Londoners watching a local early-evening TV chat show dropped their forks. It was 1976 and they had expected the usual, easily digestible broadcast. Instead, they were served up musical revolution with their beans on toast. "They are punk rockers. The new craze, they tell me," announced veteran presenter Bill Grundy of his guests, the Sex Pistols. Grundy couldn't hide his contempt, goading the band to increasingly expletive-strewn responses. Viewers were witnessing a clash of generations, but the Pistols flipped a bird not only at their conservative elders but at mainstream rock and its enduring hippie influences.
As the Pistols' lead singer, John Lydon — a.k.a. Johnny Rotten — wore the very heart of punk on his torn sleeve. He meant it then. He still does. Mid-'70s Britain was strike-bound and divided, and happy songs about love and sunshine seemed hopelessly out of tune with the times. The country needed punk, and it couldn't have happened without Lydon. He had the attitude and the look, and he was also articulate. His lyrics, delivered with a snarl, were social commentaries, often witty, often nasty. It made him as threatening to some as he was inspiring to others.
Always the outsider, Lydon was born to Irish parents in a north London slum, surviving spinal meningitis as a 7-year-old — which left his memory wiped — and then enduring a strict Catholic schooling. In August 1975, now a scrawny youth with green locks, he was spotted on the King's Road and asked to audition for pop impresario Malcolm McLaren's band. Lydon became Rotten, the TV clash ensured notoriety and terrified town councils banned the Pistols from performing. By the summer of 1977, they had taken on their head of state. Their alternative anthem, God Save the Queen — with its reference to "her fascist regime" and "no future" refrain — was released as the country celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Queen's reign. "We had declared war on the entire country — without meaning to," said Lydon.
Six months later it was all over: the Pistols had split up in rancor and punk was beginning to be adopted by the mainstream. "It became acceptable and absorbed back into the system," said Lydon. He instantly rejected his insider status by forming a new band, Public Image Ltd, whose postpunk experimentation with dub reggae and electronica was massively influential and produced eight albums over 14 years. These days Lydon, perhaps inspired by his early encounter with Grundy, is a frequent TV presence, his gift for profanity undimmed by the passing years.