Credit: Press

John Lydon is “terrified of mugging up” Eurovision song ‘Hawaii’

Sat 4 February 2023 10:31, UK

John Lydon is feeling a touch nervous about competing at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, where he will be performing on behalf of Ireland. The Public Image Ltd frontman and former Sex Pistol confirmed that he will be dedicating the new song, ‘Hawaii’, to his wife Nora, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s.

PiL performed ‘Hawaii’ on Ireland’s The Late Late Show on RTÉ last night, where they competed against five other acts: Adgy, Connolly, Wild Youth, Leila Jane, and K Muni & ND. Lydon joined the other contestants in Dublin on Thursday, where he spoke about the upcoming competition: “This is something that I watched when I was young with my parents,” John said. “I remember Johnny Logan, I remember Cliff Richard, I remember Sandy Shaw – and now Johnny. It’s as good as any other way of listening to music, I don’t have any prejudices about things like that.”

The punk icon added that he was feeling nervous about performing the new song. “I don’t know what I’m going to go through doing this today,” he confessed. “I’m even shaking now thinking about it.”

Speaking to The Sun, Lydon explained the motivation behind ‘Hawaii‘: “[Nora and I] spent a magnificent holiday in Hawaii after a tour once and it was just the greatest week of our lives. Now her memories are fading, I wanted to bring something like that back to her. I get broke up even thinking about it.”

On Friday, the singer dedicated the song to his wife, saying: “It means the world to me – this is our last few years of coherence together. And I miss her like mad. I miss my missus, if you keep voting for me I’m going to miss her even more.” Lydon went on to say that he was still “terrified of mugging it up, getting it wrong, letting people down – mostly letting Nora down”.

Eurovision 2023 will take place in Liverpool on Saturday, May 13th, where it is being held on behalf of Ukraine, which won the competition last year.