No matter what hell you think you’re going through, you’re also in heaven because you’re alive. Heaven is on earth. Don’t let the bastards grind you down and make you think otherwise.
— John Lydon
- Interviewer: What’s the story about Pete Townshend? He’s confirmed that the song “Who Are You?” is about a night he ran into you at some bar…He was asked by your mate, Jonesy, “I heard this song was written about us” meaning the Sex Pistols. One night you apparently confronted him in a bar saying, “Who are you? Who the f--- are you?”. Is this true?
- John Lydon: (laughs) Yeah, I did.
- Interviewer: You remember?
- John Lydon: (still laughing) Yeah!
- Interviewer: Well, tell us about it
- John Lydon: Well, there's not much to say. I mean, it was just a situation and I didn't recognize him immediately.
- Interviewer: Oh, I thought you were just kind of having a word play.
- John Lydon: Let's just say I was in a slightly aggressive mood. Using words as bullets.
It’s about the comedown of drug depression and trying to clear yourself up and out of that. And that’s something all of us, I think, know about. Ya know? We’ve all had a bad moment and if you haven’t…one’s coming! Ya know? That’s reality. You’re gonna find yourself caught up in a dilemma. That’s the insidiousness of drugs and alcohol, they can hook slowly and sneakily into ya. It’s a very difficult thing to try to crawl back out of into sanity. And I know that.
— John Lydon about his song/poem, “The Room I Am In”.
1982 PiL interview with JJ Jackson
This is one of my favorite PiL interviews. JJ Jackson was an excellent interviewer who obviously did his research and, in turn, John and Keith gave a decent interview with honest answers. They had some great ideas, it’s unfortunate that most of them fell apart.
And just how psychic was Keith about MTV? He knew exactly where MTV was going before they did!
“What you can’t have, you want more of.”
