As unforgivably chaotic as it was when it was first released (get this) twenty three (23) years ago…

Not so much Public Image Limited’s first single but a blistering wiping of the slate. John Lydon was ‘Johnny Rotten’ no longer and with the Ex-Pistols content to continue flogging a headless horse under Malcolm McLaren’s steam and plot-losing (mis)direction, Lydon took his musical vision…elsewhere.

‘Elsewhere’ is right: this construction of sharp malediction in sound ranted and ranted onwards into the distance of the future it already saw: a noisy and unrestrained roar of leaden and super-amphetamine guitar buzzsawing pumped full on with complete contempt for any and all restrictions (music, fashion, etc., etc.) beyond anything remotely ‘punk’: beyond all the clichés McLaren had set into motion, beyond naughty t‑shirts and safety pins, beyond lobotomised ‘shock horror’ tabloid fodder, beyond all that which ‘punk’ (once championed as a freeing agent to a stagnant music scene) had by 1978 already sank so shallowly into: that of a routine and pre-packaged conformity.

But instead of being a just a reaction against reaction (and thus being forever linked) Public Image Limited was a blast of fresh air that raged wildly for their four-year tenure on Virgin Records. Few bands were as confident as straddling the immediate past of punk with the tools to re-ignite into a territory of unmapped wilderness. And fewer still could weather the challenges as confidently innovative as Public Image Limited. For example, the A‑side “Public Image”: a huge, fat bass riff repeats a cluster of tones beyond the infinity of repetition, the crashing drums that ram into it explode at a signal level far too high for its time. Lydon asks “Hello?” repeatedly until the dam busts and Keith Levene’s sharpened, gleaming guitar blows a hole in the whole thing with a circular buzz saw grinding set at the highest speed. And the indictments run fast and furious from Lydon’s mouth, the first being the most pointedly clear: “You never listened to a word that I said!!!/You only seen me for the clothes that I wear!!!” It’s stingingly perfect in its collected and re-directed fury; completely ahead of its time as it welded straight-ahead guitar thrash to dub bass and a bludgeoning drum pattern over Lydon’s incisive vocals in a something that, for all it’s diverse influences was no one specific genre. It was a singularity.

“The Cowboy Song” is a throwaway single that sounds like it was ALREADY tossed into the bin: the screech of a needle being ripped and torn back and forth across the surface of a record cuts in as the single begins. Then you hear Lydon in the studio tell the producer it’s so loud, they can’t hear the backing track. Ha; like they fucking even needed to, as they are preparing to scream and toss tambourines in the studio over a towering bass drive and general overall mayhem. The ludicrous “Thick As A Brick”-styled newspaper parody this single originally came wrapped in details the ‘lyrics’ (16 lines of “clipy ty clop/clipy ty clop/clipy ty clop”) but they do not appear on the single. Or if they do, they are drowned out by a deafening racket of multi-tracked screaming, talking and general pandemonium. The only distinct sound is that of the bass guitar of John Wardle (aka Jah Wobble) although it’s oddly un-dub and pre-set to ultra-strum. The lyrics should’ve been “Make it stop/make it stop/Make it stop” so that everybody who bought this single in 1978 could sing along. There’s also further stylus-scratching effects just to drive the rest of us up the wall. When the noise finally subsists, only Lydon’s coughing and sputtering of amphetamine-loosened phlegm can be heard — right before the record picks up after being trapped in the locked-groove for a revolution and a half.