by Lydon, John
That’s what you get when you’re left-handed. The first thing you stick into an affray is your left. It’s the hand no one expects, because everybody’s expecting a right-hander to come in.
So, yes, I’m left-handed, and playing is difficult on that level, but beyond that I’m not the kind of person who could ever sit down and learn how to – and I use the phrase correctly, in a negative way – ‘play an instrument’. I don’t have the time or patience. Actually I don’t have the mathematical brain that can absorb that kind of thinking. Making it in the wonderful world of music in any way is something of a really out-there achievement. I’ve managed to break through that barrier, I’m still capable of putting a song together without any of those – what shall we say – laws of logic?
Chrissie really had her work cut out. It’s just a shame I didn’t feel I could ask for guidance amongst my so-called colleagues in the band. Right from the off, things got really harsh between Glen and me. It shouldn’t have got that way, but when Glen dug his heels in, it was very difficult to deal with him.
Malcolm had this notion that Glen was ‘the musician’. He also must’ve identified something positive in what I was doing, because one day he took us two to the pub to patch it up and write songs together. Legend has it he gave us twenty quid to spend, but we were smarter than that – we wanted twenty quid each. Then he went off and left us to our own devices.
We giggled. We were on the same plane at that point – there was a moment of truce. Although we were really bad enemies, the commonality was, ‘What’s that one about?’
And we had a great evening. We knew that we’d have to work something out here. If there was going to be any progress in the band, it would have to be coming from us. It wasn’t going to come through Malcolm and his alliance, because that was a dead end intellectually. We really got on with each other, and ‘Pretty Vacant’ was one of the ideas we put together.
On his way out, Malcolm had said, ‘I’ll give you some ideas – submissive, as in the bondage theme, if we could have that kind of topic?’ Me being me, I took it literally for a laugh and then put a twist in it. I called it ‘Submission’, but the line went, ‘I’m on a submarine mission for you, baby’. Anybody who suggests things to me, I’ll sneer, but I’ll see a possibility in it. And off we went.
We knew full well what he was doing, trying to use us to flog his new S&M line in the shop. They’d ousted the Teddy boy stuff and gone into the full perv – from two people, Malcolm and Vivienne, who were eyeing the world of perversion like the odd couple from Tring. It was just a means to an end – they weren’t actually part of a pervert scene. They were observers, then praising themselves that they were somehow manipulating the wonderful world of fetish, when really they were just floggers – clothes floggers. They’d always be on the wrong end of a whip, and we knew full well they wouldn’t like what we came up with.
In fact, we never really got a comment on what we wrote. There was no conversation at all with Malcolm and me. From the initial outburst and a sense of backing, to suddenly nothing. Just cut dead. And I suppose he eyed me somewhat as being a problem to his art-movement theories. His interpretation of the artistic leanings of the band – mine, or indeed anyone’s – were very different. I didn’t think we needed to try and skillfully craft an image. For me the words were creating that, and my own persona. I just expected the chaps to stand up, and they could be whatever they wanted to be themselves, just so long as it was genuine and not crafted.
That night in the pub, Glen and I both understood that we had to amalgamate our two different perspectives without concessions into something even better than either one of us had conceived independently. I think we did that, and I know I wanted more of that, and I know Glen wanted more of that, but again these other issues kept creeping in.
People don’t believe me, but we’d hardly ever see Malcolm in those early days. He wasn’t at rehearsals, and fair play, that would have been a hard thing for me. Too many people in the room that are not actually contributing is a no-no. It would’ve been: if they need back-up then I’m going to bring back-up too, and then it would be my friends versus theirs. And my lot would win, but it wouldn’t have got us anywhere.
On the rare occasions we did catch hold of him, he’d be like, ‘Oh, right, yes . . . Look, I’ll book some gigs . . .’
