The Life and Times of John Lydon: A Madcap Odyssey
To write about John Lydon—Johnny Rotten to the masses—is to wrestle a greasy pig in a hurricane. You don’t come out clean. You don’t come out at all, really. But you’ve got to try, because the story of this snarling, spitting iconoclast is as much a tale of postmodern Britain as it is a personal saga of chaos and reinvention. And like all great tales, it begins in the gutter.
Lydon emerged from the grimy backstreets of North London, where poverty wasn’t a badge of honor but a bloody weight around your neck. Born in 1956 to Irish immigrant parents, young John was a sickly lad, afflicted by spinal meningitis that nearly killed him.
The disease left him with a permanent scowl and a feral sense of survival. He’d spend weeks in a hospital, his memory wiped clean by the disease and the treatments. Imagine the terror of waking up to a world you don’t recognize and deciding, at that tender age, that you’d bloody well create your own.
The Birth of Rotten
Fast forward to 1975. Britain is a damp powder keg of unemployment and existential dread. Along comes Malcolm McLaren, a carnival barker masquerading as a manager, with his Vivienne Westwood-designed vision of punk nihilism.
McLaren and Westwood were the Bonnie and Clyde of cultural subversion. He, the scheming Svengali; she, the sartorial sorceress. Together, they conjured a dystopian vision of punk that was equal parts high art and low sleaze.
SEX sold rubberwear, bondage gear, and ripped t-shirts adorned with slogans that could make a sailor blush. It was the kind of place where your wallet felt sticky after a transaction—if you dared touch it at all.
In this charged atmosphere, the Sex Pistols were born. McLaren treated them like his pet Frankenstein, stitching together chaos and nihilism.
Enter Lydon, wearing a torn Pink Floyd shirt with “I hate” scrawled above the band’s name. The man had charisma, McLaren thought, and venom to match. Thus, the Sex Pistols were born: a Molotov cocktail in musical form.
If the Pistols had a mission, it wasn’t to save rock ‘n’ roll but to set it on fire. Lydon’s sneer and sardonic wit—punctuated by his “God Save the Queen” tirade—was the voice of a disillusioned generation. They weren’t here for a good time or a long time; they were here to blow it all to hell. By 1978, it was over. One album, a trail of destruction, and a reputation that preceded him wherever he went.
But Lydon, unlike the Pistols, didn’t self-destruct. Not entirely.
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The Public Image Era
He emerged from the wreckage, shedding the Rotten moniker like a snake’s skin. Public Image Ltd (PiL) was his rebirth, a jagged experiment in post-punk and dub that proved Lydon was more than a one-trick pony. Albums like Metal Box showed a depth and artistry that left critics reeling and fans divided.
“I’m not here to be loved,” he’d often say. And he wasn’t. He was here to confront, to provoke, to challenge.
PiL was chaotic—musically, emotionally, financially. Lydon embraced the madness, often locking horns with record labels and bandmates. But through it all, he remained uncompromising. Where other punks burned out or sold out, Lydon just kept going.
The Elder Statesman of Punk
As the years rolled on, Lydon’s image softened somewhat—at least in public perception. He became a regular on the talk show circuit, his acid tongue now wielded with a wink rather than a scowl. He was the anti-establishment establishment figure, railing against mediocrity with the glee of a man who’d seen behind the curtain and wasn’t impressed.
The new millennium brought new controversies. Lydon joined reality TV, became a spokesman for butter (yes, butter), and feuded with anyone who crossed his path. But underneath it all was the same fiery spirit. Whether discussing Brexit, Trump, or the state of modern music, Lydon remained unapologetically himself: raw, abrasive, and unfiltered.
Lydon, forever the anarchist, has this to say to Variety about Trump in 2023: “He’s a thoroughly unpleasant fellow, no doubt about it. But he’s not a politician and I hate politicians! Screw the lot of ‘em. I’d rather have a maniac … a real estate land shark.” Anarchy in the USA.
The Last Laugh
In recent years, Lydon’s role as caregiver to his wife, Nora, who suffered from Alzheimer’s, has revealed a softer side to the punk icon. But don’t mistake this for domestication. Even now, in his mid-sixties, he’s as sharp and combative as ever, touring with PiL and releasing music that defies easy categorization.
After the December 2023 tour, Lydon thought PiL might never hit the road again. The Grim Reaper had been an uninvited guest in his life that year, taking his wife, Nora, in April, and then blindsiding him with the sudden death of his manager and lifelong comrade, John Rambo Stevens, in December. Touring seemed like a closed chapter. “I thought that might be it,” Lydon admitted, raw and unfiltered.
And so, the impossible is happening. PiL is rising again, fueled by the kind of love and loss that sharpens rather than dulls. Mark your calendars, because this isn’t just a tour—it’s a mission.
John Lydon’s story isn’t a rise-and-fall cautionary tale or a tidy narrative of redemption. It’s a sprawling, contradictory mess—part comedy, part tragedy, entirely human. And that, dear reader, is what makes it worth telling.
You don’t have to like the man. Hell, you probably shouldn’t. But you’d be a fool to ignore him. Because if there’s one thing John Lydon has proven in his decades-long career, it’s this: The only thing worse than being hated is being irrelevant. And John Lydon will never, ever be irrelevant.
My own limited public image encounter … photographer’s notes
The Hordern Pavilion, December 15, 1984. Sydney. A night crawling with chaos, sweat, and the peculiar sense of impending doom that only a PiL gig could summon. I was there with my cameras, a head full of bad ideas, and the faint hope that the evening wouldn’t end in a jail cell. Foolish optimism.
Out back of the stage, I’m shooting the breeze with Malcolm Lees and Vic Davies from Triple J’s Club Veg—a pair of radio madmen I’d trust with my life but not my wallet. We were discussing the finer points of absurdity when The Order of Death erupted from the speakers like the wrath of God. I didn’t so much move as I was moved, cameras in hand, onto the stage, adrenaline pumping. And then I jumped.
Into the blackness.
The void between the barrier and the band was supposed to be a no-man’s-land of relative safety. What it became was a bottle-ridden war zone. I landed on a bottle and rolled my ankle, tearing all the ligaments.
Instant pain erupted in my ankle, a hot electric pulse that screamed: This Is What You Get. And indeed, it was what I got.
My own personal tribute to Johnny Rotten: a “Rotten Ankle” that’s haunted me ever since.
But there was no time for self-pity—not with the barrier groaning against the tide of the crowd. Leaning against it for support, I felt it start to buckle, a sinister lurch that could only mean one thing: disaster. I shouted a warning to the security guys and waved frantically at the other photographers. Nothing. We were inches from the speakers, and the sound swallowed every syllable like a rabid beast. Three steps was all I managed before the barrier gave way.
Hell broke loose. The barrier collapsed, pinning unlucky souls beneath it while dozens of bloodthirsty punksters surged forward, pouring over the wreckage like frenzied rats. It wasn’t a mosh pit anymore; it was a battlefield. Blood, screams, and chaos swirled in a perfect storm of human wreckage. I stood there, crippled and incredulous, cameras dangling around my neck, documenting the carnage even as it unfolded at my feet.
I looked up at Rotten who was also checking out the carnage, and we both got the same idea at the same time … get away from that mess. He danced across the stage above me and I hobbled along in the pit to the other end of the stage.
Some people talk about gigs that change their lives. This one broke my goddamned ankle and left me with a front-row seat to the savagery of punk. That’s the thing about PiL: you don’t just attend their gigs; you survive them.
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