Q: What music are you listening to now?
A: Everything. But I must say, in the last three or four years, it’s become mundane in the extreme and formatted to the hilt. And it’s a shame. You’ve got record companies that don’t know what they’re doing. They are clueless. Just utterly clueless. And you’ve got thievery on a grand scale going on all over the Internet. It’s a sad indictment, but you know what? It’s like the calm before the storm, really. Something good will come out of all of this dullness. It just has to.

Q: Just like the Pistols did, eh?
A: You would expect it. You should expect it. We were right. Historically right. I don’t know if it was anything that we as individuals did. But I think nature just insisted we exist!

Q: Well, thanks for your time, John. It’s been an honor talking to you.
A: I don’t handle compliments well.

Q: Maybe I should say “fuck off” or something.
A: No, that’s even worse, when people do that. They try to out-punk the punk. Don’t be so foolish. It was never like that in the first place. There’s no excuse for rudeness. I know—I’ve got albums full of it!

Q: That’s a quip worthy of Oscar Wilde.
A: Ha ha! Very excellent person, him. I’ll tell you one thing I like about Oscar Wilde. On his deathbed he looked at the walls and he went, “That wallpaper is horrendous. One of us has to go.” Then he died. That’s fucking genius. That’s how you go out. That’s how life should be.


THE BEST LYDON CLIPS ON YOUTUBE
1976 Bill Grundy interview
1977 interview
1987 Finnish Broadcasting Company interview
2006 Jimmy Kimmel Live interview