The early gigs were nerve-racking and terrifying. As a band, we all felt very inadequate and fearful. It’s that scenario – you’re facing judgement. Indeed, negative judgement was all we ever seemed to achieve. But we grew to really like that! Or at least I did, and I began to expect resentment just because we were so refreshingly different. Although ‘refreshing’ wasn’t the word some of the audience members would be using.
The very first gig was at Central St Martin’s art college, in November ’75. It wasn’t even something Malcolm organized – Glen was nominally supposed to be doing a course there, so he sorted it out. Kudos to him that he had the audacity to show us off in front of his friends. It was just across the street from where we rehearsed in Denmark Street – I’ve gotta say, renting that place was a stroke of genius from Malcolm, right by Soho, in the heart of town – but that meant it didn’t feel like a proper gig. We just walked across the road with our gear, bit by bit, and bingo! That’s not exactly how you think it’s all going to begin.
Of course we were all nervous as hell, absolutely terrified of what was about to happen. Could this be sink or swim? It’s so fantastic when you come out the other side, and it’s swim – although it probably didn’t feel like that on the night itself.
Bazooka Joe was the main band. They were terrible, exactly as you would imagine a band called Bazooka Joe would be. To name yourself after an American bubble gum was just – eeuuurgh! Nowhere to go with that one, boys. And they were matchy-matchy, in that they all wore Converse white sneakers. Hi-tops, at that. Even though Adam Ant was their bassist, it was hardly surprising they took such umbrage at what we were doing.
I’d never sung all the way through for fifteen minutes. Well, it was probably more like twelve and a half that night, with all the nervous energy. And when you account for all the Strepsils I was chewing for my throat, it was probably more like ten minutes. And then repeating the set, just to try and fill up half an hour!
I quickly realized you just have to rely at that moment on your ego resources. Stamina would be a word to pick up on, but not, ‘Oh yeah, I can walk ten miles, me!’ It’s not that, it’s a mental stamina – that you can endure, no matter what the problems that come up, you’ve got enough going on inside yourself and enough self-belief to win through. And all that without the normal approach to training and technique.
When you look back on it, our rehearsals were obviously some kind of training. Something was garnered from those moments that we took on the stage, and finally produced what we were doing in rehearsals in front of a live audience. And how to deal with the first boos in a positive way, rather than go into woe-is-me mode. In that respect, I think I pulled the band through on an enormous number of occasions. The more negative the response, the more positive my reaction. I never minded a bit of banter with an audience. I could trade one-liners with the best of them, all of which, I suppose, simply amounted to: ‘Fuck you!’
It went by in a weird haze, just trying to become accustomed to complete strangers staring and judging us. I felt very protective of my chaps up there. There was literally no clapping – silence is golden – and there was a huge scrap at the end. There always was, but Christ knows what about. Most of the scrappy situations were always about the other bands. Always, there was some sad-sack two-bob fucking jealous cunt going, ‘You can’t play, you’re shit, that’s not music!’ All those clichés! These days, they seem almost quaint, but in them days, those were apparently insults.
After the gig, I just had to go home, there was nothing to do. We had no money, there was no great drinking celebration, no ‘yee-haw, us together’ about it at all. It was like a very dull mu
ff-dive into a solitary subway ride home. I might have had some friends there, but the thing is I was inside my own head. There were friends with me, but I wasn’t connecting to them. I was really worried about all the things that weren’t right. I became for that moment very self-absorbed. Well, not self-absorbed, more like a commitment to making these things work better.
After that, for the next few months, we’d play every college and university we could, in and around London. I became very used to the fact that the student body was not the volatile hotbed of rebellion we were led to believe. They were a very conservative bunch, but they had loads of money at the time, and they’d throw it at anyone and everyone.
We were just doing it to earn enough cash to be able to buy something that would improve what we were doing. I suppose the concept was very much like – you know the free apps you can now get on cellphones, the video games and things? You get drawn into it but then you need to buy things in order to progress to an extra level. That’s what touring does: you need to earn more, so you need to work more, in order to get the equipment you need in order to play better. And at the same time, hopefully be able to take at least twenty quid out of it for yourself by the end of the month, and have to be able to survive on that.
