(Credits: Far Out / Check It Out)
Wed 24 December 2025 10:51, UK
Since John Lydon first burst onto the scene in 1975 as the Sex Pistols leader Johnny Rotten, he has insulted, ridiculed or discredited countless artists.
The outspoken frontman always seems to have an opinion to share, and in 1988, it was Bruce Springsteen who was in Lydon’s crosshairs.
During his time with the Sex Pistols, Lydon was no stranger to controversy. A banned number one single, cancelled tour dates and a scandal resulting in swearing on national television appeared to be the norm for Johnny Rotten. After forming the pioneering post-punk group Public Image Ltd, Lydon was keen to keep up his reputation as the angriest man in music.
Over the years, everybody from Donna Summer to his own Sex Pistols bandmates have faced the wrath of Lydon. His 2014 autobiography, Anger is an Energy, reads like a list of musicians he despises, with the occasional bit about how he wrote ‘God Save the Queen’ or why he decided to advertise butter. Notable highlights from the frontman’s decades-long tirade against any musician that isn’t him include calling Marky Ramone a “daft c*nt”, dubbing Courtney Love “a cheap fake”, and boldly declaring that he “gave Joe Strummer a career when he was a tosspot”.
Through appearances on television, in magazine interviews, and even on stage, Lydon has taken every opportunity to tear down his contemporaries. In a 1988 appearance on ITV’s ‘Video View’, his target was the American rock icon Bruce Springsteen. Over the course of the show, the PiL frontman and photographer Dennis Morris were meant to share their views on the music videos of the day. Among those videos, in addition to a cringe-inducing section in which Lydon is discussing Kyle Minogue’s chest, was one for the John Illsley track ‘I Want to See the Moon’.
John Lydon as Johnny Rotten with the Sex Pistols. (Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
Unsurprisingly, Lydon and Morris didn’t enjoy the track by the Dire Straits guitarist. It is fairly unimaginative, generic late 1980s rock music. Analysing the video, the pair said that, whilst they enjoyed the shots of the moon, the video in general “felt like adverts, clothes adverts”.
Speaking on the song itself, Lydon asserted, “I don’t like that Bruce Springsteen type of noise”.
While comparing the track to Springsteen might be guilty of giving it too much artistic credit, he continues, “I just find it really boring. You know, when they’re just telling this banal story that you’re not very interested in”.
Although Lydon’s apparent hatred for story-based songs does write off a great deal of influential folk and blues music, without which rock ‘n’ roll and, by extension, punk music would not have happened, it is not particularly surprising. The Sex Pistols and PiL frontman has always tended to favour short, sharp and confrontational lyrics as opposed to anything particularly narrative.
However, his complaints about Springsteen being “really boring” might just be backed up by a story he once told on the radio in New York about how Springsteen had once attended one of Lydon’s gigs before leaving in offence after the frontman cracked a joke on stage. Although, like a lot of the stories Lydon tells, the account of Springsteen storming out of his gig is disputed, the frontman’s views on the banal quality of storytelling music remain.
Did Bruce Springsteen like punk?
Emerging at a similar time to the explosion of punk rock, Springsteen could have been yet another rock artist who rejected the genre. But, quite to the contrary, Springsteen was a massive fan of the new sounds that emanated out of New York and London.
While he certainly loved Ramones, Springsteen had some sincere affection for The Clash frontman, Joe Strummer. “I ran into Joe in a bar in LA in 1990. What a guy. We were from very different backgrounds. But singing I think from the same hymn-sheet… Like Johnny Cash, he went out on a high. I really miss having Joe around.” Springsteen also wrote in 2022 on what would have been Strummer’s 70th birthday, “Joe Strummer, my great, great departed friend and brother that I never had. You have been my inspiration for the past 40 years. Happy birthday, brother. God bless you.”
Related Topics