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John Lydon
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Article
written by Phil C
Sep 21, 2002.
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In pop the good die young, and so they ought to. Nobody wants to see their good looks fade, or that youthful swagger dwindle into the stiff gait of middle age – least of all the stars themselves. And so those with the keenest eye for posterity do the decent thing and put themselves on the dirt-only diet (what’s known in acting circles as “joining the cast of Dad’s Army”). Ian Curtis, Kurt Kobain, Tupac Shakur – these were all masters of timing, snuffing it at the height of their powers. Hendrix, it’s true, was slightly tardy (“before the Isle of Wight Festival, Jimi, for goodness’ sake!”) but at least he caught on eventually. He was, rather literally, on the side of the angels.
Actually, now I come to think of it, quite a few of pop’s “not-so-good” could also improve the lot of mankind by signing up for the James Dean School of Driving. So I offer the following list in the forlorn hope that those named will take the hint and retire to Costa del Blowfly.
Will Young – nice lad, time to die.
The Hives – perhaps as part of a suicide pact with The White Stripes.
Sting – “O Sting, where is thy death?”
Eminem – go on! You know you want to!
Puddle of Mud – perhaps as part of a suicide pact with Nickleback.
David Gray – is it possible to OD on couscous?
Sum 41 – just wishful thinking, I suspect.
Ozzy Osbourne – well, God knows, the man’s tried.
The deaths of all or any of the above would undoubtedly put a smile on the lips of music fans everywhere. And in case they prove reluctant to kick the oxygen habit, I have two words guaranteed to get them sprinting down the chemist’s for a family-sized bottle of paracetemol: John Lydon. Yes, that’s right, good old Johnny Rotten – once the sun in the punk rock sky, today a walking, sneering, 46 year-old warning to everyone in the pop business: croak early or you’ll end up like Johnny. Right now you might be a feisty young tyro with an insatiable appetite for sex and drugs and attitude to spare, but if you don’t know when to leave the party then you too could become a tiresome, winging, flatulent boor. It’s a frightening thought but how did it happen? How did John Lydon move from white-hot youth icon to pathetic clown? My theory is that, actually, Lydon didn’t move at all – and that was the worst possible fate.
You see, with most pop stars, the sad thing is looking on as age humbles them. Over the years they become more conventional; they mellow, give up the booze and drugs, start playing acoustic sets and endorsing airline companies or family saloons. Just think of Elvis or Lou Reed or Leo Sayer. But Lydon has never changed. Sure, he’s put on a bit of weight over the years, but basically he’s still the same snot-nosed, vitriolic little git he always was. And the result is quite appalling. This sounds paradoxical – shouldn’t we applaud him for refusing to conform? But you have to remember that the virtues of youth become the vices of middle age. It used to be a glorious thing to see him as a skinny, rat-faced 21 year-old, sneering at everyone who crossed his path, gleefully mocking authority and generally winding people up as far as he could. It didn’t matter that what he said was patent bollocks; it didn’t matter that his lyrics really were as “trite” as Glen Matlock claimed; it didn’t matter that his social and political pronouncements were as hollow as Lee Bowyer’s defence case.
The point was that he was young and angry and scared the hell out of Daily Mail readers. That was enough. It was more than enough. But fast-forward 25 years and what do we get? The same trite bollocks, the same hollow pontifications, but now they’re being spewed forth by a fully-grown man. John Lydon is an adult, and as such you have to treat him seriously. And as soon as you do that, you get the urge to treat him very seriously indeed – with a taser, for example, or a sock full of dog shit. To hear Lydon interviewed is to descend into a self-promotional fantasy world that would make Lord Archer blush. When he’s not whittering on about how working class he is (he lives in a £2m house in LA with, er, Ari UP’s mum) then he’s giving us his distinctly skewed version of his own history. Roughly paraphrased, it runs like this:
Everything I’ve done, including Psyco’s Path, has been brilliant.
If people didn’t like it then it’s because they couldn’t handle my searing truthfulness.
Everything everyone else has done has been crap or a pale imitation of me.
If something I’ve done wasn’t brilliant then that’s someone else’s fault.
Malcolm McLaren is a lying bastard.
Well, one out of five isn’t bad. You feel kind of grateful when he shuts up about his past, but only for a moment, because it’s usually at this point that he embarks on a lengthy analysis of society’s failings. Oh my God. John clearly fancies himself the Spengler of Finsbury Park, but sometimes you can’t help wishing that his childhood meningitis had lasted, say, thirty-five years. Here he is on modern politics:
“These days we have a seesaw effect on a completely level playing field. I prefer the yin and the yang of a more rugged terrain. You have to have the choice and the variety, otherwise you get blandness."
And here’s Lydon’s thoughtful critique of Tony Blair:
“Tony Blair is evil to me, he always was. He looks like a soup terrine and he's full of bile. He's a liar.”
Of course, John never goes so far as to offer any solutions to the world’s problems – at least, nothing beyond the odd dismal cliché about fighting apathy and not trusting people in authority. Perhaps he feels we should all sod off to LA like he did and make millions of pounds through property speculation. Class war, eh? Don’tcha just love it?
Finally, when Lydon’s finished enlightening us about politics he can revert to what he really does best: being rude to people. Whether it’s in interviews, at awards ceremonies or on Richard and Judy, the man is an unfailing source of petulance and paranoia. When a reader of Q magazine recently asked him if he could recommend a decent pub in Finsbury Park, John refused to give the obvious answer (ie: “no – they’re all full of wankers like me”). Instead, he responded with a bizarre tirade, accusing the bloke (who was simply listed as living in “London”) of being a yuppie looking to destroy local, working class communities by, er, visiting pubs that weren’t near where he lived. Obviously, these working class communities aren’t as robust as we’d thought.
Equally innocent questions from other readers were given a similar treatment and, as usual with John, I found myself groaning “Oh grow up!” roughly twice per reply. But of course growing up is precisely what John has failed to do. He’s a middle-aged multi-millionaire desperately trying to pretend (to the public and himself) that he’s still an enfant terrible. It’s a uniquely depressing sight.
John Lydon is a lesson to us all. The very same qualities that once made him a hurricane-blast of fresh air have turned him into a self-serving, opinionated braggart – a sad, embarrassing joke of a man still dining out on his one true moment of greatness a quarter of a century ago.
No one could claim that Sid Vicious was a greater punk icon than Johnny Rotten, but in two ways Sid had John beaten cold. For a start, he had the good grace to top himself when he saw just how pathetic his squalid life had become. It’s an example that many in pop could profitably follow. And secondly, unlike John, Sid once managed to say something that was genuinely funny:
Interviewer: Do you think of the man on the street when you write your songs?
Sid: Nah! I’ve met the man on the street – he’s a cunt.
And now, twenty-five years on, we know exactly who that man on the street really was
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