John Lydon on the two most humourless men in music: ‘He’s taken himself far too seriously’
When Far Out recently caught up with John Lydon, he was mourning the recent passing of his wife, Nora Forster. Nevertheless, he was still determined to laugh. In fact, the very notion of dying became another affirming punchline. Looking on the bright side is one of the few certainties that Lydon is happy to abide by. The rest is open to his fierce conjecture.
“I don’t think you’ll get all the answers until the last few minutes before you die,” he quipped. “I knew that in Nora’s last few minutes in her eyes. I knew she loved me. Bingo. That’s when you discover everything if you’re lucky to die that way… it’s a bit hard if you’re run down by a bus. There’s not much reflection. Except if you hit the mirrors,” he says, cackling. I quip that you don’t want to give the driver the wrong impression either, and he maniacally squirms and howls, his spirits evidently as high as ever, his passion for connecting with humanity explaining more about his character than ever before.
But the humour has always been present in his work. His mantra: “See humour in all things”. This outlook has also always informed his view on music. “I’m not doom-laden, I’ve never been into goth rock, I always found that to be childish. ‘Oh, we’re all going to die’ – well, of course, but enjoy what you’ve got in between,“ is something he was citing as far back as 1992 with Creem.
“Humour’s a brilliant thing, I think you can solve more problems through humour than any other way,“ Lydon continues. “Deadpan seriousness doesn’t really work. Like Stink[g]! Sting amuses me because here’s a man who’s joined now so many causes and so many charities that he’s dissipated the energy behind them, and you can’t really take anything he now contributes to too seriously anymore.“
This dilution of goodwill also infected the seriousness with a sense of dull apathy, according to Lydon, and he didn’t think Sting was the only key culprit behind the loss of laughs. “Don Henley, that’s the man,“ he says. “That’s the man responsible. There’s a man with no humour. Same with Sting, he’s gone and taken himself far too seriously, hasn’t he? ‘I am an intellectual, honest, please believe me. Look how unshaved I can be.“
However, when we spoke to Lydon, he remained determined that he would never succumb to seriousness. “I’ve always got that easily from my parents,” he says with regards to how his Irish parents rubbed off on the mirth in the punk’s latest album, End of World, “That vibe of don’t let the bastards grind you down? That ain’t gonna happen.”
He added: ”And I think you have to in life lead by example. And I’m a positive thinker. I always have been. I hope that that rubs off on our audience and, lo and behold, the world at large, but we’re not doing it with an overly commercial attitude. This is something that you seek out if you really need it in your life. If you don’t, well, you know, wait for the next bus. It might not arrive on time.”
