John Lydon has written quite a few songs. From his time as the legendary frontman of punk rock legends the Sex Pistols to touring for decades with Public Image Ltd., "Johnny Rotten" is arguably one of the most prolific songwriters in the history of rock.
When the Chinese government requested every lyric the singer had ever written ahead of Public Image Ltd.'s tour through the country, it took Lydon a while to write down every tune. Once he did, the iconic lyricist realized he had quite the collection on his hands, so he added some personal drawings and notes, and came up with Mr. Rotten's Songbook, a collection of his lyrics, artwork and other thoughts from the last 40 years.
The book is limited to 1,000 signed copies (and available for pre-order right now), and Lydon sat down to chat with us ahead of the collection's release. Hop to the next page to read the full interview.
What was it like to go back over all of the songs you've written over the years for the book?
With [Public Image Ltd.], we’ve performed most of the songs on and on, but there are 127 in there, so it’s a serious body of work. I’m quite amazed by that. Some of them surprised me just in the dialogue I was using to express myself. I had to search my mind for the exact moment I committed pen to paper, and once I did, I realized ‘Oh, that’s me. I can count on me to get it right.’
Looking back on all of those songs, how well do you still connect with them now that they've been written out for so long?
I believe in what I write. It takes a lot of energy for me to deal with writing songs, and some of them had been in my head sometimes. Once I committed them to paper — which is usually immediately ahead of recording — that’s it. There’s no revision of them. I know that I fully worked on them for a long serious time, so by the time it gets to the paper, there it is. I’m very happy about that, and I’m drawing little cartoons and things for anybody who cares what’s in my head all of the time.
When you look back at your time in the Sex Pistols, how much have you evolved over the years since then? Surely you didn't see yourself or punk music here all these decades later.
Isn’t that the fun of life? You never really see yourself doing anything. That’s what the fun of being a teenager is: low expectations. If you want to stay as dumb as you were then, then you will have nothing to look forward to. For me, the longer I live, the more I learn, the better I become. I’m very far from being a perfect person — I’ll be the first to admit that — but at least I try. It’s more than most do, unfortunately.
How has the change in how the public views you and your music changed things for you over the last 40 years?
I don’t know what goes on in other people’s minds. All I can do is open mine and share it, and not leave myself so completely exposed as to be everybody’s idiot. All of us need our secrets.
Right, but with the Sex Pistols, you were practically an enemy of the state, whereas now you were just voluntarily let into China after they read everything you've written...
Oh that? It’s glorious. I don’t go to these places to support the Chinese regime. I go to these places to communicate with Chinese people. I played Israel to communicate with Arabs and Jews, which are there in the crowd. I’m not entertaining either of their governments or belief systems. It’s absurd to me that student union bodies in modern times are behaving like they have a right to dictate where music should and shouldn’t go according to politics. Politics is shit to people like me. It’s people like me who remove those politicians, and we do it nonviolently and intelligently. Throwing rocks and bringing out ridiculous lifelong bans on things is pointless. Get a life, you dumb fucks.
After 40 years of punk rock, multiple books, and everything else you've done, what else is left for you to do in music or otherwise?
I still want to do a billion things. I want to live for as long as I can and fill it up with as much as I possibly can. When your life is nearly taken away from you — which it was when I was young — then you love every second of it, no matter what goes on. I don’t make outrageous ridiculously stern plans for the future. I take what comes, and I’m well-read enough and well-rehearsed and studied on communicating with my fellow human beings that if there are opportunities, I can spring on them, but I don’t pre-set anything.
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