Showing posts with label holidays in the sun. Show all posts
Showing posts with label holidays in the sun. Show all posts

1 Nov 2022

A Brief Note on the Resurrection of the Damned and Johnny Rotten as an Artist in Decline

The Damned - Rat Scabies, Brian James, Dave Vanian and Captain Sensible - 
proving that whilst punk rockers never die, they do, sadly, grow old ...
Photo credit: John Nguyen / JNVisuals (2022)
 
 
Readers who, like me, still retain a vague interest in how the story of punk unfolds in its twilight years, will have doubtless noticed a couple of stories in the news recently. 
 
Firstly, the original line up of the Damned have reunited to play live, 46 years after they initially took to the stage, offering us not so much an opportunity to smell once more the sweet scent of a new rose, as witness the sad spectacle of human decay.
 
Their show at the Hammersmith Apollo earlier this week - the first of five UK gigs - was described by Neil McCormick in The Telegraph as a 'cacophony of amateurish noise and chaos', so it certainly sounds like it was fun [1]
 
But, ultimately, apart from sixty-something die hard fans, to whom does such a event really mean anything? 
 
Secondly, a sheet of handwritten lyrics by Johnny Rotten has sold at auction for more than £50,000; well over the estimated sale price of between £15,000 and £20,000. 
 
The songs featured are 'Submission' - a track written in mocking response to Malcolm's request for a song with a sadomasochistic theme - and 'Holidays in the Sun' - the Sex Pistols' fourth single, which opens with the memorable line 'A cheap holiday in other people's misery' [2].    
 
Lyrically, neither song is at the same level of brilliance as 'Anarchy in the U.K.' or 'God Save the Queen' and arguably Rotten never wrote anything as good again as this verse taken from the latter:

When there's no future, how can there be sin?
We're the flowers in the dustbin ...
We're the poison in the human machine ...
We're the future, your future! [3]
 
However, even Rotten's weakest songs written as the charismatic young singer of the Sex Pistols look like works of genius compared to the dispiriting rubbish he now offers us as the fat old man fronting Public Image Ltd. 
 
I very much doubt people will be paying tens of thousands of pounds for the handwritten lyrics to 'Double Trouble', for example. 
 
Nor can I imagine that Sebastian Horsley would still describe Rotten as "Rimbaud reborn in Finsbury Park" - with all the intelligence and vision of an extraordinary poet [4] - were he able to hear Lydon moaning about his domestic life and indoor plumbing issues: 
 
What - you fucking nagging again? 
About what? What? What? 
The toilet's fucking broken again 
I repaired that, I told you 
Get the plumber in again [5]
 
It pains me to say it, but I'm tempted to agree with Vivienne Westwood that whilst Johnny Rotten was a sensation when performing with the Sex Pistols, once he was thrown out of the band "he didn't have any more ideas" [6]
 
And so he turned inward and began to exploit his memories and feelings; this internalisation being one of the defining characteristics of post-punk. Indeed, Lydon himself has confessed that whilst he invested the Sex Pistols with his intelligence, he poured his heart and soul into PiL. 
 
This may have produced some interesting work at first - I'm not denying the brilliance of Metal Box (1979) - but, ultimately, it resulted in a steady decline of his writing skills, just as age and increased girth have, sadly, led to a deterioration of his ability to sing and perform [7]
 

Johnny Rotten at the Cruel World Festival (14 May 2022)
Photo by Alex Kluft
 
 
Notes
 
[1] Neil McCormick, 'The Damned are just as amateur now as they were in 1976', The Telegraph (29 Oct 2022): click here
      For those who want a reminder of just how great the Damned were back in the day, click here. 'New Rose' was the first single released by a British punk rock group, on 22 October 1976 (one month prior to the Sex Pistols releasing their debut single, 'Anarchy in the U.K.'). 
 
[2] Both these songs can be found on the Sex Pistols' album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols (Virgin Records, 1977). Click here to listen to 'Submission' and/or here to play 'Holidays in the Sun'.
 
[3] Lyrics from the Sex Pistols' second single 'God Save the Queen', released May 1977 on Virgin Records, written by Johnny Rotten and © Warner Chappell Music, Inc. The track is credited to all four members of the band; Steve Jones, Johnny Rotten, Glen Matlock, and Paul Cook. Click here to play.
 
[4] Sebastian Horsley, Dandy in the Underworld, (Sceptre, 2008), pp. 57-58.
 
[5] Lyrics from 'Double Trouble' written by Lydon, although the track is credited to all four members of PiL; Scott Firth, Lu Edmonds, John Lydon, and Bruce Smith. It can be found on the album What the World Needs Now ... (PiL Official Ltd., 2015): to play, click here.
      Although the album received mostly favourable reviews, it is, in fact, fucking awful. Middle-class music critics working for The Guardian might find the songs exhilarating, foul-mouthed fun, but I don't.

[6] Vivienne Westood interviewed by Alex Flood (13 May 2022) for the NME. Click here to read online.

[7] This is evidenced by a charmless live performance at the Cruel World Festival earlier this year: click here to watch an excruciating version of 'Shoom' (another track from What the World Needs Now ...).