“My repression is not a new coat”: the truth of John Lydon’s beef with Joe Strummer
He might be a divisive figure, but no one can objectively knock John Lydon for refusing to veer from what he believes in. When it comes to punk, he is not only one of the genre’s definitive pioneers but also an ardent purist, meaning that his thoughts on its history and main characters are almost codified.
In line with his challenging nature, Lydon has raised a few eyebrows with his accounts of the first wave of punk. As the leader of the British vanguard of the movement, the Sex Pistols, he has more right than most to do so, particularly considering just how influential the group continues to be today. His comments on who really started the genre, the American or British camp, have been particularly polarising for fans and recently stoked the flames of a decades-old debate once more.
He told Far Out: “Now, an awful lot of American journalism is saying that New York punk is where it all comes from. Oh, go fuck yourselves; it is talking shit. I was brought up in Britain!”
The above point is essential, as it outlines how aware Lydon is of his upbringing, which naturally fed into his general perception of the world and music. The notion of class was inextricable from the British punk scene, with many of its most important figures emerging from the working class and looking to topple the private-schooled poshos who brought forth the prog era and bloated classic rock. He has addressed this notion on numerous occasions.
Lydon is so connected to his working-class roots that he even once criticised Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne, another figure from his social strata, for making the working classes look “stupid” with his behaviour. Like many of us, Lydon is fully aware of both the positives and the pitfalls of his background, and this meant that when he felt his peers from the punk scene were fetishising what he deems a largely grim reality, but one that was his nevertheless, he was irked.
Enter Joe Strummer of The Clash. While he is one of the undisputed heroes of the first wave of British punk both musically and spiritually, with him a general representative of righteous causes, he was nothing more than a poseur for some. Privately educated at the City of London Freemen’s School in Surrey and the son of a second secretary in the foreign service, the world that Strummer came from, no matter how much he hated it, put him at odds with several figures from the punk scene, including Lydon.
Lydon has addressed his disdain for The Clash on several occasions. When speaking to Film Four in an internet chat in 2001, one fan asked him if he really hated his peer. Of course not; Strummer’s “a very nice bloke,” he maintained, but then offered some salient points about what he saw as his motivations and why he was aggravated by them.
The former Sex Pistol said: “He’s just ashamed of his own class roots. Which is, of course, the antithesis to me. You are what you are, and you should work accordingly with the tools you’ve been given. But to pretend to be working-class drives me crazy because that’s what I come from and am! When someone tries to pretend to be that, they rubbish my achievements. My repression is not a new coat to be worn so casually as, indeed, neither is his. We all suffer but on different levels.”
Following this, Lydon quickly added that living in a London council flat when he grew up was not something to glamorise. Significantly, he described it as nothing more than the bane of his existence.