‘Terra-Gate’: The PiL song that saw John Lydon seemingly predict his own downfall
In terms of rock stars who have chosen to take a running jump off a cliff in recent years with regard to completely tarnishing any legacy they might have had, there aren’t many who have successfully plummeted to the depths of idiocy quicker than John Lydon.
The former Sex Pistols frontman and Public Image Ltd leader has always been able to court controversy, whether that’s as a result of swearing on television or becoming a butter salesman, but the most recent twists in his character arc have perhaps caused the most discontent.
From vocally supporting Donald Trump for being ‘anti-establishment’, despite the fact he’s quite evidently ‘the establishment’, and seemingly rowing back on his vehement dislike for the monarchy, among other things, he’s a shadow of the man he once seemingly was. The trouble is, what Lydon has always craved is attention, and whatever the unpopular opinion of the time happens to be, you can bet that Lydon will try to find a way to rally against it.
Now, the Sex Pistols might not have been the best band to listen to for incisive socio-political commentary, and there were far better punk bands active at the same time who had plenty more to say and the intelligence and eloquence required to convey these thoughts. Take, for example, his band’s hollow endorsements of anarchy, and compare them with the ideologies expressed by the likes of Crass, and the difference is like night and day.
However, PiL was a little more intelligent in its approach, and while it was still always a platform for Lydon to rile up audiences with his provocative points of view, you’d have thought that he would at least have had the spine to stand by his principles. Sadly, this hasn’t been the case for him, and in recent years, he’s been swayed by the rising tide of fascist rhetoric and has found himself fighting against ‘woke’, whatever the fuck that might mean.
So, where did it all begin to go wrong for him? It’s not easy to pinpoint an exact moment, if, indeed, there is one, where he began to find himself getting too wrapped up in conservative ideologies, but there is a song he released in 2012 on the PiL comeback album, This is PiL, where he highlights the exact issue he’s fallen foul of.
In an article posted by NME around the album’s release, Lydon took time to dissect the meaning of every song on the new record, and revealed that ‘Terra-Gate’ appears to highlight a major contradiction in his rapidly changing points of view. “Personal animosity!”, Lydon exclaimed when asked what the song was about. “This is about how relationships can fester and lead you into all kinds of ridiculous rows where you end up saying things you don’t totally, truly believe. That’s what I call the Terra-Gate.”
Lydon continued: “Oddly enough, it’s influenced by a thing called the shedding-gate, which is where sheep not only get fleeced but slaughtered. If you don’t conduct yourself properly with other human beings, that’s where you’ll end up. You’ll be sliced up.”
While the song is more a display of Lydon’s love of wordplay than it is a damning indictment of people’s hypocrisy, for it to arrive in 2012, only four years before Lydon came out in favour of Brexit, highlights just how little regard he ever had for heeding his own words.
