PiL - Public Image

Given Lydon's initial talk of PiL as antimusic and antimelody, the group's debut single, "Public Image", was a massive relief for all concerned-the record company, Pistols fans, and critics. It's a searing, soaring statement of intent.
The glorious, chiming minimalism of Wobble's bassline and Levene's plangent, ringing chords mirror Lydon's quest for purity as he jettisons not just the Rotten alter ego ("somebody had to stop me/...I will not be treated as property") but rock 'n' roll itself.
"That song was the first proper bassline I ever came up with", says Wobble. "Very simple, a beautiful interval from E to B. Just the joy of vibration. And incredible guitar from Keith, this great burst of energy."
"Public Image" is like a blueprint for the reborn, purified rock of the 1980s. One can hear the Edge from U2 in its radiant surge. "It's so clean, so tingly, like a cold shower", says Levene. "It could be really thin glass penetrating you but you don't know until you start bleeding internally".
In "Public Image" Lydon reasserted his rights over "Johnny Rotten"-"Public image belongs to me/It's my entrance, my own creation, my grand finale"-only to end the song by shedding the persona with an echo chamber yell of "goodbye!"

PiL - Public Image - 1978

John Lydon surprises listeners during his radio show "The Punk and His Music" - 1977

Those who tuned in anticipating punk rock were immediately thrown for a loop by the first selection, Tim Buckley's "Sweet Surrender", a lush, sensual R&B song swathed with orchestral strings.
When he talked about identifying with Dr. Alimantado's "Born for a Purpose", a song about being persecuted as a Rasta, Lydon gave his audience an advance glimpse of PiL's aura of paranoia and prophecy, casting himself as a visionary outcast in Babylon, U.K.

Tim Buckley - Sweet Surrender - 1972


Dr. Alimantado - Born for a Purpose - 1976

Sex Pistols - Johnny B. Goode

Perhaps the first example of Berry-phobia occurs as early as the Sex Pistols demos exhumed on The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle. The band begins jamming on "Johnny B. Goode". Johnny Rotten-the group's closet aesthete, who'd go on to form the archetypal postpunk outfit Public Image Ltd-halfheartedly jabbers the tune and then groans, "Oh fuck, it's awful. Stop it, I fucking hate it. Aaarrrgh".

Sex Pistols - Johnny B. Goode - 1976

Sex Pistols - Bodies

The profanity hooked me first (I was fourteen), Johnny Rotten's "fuck this and fuck that/Fuck it all and fuck her fucking brat". More than the naughty words themselves, it was the vehemence and virulence of Rotten's delivery-those percussive "fucks", the demonic glee of the rolled rs in "brrrrrrat".

Sex Pistols - Bodies - 1977