Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s … John Lydon in a Butter Commercial?

A few days ago we post­ed an exple­tive-laced let­ter that John Lydon, for­mer­ly known as “John­ny Rot­ten,” faxed to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006 to make it clear that the sur­viv­ing mem­bers of the Sex Pis­tols would have noth­ing to do with their induc­tion. “We’re not your mon­key,” he wrote. At least one read­er felt edi­fied. “Thanks JR,” he said, “for not sell­ing out.”

So we thought it would be a fun time to bring back Lydon’s 2008 com­mer­cial for Coun­try Life But­ter. The ad, which report­ed­ly net­ted Lydon a cool $8 mil­lion, plays on the incon­gruity between two very British things: the icon­ic punk rock­er and a rather bucol­ic-sound­ing brand of but­ter. The com­mer­cial places Lydon in a series of unchar­ac­ter­is­tic sit­u­a­tions — read­ing the news­pa­per in a gen­tle­men’s smok­ing room, wav­ing the Union Jack as the Queen’s motor­cade goes by, run­ning from cows in the Eng­lish coun­try­side — as he says to the view­er, “Do I buy Coun­try Life But­ter because it’s British?” Do I buy Coun­try Life because I yearn for the British coun­try­side? Or because it’s made only from British milk? Nah. I buy Coun­try Life because I think it’s the best.”

Lydon drew a great deal of crit­i­cism for his deci­sion to appear in the ad, but he has been stead­fast­ly unapolo­getic. “The advert was for a British prod­uct,” he told The Sun last year. “All Britain. Fan­tas­tic. We don’t seem to believe in our­selves as a coun­try any more. And I found great empa­thy with that. Plus it was the most mad­dest thing to con­sid­er doing. I thought it was very anar­chic of the dairy com­pa­ny to want to attach them­selves to me. And they treat­ed me with the utmost respect and I love them for­ev­er as it all allowed me to set up my record label and put out this record.”

Lydon was refer­ring to This Is PiL, the first album in 20 years from his post-punk band Pub­lic Image Ltd. He report­ed­ly used some of the mon­ey from the com­mer­cial to bring the group back togeth­er for rehearsals, record the album and launch their 2012 tour. “The mon­ey,” he said, “got us out of no end of trou­bles.” And any­way, Lydon has always had a sense of humor when it comes to the finan­cial demands of life. His 1996 reunion with the Sex Pis­tols was offi­cial­ly named the “Filthy Lucre Tour.”

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

John­ny Rotten’s Cor­dial Let­ter to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: Next to the Sex Pis­tols, You’re ‘a Piss Stain’

The His­to­ry of Punk Rock: A Doc­u­men­tary

The Art of Punk, MOCA’s Series of Punk Doc­u­men­taries, Begins with Black Flag

Mal­colm McLaren on The Quest for Authen­tic Cre­ativ­i­ty

Punk Meets High Fash­ion in Met­ro­pol­i­tan Muse­um of Art Exhi­bi­tionPUNK: Chaos to Cou­ture