One-time Sex Pistols frontman Johnny Rotten – who now goes by his legal name, John Lydon – has now retracted the message of the band’s debut single, ‘Anarchy in the UK.’
“Anarchy is a terrible idea,” Lydon wrote in an essay for The Times. “Let’s get that clear. I’m not an anarchist. And I’m amazed that there are websites out there — .org anarchist sites — funded fully by the corporate hand and yet ranting on about being outside the shitstorm. It’s preposterous. And they’re doing it in designer Dr. Martens, clever little rucksacks and nicely manufactured balaclavas.”
The essay, printed just in time for Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations, also cleared up any misconceptions about Lydon’s feelings towards the monarchy.
“God bless the Queen,” he wrote. “She’s put up with a lot. I’ve got no animosity against any one of the royal family. Never did… It’s the institution of it that bothers me and the assumption that I’m to pay for that. There’s where I draw the line. It’s like, ‘No, you’re not getting ski holidays on my tax.'”
The band’s single ‘God Save the Queen’ was banned from playlists across the UK when it was released for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee in 1977. It was re-released in limited numbers this year, and immediately sold out.
Lydon didn’t use his essay to express any of his feelings about Pistol, the new limited series biopic on Disney+, but he has already made those pretty clear. He even filed an unsuccessful lawsuit to prevent the band’s songs from being used in the project, calling it, “the most disrespectful shit I’ve ever had to endure.”
Meanwhile, Lydon’s former bandmate recently said he doesn’t care for the Sex Pistols’ music anymore.
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“I never really listen to the Pistols’ music anymore,” Jones told The Telegraph. “I’m fucking tired of it, to be honest with you. I’d rather listen to Steely Dan.”
In fact, Jones doesn’t much care for punk rock – the genre he pioneered – much at all these days.
“I don’t particularly listen to punk rock anymore,” Jones told The Associated Press. “My musical tastes have changed a lot over the years, you know, and I’m 66 years old. I’m not a kid anymore. I think it would be a bit silly if I was still flying that flag.”
