5/13/2023 0 Comments Johnny rotten autobiography![]() His claim to be “so much” on the side of Pussy Riot is rather undermined when he refers to the Russian group as “Pussy Farts”. (As he puts it: “Don’t let tiffles cause fraction.”) Largely, his inventive prose and wildly unpredictable tangents and digressions – he compares Malcolm McLaren’s management style to that of Arsenal’s Arsene Wenger – are a delight, but occasionally his ego becomes a bulldozer. ![]() The book opens with a Publisher’s Note pointing out the various liberties that Lydon takes with spelling and grammar, adding that it’s simply “Lydon’s lingo”. Lydon has made a career out of steadfastly refusing to do what’s expected of him, and it turns out this even applies to English grammar. ![]() A cynic might argue that Lydon hasn’t exactly gilded his reputation in the intervening two decades – there was his 2004 appearance on I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here, and then those cringe-worthy Country Life adverts – but there are still plenty of fresh incidents and anecdotes here that make this new volume worth tracking down. It’s not the first time the 58-year-old has looked back in anger – in 1993 his first memoir Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs hit shelves (it was later called “a nihilistic, gross-out masterpiece” by this magazine). John Joseph Lydon’s new autobiography isn’t just about his incarnation as Johnny Rotten, but his upbringing, youth and, later, Public Image Limited and further intrigues. “The king is gone but he’s not forgotten,” Neil Young once sang, “This is the story of a Johnny Rotten…” Well, here are 500 pages in Johnny’s own words. ![]()
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