John Lydon Song Quotations

I'm aware of my songs. I'm aware of them because they're about true emotions, true feelings, things that matter.

There are some Rolling Stones songs that are just stunners.

There's many, many ways to write a song. But generally, sitting down at a table and writing is not one of them.

You have moments of grief in life, and if you can put pen to paper and capture that, that's something wonderful. I can revisit actual songs about past deaths, and I know that emotion is as true now as it was then.

As a young concert-going person, I was never enamoured with celebrities who would walk out to feature in certain songs and then walk off.

I love pop music. It's not easy to write a good pop song. It may be easier to put out a fake jazz album, as Sting does from time to time.

Some song ideas absolutely require a kind of rigid discipline, and others require absolute chaotic abandon. The form is only valid if you know how to un-form it. I don't mean to sound like an intellectual here!

I've been asked over the years to compile a list of desert-island discs. I couldn't do that. If I was trapped on a desert island, I don't think I'd want 10 songs to bring with me.

I don't believe in false memories, like I don't believe in false songs.

I'm not able to tell you what the best song is yet, because there's more to come. I feel that in me. I can still feel the burning energy and the desire to create and create and create.

I love pop music. It's not easy to write a good pop song.

I'm not blowing my own trumpet here, but I made a rap song 20 years ago with Afrika Bambaataa.

U2 - that's a band that never should have existed. There's no life experience in any of their songs.