great deal of friction among the band members, particularly with Lydon, whose sarcastic remarks often exacerbated the situation.
Lydon closed the final Sid Vicious-era Sex Pistols concert in San Francisco's Winterland in January 1978 with a rhetorical question to the audience:
"Ever get the feeling you've
been cheated?"
Shortly thereafter, McLaren, Jones, and Cook went to Brazil to meet and record with former train robber Ronnie Biggs. Lydon declined to go, deriding the concept as a whole, and feeling that they were attempting to make a hero out of a criminal who attacked a train driver and stole "working-class money".
The Sex Pistols' disintegration was documented in Julien Temple's satirical pseudo-biographical film, The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1980), in which Jones, Cook and Vicious each played a character.
Matlock only appeared in previously recorded live footage and as an animation, and did not participate personally. Lydon refused to have anything to do with it, feeling that McLaren had far too much control over the project.
Although Lydon was highly critical of the film, many years later he agreed to let Temple direct the Sex Pistols documentary The Filth and the Fury (2000), a film that included new interviews with the band members' faces hidden in silhouette.
The documentary also featured an uncharacteristically emotional Lydon choking up as he discussed Vicious' decline and death. Lydon had previously denounced previous journalistic works regarding the Sex Pistols in the introduction to his autobiography, Rotten – No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs, which he described as:
"As close to the truth as one can get".
1978–1993: John Lydon and Public Image Ltd.
In 1978, Lydon formed the post-punk band Public Image Ltd. (PiL). The first line-up of the band included bassist Jah Wobble and former Clash guitarist Keith Levene.
They released the studio albums Public Image: First Issue (1978), Metal Box (1979) and the live album Paris au Printemps (1980).
Wobble then left and Lydon and Levene made The Flowers of Romance (1981). This was followed by This Is What You Want... This Is What You Get (1984) featuring Martin Atkins on drums. It featured their biggest hit, "This Is Not a Love Song", which hit No. 5 in the UK Singles Chart in 1983.
In 1983, Lydon co-starred with Harvey Keitel in the Italian crime thriller film Copkiller, also released as Corrupt Lieutenant and The Order of Death. He later had a small role in the mockumentary comedy film The Independent (2000).
In 1984, Lydon worked with Time Zone on their single "World Destruction". It was a collaboration between Lydon, Afrika Bambaataa and bassist Bill Laswell, and was an early example of rap rock. The song appears on Bambaataa's 1997 compilation album Zulu Groove, and was arranged by Laswell after Lydon and Bambaataa had acknowledged respect for each other's work, as described in an interview from 1984:
Afrika Bambaataa: "I was talking to Bill Laswell
saying I need somebody who's really crazy, man,
and he thought of John Lydon. I knew he was
perfect because I'd seen this movie that he'd
made [Copkiller], I knew about all the Sex Pistols
and Public Image stuff, so we got together and
we did a smashing crazy version, and a version
where he cussed the Queen something terrible,
which was never released."
John Lydon: "We went in, put a drum beat down
on the machine and did the whole thing in about
four-and-a-half hours. It was very, very quick."
In 1986, Public Image Ltd. released Album (also known as Compact Disc and Cassette depending on the format). Most of the tracks were written by Lydon and Bill Laswell, and the musicians were session musicians including bassist Jonas Hellborg, guitarist Steve Vai and Cream drummer Ginger Baker.
In 1987, a new line-up was formed consisting of Lydon, former Siouxsie and the Banshees guitarist John McGeoch, Allan Dias on bass guitar in addition to drummer Bruce Smith and Lu Edmunds. This line-up released Happy?
All except Lu Edmunds then released the album 9 in 1989.
In 1992, Lydon, Dias and McGeoch were joined by Curt Bisquera on drums and Gregg Arreguin on rhythm guitar for the album That What Is Not, which featured the Tower of Power horns on two songs and Jimmie Wood on harmonica.
Lydon, McGeoch and Dias wrote the song "Criminal" for the film Point Break (1991).
