I’m not the same as when I began
A love letter to the lyrics of Public Image by Public Image Ltd
“In June we go to the River Thames for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee. Malcolm’s hired a boat for the Pistols to play on as they float down the river past the Houses of Parliament. We turn up, but have no hope of getting on, I see Palmolive try and leap across the gang-plank but she’s turned away. There are lots of record company people on board.
Rob says that’s it. It’s all died for him at this moment, tonight. This is the end of the dream. He’s really upset. I know what he means. Commercialism and press coverage is what’s important now, that’s the message coming from Malcolm today.
Nora and Vic aren’t bothered, they want to go and watch the boat sail under Tower Bridge, so Nora drives us onto the bridge and parks haphazardly, on a double yellow line. We abandon the car and lean over the railing looking down into the choppy old Thames.
I don’t know what gets into Vic, he’s usually so restrained, but he picks up a huge piece of hoarding that’s lying on the road and chucks it down into the river as the boat is coming towards us. The bridge police arrive and arrest him. They take him to Bow Police Station and down into the cells. We spend hours there, sitting on a wooden bench, staring at the green tiled walls. After Vic is charged, we all go back to Nora’s. Johnny Rotten turns up later.
Viv Albertine, Clothes Clothes Clothes, Music Music Music, Boys Boys Boys
On the boat he feels sick. Not choppy water sick. Or stage-fright sick. Disgusted sick. Sick with it all. This circus. This mad parade. These people. Who even are they? There’s the band, and some of the original crowd are here. But that’s it. The rest? Just here for bragging rights. Climbers the lot of ’em. Invitation-only, he bets. Truly the revolution we’ve been waiting for.
He feels cheated. He should ask the crowd if they know the feeling. Ha ha. He imagines his own mirthless laugh and the awkward silence that follows. The questioning. Is he serious? Don’t you remember, he thinks. I already told you. We mean it, maaaan. Up to you if you don’t want to hear the sarcasm.
It turned sour more quickly than he could have imagined. Got boring. Anarchy, boring. Fury, boring. Acting the dangerous clown for these idiots, beyond fucking boring. And now it’s come to this.
Sold down the river. It’s going to kill him.
He thinks about the original scene. How it felt exciting. How it would be different. How it celebrated the awkward. The deviant. The interesting. Now all that’s gone. Now he’s trapped. Trapped inside a cartoon. Trapped in performance.
He needs to get out.
Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello.
Ha ha ha ha ha.
Six months later. Like it’s his first time on stage. In a way it is. Spotlight just on him. Is anyone still there?
He was always the face, but now he’s in charge. In control. Doing what he wants. Finding out what he wants to do. Singing with a new band, under his real surname. The band is named after this song. He likes that he’s taken what trapped him and made it is escape route. It seems fitting.
You never listen to a word that I said
You only seen me for the clothes that I wear
Or did the interest go so much deeper
It must have been the colour of my hair.
He was trapped from the start. The signs were there. Malcolm got him to audition at the clothes shop. Sorry — boutique. (Vivienne was there, looking superior. Eyeing him up.) He was asked to mime. (Alice fucking Cooper, School’s Out. Kids stuff. No wonder it became such a pantomime rebellion.) Not interested if he could sing or write. Just did he look right. He should have known.
It’s ironic they ended up on the Thames, he thinks. Deep waters for shallow minds. The others were always stupid, or ignorant. Alright, he supposes, but without his words and voice very ordinary indeed. Nothing revolutionary. Just revolting. Did they understand his lyrics? Did they even listen to them? No.
They did suggest he change his hair colour once. That was the extent of the collaboration.
If you’re not on a level with people what’s the point.
Waste of time. Wasted effort.
What you wanted was never made clear
Behind the image was ignorance and fear
You hide behind his public machine
Still follow the same old scheme.
He wonders what they were in it for. Girls? The money? They’ll be sorely disappointed on that count.
Now he’s gone, Malcom’s just the same. Acting like it isn’t over. Like he never mattered. Still flogging a dead horse. Making a show of it too, like some old-time carny. Thinks he’s Guy Debord but he’s Colonel Tom Parker. The only spectacle the one he’s making of himself.
Better that than people know the reality, of course. Four scared little boys with no idea what they were doing. Or why. We’re here to provoke, Malcolm would say. Shake people up. He wanted to say something new. Challenge people. Make them think. Malcolm thought it was enough to shock them. Punk was supposed to be different. But it was just another pose all along.
People hated them for it. Hated him. He was right to be scared. Got badly beaten up. Nora’s girl Ari was stabbed in the street. Twice. Proper violence. All for dressing different. Everyone too frightened to admit how frightened they were. Victims and attackers both.
The establishment had people right where they wanted them. Fighting each other. A country can’t survive this, he thinks. Worse is yet to come.
Two sides to every story
Somebody had to stop me
I’m not the same as when I began
I will not be treated as property.
Strange to be the singer but have no voice. Nothing, a rude word. Malcolm didn’t listen to his words so he never cottoned on. That he sees. He knows. He’s smart and didn’t need to hang around for this. He thought he did, at first. A shy kid from Finsbury Park. The King’s Road intimidating, sure of itself. Made sense to fit in back then. Stay quiet. But he’s changed. Grown. Seen the looks in kids’ eyes as he sings. Seen what it means to them. They deserve more.
It came down to integrity. What does he believe in and does this match up. The answer was no. A long way south of no. He was a mouthpiece for someone else’s vision. His songs weapons in someone else’s war. He was a conscript. Indentured labour.
He knew it was time to go.
Public image, you got what you wanted
The public image belongs to me
It’s my entrance, my own creation
My grand finale, my goodbye
They were right, though. His image did make the difference. But when all is said and done it’s his, not theirs. In freeing himself, he reclaimed it. Or maybe it’s the other way round. In accepting the image, it no longer held him. By incorporating it, he secured his independence.
He was a pioneer. An example for the rest of us. His paradox is ours now.
Our caricatures ricochet around the internet.
What we project is ours, but our public image isn’t all we are.
We are free to be who we want, but also free to resist the idea of ourselves this gives to others.
We can say what we want, but get caught in the net of others’ interpretation.
This changes us. The feedback loop changes us. We might not realise it, though. If the audience leaves, we’re stranded. Or trapped. We get trapped in performance too. Knowing when to get out is everything. Knowing you have to get out means you’ve changed.
He walked away. Saved himself. Saw his public image for what it was. Or who it was. Not entirely him, if not quite someone else. A performance. He made it to the end, then left it behind. Like Truman walking through the door of the set.
Others weren’t so smart. Or so aware. Sid for one. It killed him.
Johnny Rotten died too, that year. But John Lydon lived as a result.
Public image.
Public image.
Goodbye.
At the end, a mic drop. The music drops. The punk crowd’s chins drop too. What is this?
It sounds so final. Yet it was just the start.
If you liked this love letter, maybe you’ll like this one too.
