„Ever get the feeling you've been cheated? Good night!“
At the end of the last Sex Pistols concert, Winterland Theater, San Francisco, California (14 January 1978)
John Lydon quotes
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John Lydon
Birthdate: 31. January 1956
John Joseph Lydon , also known by his stage name Johnny Rotten, is an English singer, songwriter and musician. He is best known as the lead singer of the late-1970s British punk band the Sex Pistols, which lasted from 1975 until 1978, and again for various revivals during the 1990s and 2000s. He is also the lead singer of post-punk band Public Image Ltd , which he founded and fronted from 1978 until 1993, and again since 2009. Since 2013, Lydon has held British, Irish and American citizenship.Lydon's outspoken persona, rebellious image and fashion style led to his being asked to become the singer of the Sex Pistols by their manager, Malcolm McLaren. With the Sex Pistols, he penned singles including "Anarchy in the U.K.," "God Save the Queen," "Pretty Vacant" 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. Despite their controversial lyrics and disrepute at the time, they are now regarded 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 NME review as "arguably the first post-rock group." The band produced eight 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 shows in the UK, US, and Belgium, appeared on I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here! in the UK, appeared in advertisements on UK television promoting a brand of British butter, written two autobiographies, and produced some solo musical work, such as the album Psycho's Path . In 2005, he released a compilation album, The Best of British £1 Notes.
In 2015, there was a revival of a 1980s movement to have Lydon knighted for his achievements with the Sex Pistols, even though 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". In 2002, he was named among the 100 Greatest Britons following a UK-wide vote.
Works
Quotes John Lydon
„If you are pissing people off, you know you are doing something right“
— John Lydon, book Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs
Source: Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs
„I'm not very good at handling stupid people. I must admit.“
— John Lydon, book Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs
Source: Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs
„It’s a record that I still can play to this day, and still hear new things.“
The Kate Bush Story (2014)
Context: My favourite album by her is The Dreaming, and I think she produced that one herself. That got a lot of criticism — but I loved it. It was overloaded with textures, and tones and all manner of things. It’s a record that I still can play to this day, and still hear new things.
„The only things I’ve ever confronted are institutions, religion, politics, but never my fellow human beings, and yet my fellow human beings find the need to defend those very things that are restricting their freedoms. God, that sounds like a speech. Should I run for president?“
Interview with Los Angeles Times, 2015
„England's a violent place. Too violent for me. That's why I prefer it here (the USA). For a gun-toting nation, Americans are surprisingly passive. This place suits me and the wife.“
Interview: Seven Magazine in the London Telegraph (6 January 2008)
„Punk is like looking at a mirror. I already have a mirror so I don't need the Offspring to remind me how gorgeous I am.“
The Jimmy Kimmel Show (4th September 2003)
„[On Sid Vicious] Yes I can take on England, but I couldn't take on one heroin addict.“
The Filth and the Fury (2000)
„[Replying to the question of the presenter: "where did the name "Sex Pistols" come from, who thought this name up?"] Some animal. I can't remember. It doesn't matter. It's history.“
The Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder (27th June 1980)
„I've never told anyone this, but I suffer from terrible stage fright. True. You can't tell though, can you? Unbelievable, the panic. I nearly die of fear before I go on stage. Something wicked. I can't eat a thing the day before a gig. It'd make me vomit. Once I come off? I could eat a scampied elephant between two buttered mattresses. But I'm kinda glad about the stage fright. I've read Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud about their terror. And I reckon it's what gets the adrenalin going.“
Interview: Seven Magazine in the London Telegraph (6 January 2008)
„[On the lyrics of his songs] They meant a lot to my generation. And it's nice to know you've written songs that mean something to someone rather than some trivial pop dirge. I'm not thriving off a career slagging off the Queen. I think I have something valid to say. My words are my bullets. I like to brag that somehow I got it right.“
Interview: Seven Magazine in the London Telegraph (6 January 2008)
„If the Royal Family was going to assassinate someone, they would have gotten rid of me a long time ago.“
On the 2003 panel TV show The Belzer Connection, when asked if there was a conspiracy in the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.
„It's no more of that 12 bar ditty wavy hair in the breeze platform boots flap your flare nonsense. It's not a packaged image of third-rate idiots. It's not a pose. We just do our stuff. Hate it as it usually is, you know I was very shocked by the reviews of the last album. I believe none of them. They liked us for the wrong reasons, trendy reasons.“
The Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder (27th June 1980)
„When I first heard it, I thought that's extremely challenging, the vocal — it was almost hysterical, and it was so up there, the register, but it was absolutely fascinating. And I know at the time a lot of my friends couldn't bear it, they thought it was just "too much"“
but that's exactly what drew me in.
On Kate Bush's first hit, "Wuthering Heights"
The Kate Bush Story (2014)
„Turn the other cheek too often and you get a razor through it.“
Source: [John, Tobler, 1992, NME Rock 'N' Roll Years, 1st, Reed International Books Ltd, London, 303, CN 5585]
„The class system is there to remind you that you’re just a dirty oik because you came from that side of the tracks.“
Interview with Los Angeles Times, 2015