In 1993, Lydon put PiL on indefinite hiatus.
1993–2006: Solo Studio Album, Autobiography and John Lydon's Celebrity Status
In 1993, Lydon's first autobiography, Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs, was published. Aided by Keith and Kent Zimmerman, and featuring contributions from figures including Paul Cook, Chrissie Hynde, Billy Idol and Don Letts, the work covered his life up until the collapse of the Sex Pistols.
Describing the book, he stated that:
"It is as close to the truth as one can get,
looking back on events from the inside.
All the people in this book were actually
there, and this book is as much their point
of view as it is mine.
This means contradictions and insults have
not been edited, and neither have the
compliments, if any. I have no time for lies
or fantasy, and neither should you. Enjoy
or die."
In December 2005, Lydon told Q that he was working on a second autobiography to cover the PiL years.
In the mid-1990's, Lydon hosted Rotten Day, a daily syndicated US radio feature written by George Gimarc. The format of the show was a look back at events in popular music and culture occurring on the particular broadcast calendar date about which Lydon would offer cynical commentary.
The series was originally developed as a radio vehicle for Gimarc's book, Punk Diary 1970–79, but after bringing Lydon on board, it was expanded to cover notable events from most of the second half of the 20th. century.
In 1997, Lydon released a solo studio album on Virgin Records called Psycho's Path. He wrote all the songs and played all the instruments; for one song ("Sun"), he sang the vocals through a toilet roll.
The US version included a Chemical Brothers remix of the song "Open Up" by Leftfield with vocals by Lydon, which was a club hit in the US and a big hit in the UK.
Lydon has recorded a second solo studio album, but it has not been released, except for one song that appeared on The Best of British £1 Notes.
In November 1997, Lydon appeared on Judge Judy fighting a suit filed by his former tour drummer Robert Williams for breach of contract, assault and battery.
In January 2004, Lydon appeared on the British reality television programme I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!, which took place in Australia. He proved he still had the capability to shock by calling the show's viewers "f**king c*nts" during a live broadcast. The television regulator and ITV, the channel broadcasting the show, between them received only 91 complaints about Lydon's language.
In a February 2004 interview with the Scottish Sunday Mirror, Lydon said that he and his wife "should be dead", since on the 21st. December 1988, thanks to delays caused by his wife's packing, they missed the Pan Am Flight 103 that was blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland.
After I'm a Celebrity ... , John presented a documentary about insects and spiders called John Lydon's Megabugs which was shown on the Discovery Channel. Radio Times described him as "more an enthusiast than an expert".
He went on to present two further programmes: John Lydon Goes Ape, in which he searched for gorillas in Central Africa; and John Lydon's Shark Attack, in which he swam with sharks off South Africa.
In late 2008, Lydon appeared in an advertising campaign for Country Life butter, on British television. Lydon defended the move by stating that the main reason he accepted the offer was to raise money to reform Public Image Ltd. without a recording contract.
The advertising campaign proved to be highly successful, with sales of the brand raising 85% in the quarter following, which many in the media attributed to Lydon's presence in the advertisement.
Although Lydon spent years denying that the Sex Pistols would ever perform together again, the band re-united (with Matlock returning on bass) in the 1990's, and continue to perform occasionally.
In 2002, the year of Queen Elizabeth's Golden Jubilee, the Sex Pistols reformed again to play the Crystal Palace National Sports Centre in London.
In 2003, their 'Piss Off Tour' took them around North America for three weeks.
In 2006, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted the Sex Pistols, but the band refused to attend the ceremony or acknowledge the induction, complaining that they had been asked for large sums of money to attend.
2009–Present: Public Image Ltd. Reformation
In September 2009, it was announced that PiL would reform, including earlier members Bruce Smith and Lu Edmonds, for a number of Christmas concerts in the UK.
Lydon financed the reunion using money he had earned doing the tv ads for Country Life butter. Lydon commented:
"The money that I earned from that has
now gone completely — lock stock and
barrel — into reforming PiL".
