Saturday, May 21, 2016

"It's fun being scum, too." - J. Lydon


I saw that Johnny Rotten/Lydon has a new book out called "Anger is an Energy." I put it on my wish list immediately. In the meantime, I went back to re-read (yes, really),  his "No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs."

It is a rollicking good time. Johnny is one of the all-time great R&R characters - a bit of Oscar Wilde, a bit of Olivier's Richard III, a bit of Iggy Pop, another Anglo-Irish rogue in a long line of Anglo-Irish rogues, think J. Lennon and Steven Morrissey too.

One look, one quick listen, and you immediately got  the whole Rotten/Sex Pistols thing. "Anarchy in the U.K." Johnny is funny, intelligent, and oh so quotable. Came across this and it seems just as true today as when he wrote it in the 1990's.

"That's the trouble with working-class people throughout the world. They always try to spur their hatred onto what they see as being lower down the scale, rather than going for the fucking jugular of the upper- and middle-class bastards who are keeping them down in the first place. We were the Irish scum. But it's fun being scum, too." - J. Rotten/Lydon