John Lydon Is Still Finding Himself
And Other Lessons Learned From His Second Memoir
Former Sex Pistols frontman John Lydon—the sardonic, working-class rabble rouser once known to a generation of punk fans as Johnny Rotten—doesn’t do small talk.
Asked how he’s feeling these days, Lydon snaps in response, “I ain’t telling YOU. You’ll print it.” Then, as if observing the sharp-tongued figure that is John Joseph Lydon from a distance, he slips into the third person, cackling at some invisible absurdity that only he can see.
“He’s fine,” Lydon continues. “He’s alive.”
The fact that Lydon—today the 59-year-old lead singer for the band Public Image Ltd.—can claim to be on anything resembling an even keel might come as something of a surprise. After all, much of his life and various career turns (including, but not limited to becoming the Sex Pistols’ accidental lead singer who railed against the U.K. establishment with lyrics like “God save the queen/she ain’t no human being”) have tended to spring from, as he calls it, “happenchance.”
Lydon’s newly published second memoir Anger is an Energy establishes that there’s much more to the person than the public persona. Indeed, the book goes out of its way to present the hidden nooks and crannies in the architecture of Lydon’s psyche. He shares his adoration of his wife Nora, and the fact that he’s been faithful to her for the decades they’ve been together and eventually married. There’s also a touching reflection in the book from Lydon on attending the funeral of his father, the same man who once announced that his punk star son who dyed his hair green looked like a Brussels sprout. Elsewhere in Anger is an Energy, readers discover that Lydon’s something of a casual gamer, an ardent book lover, and a bit of an American culture junkie. He enjoys his U.S. citizenship and stares out of windows while on tour to take in the American countryside. He still apologizes to no one.
“The truth, I’ve found, is far more interesting than the tittle-tattle they fill history books with,” Lydon writes in Anger is an Energy, the title of which is a throwback to his youth.
As a child, Lydon spent almost a year in the hospital after contracting meningitis. It was a harrowing period for him, one that he says included memory loss and difficulty talking and communicating. As a means of helping his mind stay snapped back into place, he says the doctors told his parents to keep him angry.
Asked what he’s angry about these days, Lydon takes a philosophical turn.
“Anger is just a feeling, like love, which can turn to hate, which can turn to jealousy,” he says. “I’m angry about the disenfranchised, same as when I was young. People left outside the fold, where differences aren’t appreciated. For me, in life it’s our differences that make us all the more unified. I’m a positive thinker. Sometimes when you’re songwriting, unfortunately, you have to wallow in the dark side in order to see the light at the end of it.”
Time was, Lydon and co. were seemingly rooted in the dark side, their music synonymous in some corners with literal treason.
Within a year or two of the formation of The Sex Pistols, Lydon writes, an extraordinary wrinkle had emerged.