In August 2010, Lydon played with Public Image Ltd. in Tel Aviv, Israel despite protests. Lydon was criticised for giving a statement to The Independent newspaper, in which he said:
"I really resent the presumption that I'm going
there to play to right-wing Nazi Jews.
If Elvis-f**king-Costello wants to pull out of a
gig in Israel because he's suddenly got this
compassion for Palestinians, then good on him.
But I have absolutely one rule, right?
Until I see an Arab country, a Muslim country,
with a democracy, I won't understand how
anyone can have a problem with how they're
treated."
In October 2013, Lydon clarified in an interview:
"I support no government anywhere, ever,
never. No institution, no religion – these are
things that all of us as human beings do not
need.
When I go to a place like Israel, it's not to
support anti-Arab sentiment or pro-Israeli
government, it's to play to the people."
During an April 2013 tour of Australia, Lydon was involved in a television interview for The Project that resulted in a publicised controversy, when one of the panellists called him:
"A flat out, sexist, misogynist pig."
The altercation occurred with host Carrie Bickmore, and the description was provided by panellist Andrew Rochford after the interview was prematurely terminated by Bickmore's colleague Dave Hughes. Lydon conducted the interview from Brisbane while on PiL's first tour of Australia in twenty years, during which concerts were held in Sydney and Melbourne.
Lydon was cast to play the role of King Herod for the North American arena tour of Andrew Lloyd Webber's sung-through rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar.
He was to play the role starting on the 9th. June through the 17th. August 2014, and be joined by Ben Forster as Jesus, Brandon Boyd of rock band Incubus as Judas Iscariot, former Destiny's Child singer Michelle Williams as Mary Magdalene, and former NSYNC singer JC Chasez as Pontius Pilate.
However on the 31st. May 2014, the producers announced that the tour of the production was cancelled, because of poor advance ticket sales.
A compilation of Lydon's lyrics, Mr. Rotten's Songbook, was published in 2017. The limited-edition book includes the words to every song he wrote during his entire career, punctuated by his own original sketches and cartoons.
In 2021, Lydon competed in season six of The Masked Singer as the wild card contestant "Jester" which was the show's second human character after Larry the Cable Guy's wild card character "Baby". He was eliminated alongside Natasha Bedingfield as "Pepper".
In 2023, Lydon, with PiL, submitted a song to compete to represent Ireland in the annual Eurovision Song Contest. The song was entitled "Hawaii", and was a love song dedicated to his wife. The band failed to advance past the qualifying rounds of the Contest, placing 4th. overall out of 6 entrants.
Lydon is portrayed by Anson Boon in the 2022 Craig Pearce–Danny Boyle FX biographical drama miniseries Pistol.
The Origin of the Johnny Rotten Stage Name
Lydon explained the origin of his stage name in a feature interview with The Daily Telegraph in 2007:
"I was given the name in the mid-1970's,
when my lack of oral hygiene led to my
teeth turning green."
One version says the name came from the Sex Pistols' guitarist Steve Jones, who saw Lydon's teeth and exclaimed:
"You're rotten, you are!"
In 2008, Lydon had extensive dental work performed in Los Angeles, at a reported cost of US$22,000. He explained that it was not done out of vanity:
"It was necessity ... all those rotten teeth
were seriously beginning to corrupt my
system".
John Lydon's Personal Life
Lydon was married to Nora Forster, a publishing heiress from Germany, for around 44 years until her death in April 2023. Forster was 14 years his senior.
John was the stepfather of Forster's daughter Ari Up, known for being the lead vocalist of the Slits. In 2000, Lydon and Nora became legal guardians of Up's twin teenage boys. John explained:
"Up let them run free. They couldn't
read, write or form proper sentences.
One day Ari said she couldn't cope
with them anymore.
I suggested they came to us because
I wasn't having them abandoned.
They gave us hell, but I loved having
kids around."
