The first “riotous” song John Lydon ever wanted to buy
John Lydon is a famed critic. More often than not, he’s slandering bands, rather than showering praise on the music. Curious, for a musician whose entire life is contained within this exact palace of sound.
In fairness, the kind of rock-and-roll life Lydon led can quickly disillusion you: seeing the strings behind the puppets, the grimy dust on your own belongings after returning home from a long tour of stale ale, dirty pillows, and jetlag. Lydon’s penchant for criticism makes sense, given he had inside access to the highs and lows of the real, raw life of a riotous mind.
With this in mind, we might learn more about the Sex Pistols star if we take a look at the doe-eyed softness of childhood, where punk leanings can originate from, to brashly paraphrase the great philosopher Freud, strange tensions with parents.
Lydon was lucky, as his parents loved music and could therefore shine a light on all the great music out there across all types of genres. That’s a little different from my own story, the only musical idols my parents had being, at best, S Club 7, and, at worst, Girls Aloud. So Lydon had to slowly come into his own taste, as we all do, but he had a huge hand guiding him forward.
It was this that he referenced when sharing with Pitchfork a list of his all-time favourite records. He wrote, “My parents had a fantastic collection. It wasn’t just Irish folk tunes and accordion diddly-doos, there was early Beatles and lots of Cliff Richard too.”
With this in mind, Lydon began learning what it meant to be defiant and riotous through performances that are largely considered canonical, delightful in a polite and pleasant way. Lydon shared, “The first record I would have ever wanted to buy was ‘Move It! by Cliff Richard.”
He continued, “It was a really good song at the time and still is. Early Cliff was a riotous assembly of sorts, and he had moves that left a good impression on a five-year-old.”
It’s an interesting insight into the inspiration for the Sex Pistols’ notorious live shows, which usually ended in carnage. Take their show in Manchester in June 1976 at the Lesser Free Trade Hall, which saw a passionate, chaotic Lydon smashing up borrowed equipment for a small crowd, moulding that live reputation that’d soon follow him around.
It’s easy to see echoes of this formless, spirited enthusiasm in the way Cliff Richard would perform on stage, moving as the music moved through him, bending the knees in and out and kicking out at a particularly vexed juncture in the tune. It’s riotous in its own way.
Plus, the call for companionship is evident from the get-go, and Richard seems committed to his cause: “Come on, pretty bab,y let’s a move it and a-groove it,” he sings, noting the spiritual enchanment of “that rhythm that gets into your heart.” All the while, a five-year-old Lydon claps heartily along.
