Ignored             Obscured              Restored

In the wake of the Sex Pistols’ implosion in 1978, Johnny Lydon shed the “Rotten” moniker and emerged with a new manifesto—Public Image Ltd (PIL). Enlisting guitarist Keith Levene, bassist Jah Wobble, and drummer Jim Walker, Lydon set out to smash the mold of punk and mold something altogether stranger and more dangerous: post-punk.

PIL’s opening salvo came in the form of their debut single, “Public Image.” This was no mere continuation of the anarchic sneer of the Pistols—it was a declaration of war against the very machine that had commodified Lydon’s former band. The track arrives like a slap across the face of anyone who ever thought they had him pegged.

Lyrically, “Public Image” is Lydon at his most caustic. He’s not just biting the hand that fed him; he’s taking the whole industry down by the throat. This is a man who’s seen the strings behind the puppet show and is none too happy about it:

You never listened to a word that I said
You only seen me from the clothes that I wear.

The venom in his delivery makes it clear—this isn’t just a personal rant; it’s a declaration for anyone who’s ever felt reduced to their public persona, chewed up and spit out by the fame machine. And for Lydon, that machine was none other than Malcolm McLaren and the spectacle of the Pistols:

Behind the image was ignorance and fear
You hide behind this public machine
You still follow the same old scheme.

The lyrics cut through the hype and hysteria, exposing the hollow façade of the punk image he helped create. But Lydon is done playing the puppet. His defiance is unmistakable:

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.

Musically, “Public Image” feels like a reinvention. It’s a stark, skeletal groove, propelled by Wobble’s dub-heavy bass lines, which throb and pulse like a heartbeat, grounding the track in a kind of hypnotic menace. Keith Levene’s guitar, meanwhile, is all jagged edges and icy overtones. His playing here is visionary—a precursor to the atmospheric minimalism of U2’s The Edge and the taut, nervous riffs of James Honeyman-Scott from the Pretenders. Every chord Levene strikes seems to hang in the air, like shards of glass suspended in space.

And then there’s Lydon himself. His vocals are nothing short of a primal scream. The opening “hellos” are delivered with a deranged glee, as if Lydon is welcoming us into his new world order, while the howl that follows is the sound of an artist reborn—wilder, smarter, and infinitely more dangerous. His closing “goodbye” is less a farewell and more a promise: Johnny’s back, but he’s not playing by anyone’s rules.

In hindsight, “Public Image” was a mission statement. It wasn’t just a break from the past; it was a forward leap into uncharted territory. With this single, PIL staked their claim as pioneers of post-punk, a genre as unpredictable and uncompromising as Lydon himself.

Enjoy… until next week.