In 2010, Up died of breast cancer at the age of 48, and they became guardians of her third child. Lydon and Forster primarily lived in Venice, Los Angeles where they had resided since the early 1980's, but kept a residence in London.
In 2018, Lydon revealed that Forster was in the mid-stages of Alzheimer's disease. In June 2020, Lydon said that he had become a full-time carer for his wife, as her condition had been deteriorating:
"Nora has Alzheimer's... I am her full-time
carer and I won't let anyone mess up with
her. For me, the real person is still there.
That person I love is still there every minute
of every day and that is my life.
It's unfortunate that she forgets things, well,
don't we all?
I suppose her condition is one of like a
permanent hangover for her. It gets worse
and worse, bits of the brain store less and
less memory and then suddenly some bits
completely vanish."
Lydon said experts were impressed with how she remembered him saying, "A bit of love goes a long way", and that he had no intentions to put her in a care home — despite the strain her illness had on both their lives.
In April 2023, Forster died as a result of complications stemming from Alzheimer's disease.
Lydon's closest male friend was his manager and personal minder, the late John "Rambo" Stevens. Having known each other since childhood and both having lived in Finsbury Park, they were friends for more than 50 years, with Rambo having been described as:
"Lydon's minder, his hairdresser, his
signet-ring designer, his fellow traveller,
his mate."
Lydon has been a fan of Irish poet and playwright Oscar Wilde since he studied his works at school, when he came to the conclusion that:
"His stuff was f*cking brilliant. What an
attitude to life!...he turned out to be the
biggest poof on earth at a time when
that was completely unacceptable.
What a genius."
Lydon is a visual artist. His drawings, paintings and other related works have featured prominently in the works of PiL and his solo career throughout the years, the most recent example being the cover to This Is PiL.
John Lydon's Citizenship
Lydon became an American citizen in 2013, in addition to his British and Irish citizenships. He later spoke of how he would never have considered becoming a US citizen during the "Bush years" because of the "horrible" way America presented itself abroad.
However the Obama presidency had changed his mind, in particular because:
"America has the potential to be a
nation that actually cares for its
afflicted and wounded and ill and
disenfranchised as a result of the
Affordable Care Act (Obamacare)."
John Lydon's Views on Religion
Lydon's parents raised their sons as Roman Catholics. By the time Lydon had formed Public Image Ltd., he wrote in the liner notes of their single "Cruel":
"Where Is God? I see no evidence of
God. God is probably Barry Manilow."
By 1984 he had identified as a Catholic, although he is openly critical of the Catholic Church, particularly the sexual abuse cases, and he has called for legal action against the Pope.
In his 1994 autobiography John stated that:
"I never had any godlike epiphanies
or thought that God had anything to
do with this dismal occurrence called
life."
John Lydon's Political and Social Criticism
-- The UK's Class Structure
Since his rise to public attention, Lydon has remained an outspoken critic of much in British politics and society. He comes from an immigrant working class background, and is opposed to the class system:
"Private schools tend to turn out little
snobs. They're taught a sense of
superiority, which is the kiss of death.
They're absolutely screwed up for life."
He is critical of the upper class, stating that:
"They parasite off the population
as their friends help them along."
However John equally criticises the working class, claiming that:
"We're lazy, good-for-nothing bastards,
absolute cop-outs who never accept
responsibility for our own lives and that's
why we'll always be downtrodden."
He opposes all forms of segregation in schools, not only through the private and state school division, but also with single-sex schools:
"It doesn't make sense. It's a much better
environment with girls in the class. You
learn a lot more, as diversity makes things
more interesting."
John Lydon and The Troubles
Lydon criticised the paramilitary organisations involved in The Troubles in Northern Ireland, remarking that:
"The Provisional IRA and the Ulster Defence
Association are like two mafia gangs punching
each other out ... They both run their extortion
rackets and plague people to no end."
He remarked that:
"The Northern Ireland problem is a terrible
thing, and it's only the ignorance of the
people living outside of it that keeps it
going."
