The vocalist John Lydon also known as Johnny Rotten was born in Finsbury Park, London, England back in 1956 and started his musical career in 1975, as a founding member of Sex Pistols. The band only released one album in 1977 but it was really enough to change the course of music forever. Although they were not the ones who invented Punk Rock, they really defined that music genre. Because they showed that it could be stronger than it was. It wasn’t only the sound, it was the lyrics, the message that their songs had that made them really become as big as bands who released many other famous records.
Over the decades Lydon reunited a few times with Pistols but mainly focused on his own successful band called Public Image Ltd, or simply PIL. Besides being known as an amazing frontman, the musician is often recalled for being quite sincere about other artists. But he curiously loves some musicians who you probably wouldn’t guess. One of them is the unorthodox pop singer Kate Bush.
What is John Lydon’s opinion on Kate Bush
Lydon already said many times that he actually doesn’t like The Beatles, for example, but he absolutely loves Kate Bush. He had the chance not only to praise her but to meet her at the Q magazine Awards 2001. He surprisingly praised her during his speech, saying: “One person I would like to say hello to is Kate Bush. I love you, your music is fucking brilliant.” Afterwards, in an interview with Q magazine, the musician explained why he loved her so much. According to him, he also felt connected to her because people criticized her in the beginning of her career for her singing just like they did with him.
“Kate Bush is a true original. It’s not nice that she’s been imitated Torrid Aimless, sorry Tori Amos. But Kate Bush is a genuine talent. She went through the same shit I did when she started: ‘Oh, that’s not singing’. Who the fuck wrote the rules about music?”
He continued:
“Why follow this slavish idiocy? Actually, that was the difference between me and Glen Matlock. He thought music ended when Chuck Berry declared that rock n roll was four to the bar. For me, it’s 22 of my mates at the bar,” John Lydon said.
Bush’s success started at the age of 19 when she topped the UK Singles Chart for four weeks with her debut single “Wuthering Heights”. With that song, she became the first female sartist to achieve a UK number one hit with a song she wrote all by herself. She curiously got a record deal with EMI after Pink Floyd‘s David Gilmour helped to produce a demo tape for her.
Her debut album “The Kick Inside” was released in 1978 and in the following decade she released six more successful albums. In the 90s she released only “The Red Shoes” in 1993 and then her most recent ones are “Director’s Cut” (2011) and “50 Words For Snow” (2011).
Some of her most famous tracks are “Army Dreamers”, “Babooshka”, “Wuthering Heights'” and “Cloudbusting”. But her most famous song is certainly “Running Up That Hill”, a track that experienced a huge resurgence a few years ago after being featured in the famous Netflix series Stranger Things.
Another famous song featuring Bush is the Peter Gabriel track “Don’t Give Up”. That track was released on Gabriel’s successful 1986 album “So”.
John Lydon said that her singing fits although it seems absurd
John Lydon praised her many other times, like when he was interviewed for the documentary “BBC Queens of Pop” in 2009. “(Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage) I remember my mom, God rests her soul. When she first heard Kate Bush she said ‘Holly jolly, it sounds like a bag of cats’ (laughs). At first it seemed absurd, (she singing) way up there, but no, it fits. She supplies me with all the clues and it’s up to me to put the answer together.”
“Well, that’s like the Quran of music. Surely that’s what we’re all looking for? No easy answers to anything. It’s not about rolling in the money. It’s about the joy of knowing that what you’ve done really touches people’s hearts,” John Lydon said.