We loved the college gigs because there was always free sandwiches, and union prices on the beer. It made perfect sense. We’re playing to people who don’t like us, will never like us, don’t understand anything we do, don’t clap, don’t even have the bravado of booing, but they do feed us well.
In High Wycombe, we supported Screaming Lord Sutch – what a thrill for me that was. I’d loved Screaming Lord Sutch for ever such a long time. That man had it – he understood reggae at a time when that was a no-no. And there he was up there, absolutely bang on the money. It was so great playing with him, and to say hello to him. But zero response. He just turns round and goes, ‘I don’t get what you lot are doing.’
For me in those early days, the bum notes from Steve were great, because he wouldn’t stop. He wouldn’t panic – like, ‘Duuuuh, where am I in the song?’ He just went, ‘Fuck it!’, and carried on. If you get back in time with the rhythm, it doesn’t really matter about the notes. It’s actually more thrilling and exciting, because you can shapeshift with that. It helps you develop your craft way more than going to singing lessons with Tona de Brett.
After those beginnings, I got into taking gigs really seriously, and doing quite a large amount of them, and then very quickly came the bannings, and having to go abroad to play.
But we never wanted it to be just hocus-pocus and press trivia. Malcolm couldn’t stand the good reviews: ‘That’s not what we want! We need these old farts to hate us!’ ‘I don’t need them to do anything, Malcolm. I’m not doing this for old farts!’ On that, there was a unity between the four of us. We liked our songs and we wanted them to work right. If only . . .
THE BEAUTIFUL SHAME
As an armchair critic, I would put it this way, but I am even too lazy for that: as far as anything physical goes I am inexperienced. As many of my friends have pointed out, I don’t even know how to walk, and running is a no no no.
My tactical understanding of football is practically zero. I have no concept at all when people talk about all the different formations and tactical masterstrokes. Over-analysis of football is a modern-day problem. I’m sorry, but the middle class have introduced that, and it’s a load of nonsense. The players should be able to play anywhere on the pitch, all over the pitch, otherwise what are they doing in football? A player who can’t pass, tackle or shoot – and my team, Arsenal, have had a few of them over the years – is completely bloody useless.
Football – or ‘sacker’, according to my American friends – is a game, after all. It should be chaos out there, and it really is, actually, no matter how much they try to plan it. No matter who’s kicking the ball it’s fifty-fifty where it will land. I don’t care how overpaid or underpaid they are, it all comes down to the same thing. You can over-strategize, or you can purchase all the best players, but still that might not work. It’s something about the personality blend, and the confidence the manager can instill in a team, that makes a team successful and thus exciting to watch. The art of football is that you can lose and enjoy it, because you know your team did good. But not really . . . I’d rather have a dodgy goal!
I’ve been supporting Arsenal, which was my local team around Finsbury Park, since I was a very young boy. I used to hang around with a particular bunch of lads at the back of the North Bank, the home terrace at the old ground, Highbury. It was our territory, our manor, but Arsenal above all else has always been anti-racist. There was always a mixture of colours and creeds. It’s really sad to see the way football’s now gone, what with the middle-class kids and everything else, how it’s all got misinterpreted. Everything that was good about going to football has disappeared. From the chants and the atmosphere onwards, the whole thing has become sterile.
On the pitch, all this rubbish about zonal marking etc., is confusing the format they’re playing. I mean, come on! If you leave huge wide areas unmarked, thanks to your ridiculous obsession with positioning, you’ll get caught out. If you have weak, slow defenders, you’ll get humiliated.
Football’s the kind of game where, if your team’s doing really badly, it gets you into the mode of having a laugh at losing. You can actually enjoy looking forward to the next tragic defeat. And there’s nothing else that gives me that ability. It serves an absolutely brilliant, beautiful purpose. It’s the theatre of emotions, not dreams.