He also commented that ultimately the British government's exploitative attitude to the problem was the main cause.
John Lydon and Anarchism
Despite the fact that he wrote and sang "Anarchy in the U.K." with the Sex Pistols, Lydon said in a 2012 interview that he never was an anarchist, adding that:
"Anarchy is mind games
for the middle class".
In a 2022 op-ed John wrote:
"Anarchy is a terrible idea. Let's get
that clear. I'm not an anarchist. And
I'm amazed that there are websites
out there – .org anarchist sites –
funded fully by the corporate hand
and yet ranting on about being outside
the shitstorm. It's preposterous."
John Lydon on Banking and the 2008 Global Financial Crisis
Appearing on the BBC's Question Time on the 5th. July 2012, Lydon questioned the notion of a parliamentary inquiry into the banking industry, saying:
"How on earth is Parliament going to
discuss this really when both sides, left
and right, are connected to this?
This doesn't just go back to Brown, this
is part of the ongoing problem.
Mr Diamond comes from Wall Street ...
hello. Both parties love this idea.
They are fiddling with rates. They are
affecting the world and everything we
used to count on as being dependable
and accurate is being discussed by
these argumentative chaps.
If I nick a motor I'm going to be up
before the judge, the rozzers. Hello,
same thing."
John Lydon on UK Institutions
On the same episode of Question Time, Lydon was critical of the announcement that the British Army was to be reduced in size, saying:
"One of the most beautiful things about
Britain, apart from the National Health
Service and the free education, is the
British Army."
John has been a supporter of the NHS since receiving treatment for meningitis at the age of 7, stating in 2014:
"I want national health and education
to always be of the highest agenda
and I do not mind paying tax for that."
Referring the republicanism sentiments expressed in the Sex Pistols song "God Save the Queen", Lydon stated in June 2022 opinion column during the Queen's Platinum Jubilee that he had softened his views on royalty, and did not harbor any resentment against the royal family. He signed it off unironically with "God save the Queen".
Following the death of Queen Elizabeth II, Lydon paid tribute to the Queen on Twitter, and subsequently objected to any commercial use of The Sex Pistols' tracks to capitalize on the Queen's death.
John Lydon on Pacifism
Lydon describes himself as a "pacifist by nature," and expresses admiration for Mahatma Gandhi.
John Lydon on Gay Adoption
Lydon expressed his view on gay couples raising children in a 10th. February 2005 interview on the BBC's Sunday morning religious programme The Heaven and Earth Show. Lydon said:
"I don't like the idea of one-parent families.
It's very tough on the kids. They grow up
missing something. I find the same with
same-sex marriages; there is something
missing. There is a point to male and female –
and for a child to develop, it needs both
those aspects."
John Lydon on the Jimmy Savile Abuse Scandal
In a 1978 BBC Radio 1 interview, Lydon alluded to the sexual abuses committed by Jimmy Savile, and mainstream social forces' suppression of negative information about him, decades before it became a public scandal. Lydon stated:
"I'd like to kill Jimmy Savile; I think he's a
hypocrite. I bet he's into all kinds of seediness
that we all know about, but are not allowed to
talk about. I know some rumours."
He added:
"I bet none of this will be allowed out."
After the interviewer suggested libel might be an issue, Lydon replied:
"Nothing I've said is libel."
As Lydon predicted, the comment was edited out by the BBC before broadcast. The complete interview was included as a bonus track on a rerelease of Public Image: First Issue in 2013, after Savile's death.
In October 2014, Lydon said that:
"By 'killed' I meant locking him up and
stopping him assaulting young children ...
I'm disgusted at the media pretending
they weren't aware."
Lydon claimed that the BBC blacklisted him following the interview, and that:
"I remain very, very bitter that the
likes of Savile and the rest of them
were allowed to continue."
John Lydon on UK Politics and the European Union
Lydon publicly supported the United Kingdom remaining in the European Union during the referendum on EU membership in June 2016, stating that being outside of the European Union would be "insane and suicidal" for the United Kingdom:
"We're never going to go back to that
romantic delusion of Victorian isolation,
it isn't going to happen.
