John Lydon’s honest opinion of Pink Floyd
Punk was always about more than music. In a sense, the music was coincidental, an inevitable by-product of a defiant attitude forged in squats and grotty pub toilets. We’re told that punk stood in absolute opposition to the world of rock. This, iff you think about it for more than 30 seconds, is clearly codswallop. Punk may have been opposed to the pretentiousness of bands like Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd, but to suggest that it was a movement born out of a disdain for all rock is a step too far. Had that been the case, I doubt Siouxsie and The Banshees would have found the courage to perform a rendition of The Beatles’ ‘Dear Prudence’ at their first concert.
Even with all those stories of band members being fired for liking The Beatles, I would argue the anti-rock absolutism of punk has been a touch overhyped. Classic British punk seemed incredibly forward-thinking and anti-regressive in 1977, but it was more nostalgic than it let on, harking back to the three-minute, three-chord pop songs of the early 1960s. Punk wasn’t an attack on rock per se; it was an attack on studio indulgence and musical elitism.
Even Johnny Rotten, who, at the height of his fame, wore a T-shirt reading “I Hate Pink Floyd”, has since offered an alternative take on the prog rock outfit. In a 2010 Guardian interview, he confessed to having a soft spot for Dark Side of The Moon. The revelation came after Lydon had turned down an offer to perform with Floyd frontman David Gilmour In Los Angeles.
“You’d have to be daft as a brush to say you didn’t like Pink Floyd, they’ve done great stuff,” Lydon said, noting that, though his opinion had changed, he still viewed the group as possessing a certain pretentiousness. “There was an aura of ‘Oh, we’re so great there’s no room for anybody else,’” he continued“[And] they’ve done rubbish too.”
A few years earlier, Roger Waters and the other surviving members of Pink Floyd approached Lydon and asked him if he’d like to help them perform Dark Side Of The Moon live on stage. “The idea thrilled me no end,” he said. “I came so close to doing it… [but ultimately] it felt like I was trying to set myself up as some kind of pretentious person. I’m wary of the jam-session end of things,” he explianed, adding: “Privately, I’d love to go into the studio and do something with the album with them.”
Lydon spent much of his youth time yelling about his disdain for Floyd and their kin, but it would appear time really does heal all wounds. In 2010, The Public Image Limited bandleader said that the band were actually: “Not [pretentious] at all, there was kind of a misreading and a misrepresentation in the press and they’re not holier than thou … Dave Gilmour I’ve met a few times, and I just think he’s an all right bloke.”
In freeing himself from the burden of hating Pink Floyd, Lydon took on another, far more loathsome enemy: Green Day.
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