Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs (1993)

John Lydon here takes on the difficult and neverending task of "correcting the record," in this case the highly visible, and visibly pored over, history of the Sex Pistols. He was a little late to the party, trailing 1989's Lipstick Traces and 1991's England's Dreaming, which effectively set the outlines, thanks in part to a combination of Malcolm McLaren's arguable overparticipation and Lydon's own underparticipation in those projects. But then Lydon practically compounds the problem with this "authorized autobiography" (though a nice touch, that) "with Keith and Kent Zimmerman," which casts an air of the smug and self-satisfied. It feels as if Lydon considers himself ultimately above all this, and so he is. There is minimal effort. It's basically an oral history with Lydon's voice overwhelmingly dominating the transcriptions. For me, if anything, it tends to undercut his case, which is powerful on its face. As Johnny Rotten in the Sex Pistols he is the first anyone would think of as the chief player in that drama, with Sid Vicious playing a critical supporting role. But the books by Greil Marcus and Jon Savage make powerful and persuasive cases for the importance of McLaren and, rather more incidentally, for Glen Matlock, who made significant contributions as a songwriter. Lydon comes off in this autobiography as a decent human being and an interesting enough cultural figure, sarcastic and radical and embittered though not unpleasantly so. But he seems more football fan than rock star somehow, and somehow this regular guy thing struck me as a tough sell. Certainly Lydon has carried on the most interesting post-Pistols career (though I don't think McLaren is actually that far behind him). But many of Lydon's arguments against the significance of, say, McLaren, or Situationism, seem to boil down to "Nah-nah, can't prove it. I was there and I say not," etc., without producing anything like a satisfying or credible alternative explanation for the hurricanes of phenomena that swirled around the Sex Pistols when they existed. Lydon could well be the one telling the truth, but his version seems by far the least interesting—thus, perhaps, the most convincing in one way. But still, if Lydon is going to stake his legacy on his vision and his words he might have considered taking on the work of composing them rather than simply switching on a tape recorder and speaking into it as the whim moved him. This is a bit disappointing.

In case it's not at the library.