There'll be no industry, there'll be no
trade, there'll be nothing – a slow dismal,
collapse. It's ludicrous."
During an interview on Good Morning Britain in March 2017, Lydon stated that he had changed his mind and supported Brexit:
"Well, here it goes, the working-class
have spoke and I'm one of them and
I'm with them."
Lydon described Brexit advocate Nigel Farage as "fantastic," and that he wanted to shake his hand after his altercation on the River Thames with anti-Brexit campaigner Bob Geldof. In 2020, Lydon reiterated his personal support for Farage during another interview on Good Morning Britain.
In a 2021 interview with the Yorkshire Post, Lydon said that he previously voted for the Labour Party as a young man due to coming from a working class background, but stated:
"I do not recognise them any more.
Contemporary British and American
media are walking hand in glove with
left-wing politics".
Lydon has also expressed disdain for Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair, and described former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn as a "racist, prejudiced bastard" in response to the allegations of antisemitism in the Labour Party.
In 2022, during the Conservative Party leadership election, Lydon stated that he'd like to see Jacob Rees-Mogg as the next U.K. Prime Minister. He noted that:
"I love that World War Two respect,
put Britain first attitude he has.
I don't agree with a lot of his politics,
but he certainly understands how to
be respectful".
Rees-Mogg replied to Lydon's comments on Twitter, writing:
"Even if my leg is being pulled I am
honoured by this exceptionally kind
endorsement".
John Lydon on American Politics
Lydon became a U.S. citizen in 2013 because he "believed in Barack Obama" and his health care reform, about which he states:
"His healthcare thing didn't quite work
out what we all want, but there is a great
potential there.
Now we're looking at dismantling and,
you know, a crazy loony monster party."
Before Donald Trump was elected President of the United States, Lydon said, in response to questions about his prospects:
"No, I can't see it happening, it's a minority
that support him at best, and it's so hateful
and ignorant."
In 2017, though, he said:
"I'm up for anyone shaking up
the jaded world of politicians".
During a Good Morning Britain interview in March 2017, Lydon described Trump as a "complicated fellow" who "terrifies politicians". Lydon said that:
"There are many, many problems
with Trump as a human being."
However John defended Donald against accusations of racism:
"What I dislike is the left-wing media
in America are trying to smear the
bloke as a racist, and that's completely
not true."
He elaborated to NPR:
"He's a total cat amongst the pigeons ...
He's got everybody now involving
themselves in a political way. And I've
been struggling for years to get people
to wake up and do that."
In 2018, Lydon was photographed wearing a shirt that featured Trump's campaign slogan Make America Great Again. In October 2020, Lydon told the BBC's Newsday programme:
"Yes, of course, I'm voting for Trump ...
I don't want a politician running this
world anymore."
A month later, during an interview on Good Morning Britain, Lydon confirmed that he had voted for Trump in the then-upcoming Presidential Election, describing Trump's Democratic opponent Joe Biden and his 2016 Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton as champagne socialists.
He also described his support for Trump as stemming from his background as a working class Englishman and accused the US media of being dominated by liberal ideology, but "liberal with the truth" and claimed:
"They toe the line of the Democrat party
by assumption that they know what's best,
yet they don't know nothing about blue
collar workers, Latinos, African-Americans
in or outside of large cities."
John Lydon on the Early Years
A thought from John Lydon in 1993:
"The other squatters hated us ... because of the
way we looked—short cropped hair and old suits.
That's when Sid [Vicious] started to come around
to my way of fashion.
I gave him his first decent haircut, which was the
punk style as it soon became. You'd literally cut
chunks of hair out of your head. The idea was to
not have any shape to your hairdo—just have it
f*cked up. This was the beginning of it all."
... And in 2013:
"I view myself as British first and foremost.
When my parents came over from Ireland
they became intrinsically working-class
English. I'm proper London working-class."