The biggest joy of being a football fan is that there is ultimately no joy in it at all. It can always get worse. Years and years ago, when West Ham got kicked down to the second division, I remember their fans singing this glorious chant: ‘Que sera sera, whatever will be will be, we’re going to Bu-uuurnley, que sera sera.’ The humour was fantastic.
That’s the joy of football – it’s total fucking pain, and when you do actually win anything, it doesn’t last long enough. The pubs close too early, and it’s all over. Everybody goes home, and you’re left standing there – whaaaaa-uuurgh! It’s like trying to get through them apps on your iPad. They’re so unsatisfying, they should just be called ‘soccer’. Guaranteed to disappoint, and they all require you to put money in to get anywhere.
Playing properly is when you see the team enjoy themselves, go for it, 100 per cent commitment. In that respect: win, lose or draw, it doesn’t really matter. It’s just like a gig – you win some, you lose some. But when you see heads going down, and slowness, and inability to make a tackle or create an interesting new idea – that’s unimpressive. That’s the passion killer.
Living far away from Finsbury Park now, I can’t keep track of when the next game is. Every Saturday morning at the crack of dawn I’m ringing Rambo, who also lives in America, twenty minutes before a game, panicking, trying to find out if it’s on satellite TV. If I denied myself the torture of watching Arsenal being run ragged, I’d still be very, very angry.
When I’m back in London, I’m definitely not one for dealing with the celebrity boxes there. I’ve never been invited and I don’t want it. I’m much happier watching it down the pub with real people, proper football fans, listening to the banter. Football’s fantastic for that. Listening to the one-liners from people, the humour, it’s sensationally, genius-ly British.
But £75 a ticket, these days, to go to Arsenal? For that money, you should get to have sex with all the footballers’ wives! I’d rather go to a smaller place like Torquay United. How much is it there? Twenty quid? That’s the price of a massage – and, on a good day, maybe a ‘culmination’.
4
INTO THE INFERNO
T he Sex Pistols is a subject that’s been very well hammered home, although inaccurately by most. Everyone’s had their say on what we were, or what we weren’t, and it’s reached a point now where all four of us remaining have no interest in counteracting that. If people are going to be f
oolish enough to believe other people’s versions of our history, then good riddance. There’s no point in us weighing in. The work itself counts for everything.
We came on, and we came on very strong and very quick. We became, I think, the world’s most powerful band. That’s a very hard thing to recover from, and regroup, because it was so dynamic, and it crossed every border imaginable. It opened up people’s minds, all doors were open. And unfortunately for most, open and revolving – aaah, a PiL song reference.
The Pistols was an amazing coming together of a group of individuals who instantly didn’t like each other, who were very suspicious of each other, but somehow managed to make that work for the best. It became a runaway train of thought.
All these ideas had been rattling around in my head for years, but I’d never had a format to put them together and present them to the world. So the opportunity in the Pistols was just fantastic; it all made sense. The volcano did erupt, and out it all came.
Apparently, the lyrics to ‘Anarchy In The UK’ were astonishing words for a lad of twenty to be coming out with. I don’t mean that big-headedly. I mean it in terms of, I never got a chance to stand back and observe what it was I was doing at the time, because it was all so hectic and quick. Everything was happening all the time, my brain was imploding with all manner of pressures. If I listen to that song, or any of them, I’m astounded that I came up with those lines. They’re from somewhere deep down inside me, and heartfelt.
Living in Britain at that time, it was like being stuck in the 1940s, with all the energy shortages, power cuts and garbage sacks out on the streets uncollected. The country was still in massive debt from the war. Unlike Germany, which was built up afterwards, Britain, for winning, got fuck all. A lesson to be learned. War brings economic disaster, but it does bring wealth for the arms manufacturers and the corporations. The oil industry profits greatly from wars, and that’s really who benefits. It’s us who are expected to be loyal cannon fodder.
