Hippies vs. Punks: Public Image Ltd

Some Hippies vs. Punks housekeeping is in order. There was a hiatus last Friday due to holiday travel. The last post, which appeared on May 17 and had been intended to deal with 1969 and the Aquarian Family Festival in San Jose that year, was stillborn as a result of a jarring encounter at the supermarket with an old girlfriend. Tonight, fortunately, my grocery shopping was without incident.

The post prior to May 17 was devoted to the Sex Pistols' final show, the debacle at Winterland in January 1978. I'd like to pick up Hippies vs. Punks tonight with the appearance of Public Image Ltd's first album, Public Image: First Issue, a year later, in December 1978. Track No. 2 on the album is "Religion I." Track No. 3 is "Religion II." A back-to-back bravura display of temerity. Who else but Rotten/Lydon?

Stained glass windows keep the cold outside
While the hypocrites hide inside
With the lies of statues in their minds
Where the Christian religion made them blind
Where they hide
And prey to the God of a bitch spelled backwards is dog
Not for one race, one creed, one world
But for money
Effective
Absurd

Do you pray to the Holy Ghost when you suck your host
Do you read whos dead in the Irish Post
Do you give away the cash you cant afford
On bended knees and pray to lord

Fat pig priest
Sanctimonious smiles
He takes the money
You take the lies
This is religion and Jesus Christ
This is religion cheaply priced
This is bibles full of libel
This is sin in eternal hymn
This is what theyve done
This is your religion
The apostles were eleven
Now theres a sod in Heaven

This is religion
Theres a liar on the altar
The sermon never falter
This is religion
Your religion

We know from the Friday night post of May 3 that at the time that Public Image: First Issue is released Bob Dylan is going through his conversion experience, accepting Jesus Christ as his personal Savior. As the bard of the Hippies is being Born Again, the poet of Punks is laying it out in audacious style. Religion is a lie. This encapsulates Hippies vs. Punks as well as anything: At the end of 1978 Dylan converts to Christian fundamentalism, and PiL's first album is released.

The retreat into religious fundamentalism is the very antithesis of the avant-garde. The rise of religious fundamentalism signals a retreat from intellectualism and rationality in public discourse. Scientific pursuit becomes yoked to profit-seeking as a generalized secular culture of exploration disappears. It is a truth-and-reconciliation process in reverse. Deceit and division are the hallmarks of fundamentalist religion. To deify one set of texts is nonsense. There is no one book. And let's assume there is just one book, whose interpretation of the book is correct?

My favorite sermon from Saved! The Gospel Speeches of Bob Dylan is one he gave on November 26, 1979 during his month-long run at the Warfield Theater in San Francisco's Tenderloin district:

Hmm. Pretty rude bunch tonight. You all know how to be real rude! You know about the spirit of the Anti-Christ? Does anyone here know about that? Ah, the spirit of the Anti-Christ is loose right now. Let me give you an example I got . . . somebody stopped by my house and gave me this tape cassette. There's many of them false deceivers running around these days. There is only one gospel. The Bible says, "Let anyone who preach anything other than the gospel, let him be accused." Anyway, a young fella stopped by my house one day and wanted to so-called "turn me on to" a -- I'm not going to mention his name -- he's a certain guru. I don't wanna mention his name right now, but he has a place out there in L.A. And he stopped by and he gave me this tape cassette to show me . . . (Audience: "Rock'n Roll!!") . . . If you want to rock'n roll, you go down and rock'n roll. You can go and see Kiss and you can rock'n roll all the way down to the pit! Anyway, let me give you an example: you wanna hear about this guru? (Positive response.) So. Anyway, this guru, he made a film of himself. He had one of these big conventions. He has himself a convention about once a month. Like, they go off to a big city. So, I took a look at this tape and sure enough he was having a big convention -- he must have had 5,000 people there, or 10,000 people there. 10,000 people. And what he was doing on stage was, he was sitting there with a load of flowers and things . . . He sure did look pretty though, kind of like on a throne, y'know? Listening to him talk on the tape, he said what life's about is life's to have fun, and I'm gonna show you how to have fun. And he had a big fire extinguisher and he would spray it out on the people, and they all laughed and had a good time. They took their clothes off. They were overjoyed to be sprayed by this man. And a little while after that, he's talking about his philosophy. And he said that he was God -- he did say that. He said that God is inside him and he is God. And they could think of him as God. I want to tell you this because they say there's many of these people walking around. They may not come out and say they're God, but they're just waiting for the opportunity. There is only one God. Let me hear you say who that is. Their God makes promises he doesn't keep. There are only two kinds of people like the preacher says -- only two kinds of people. Color don't separate them, neither does their clothes . . . (Rock'n Roll!) You still want rock'n roll? I'll tell you what the two kinds of people are. Don't matter how much money you got, there's only two kinds of people: there's saved people and there's lost people. Yeah. Remember that I told you that. You may never see me again. You may not see me but sometime down the line you remember you heard it here, that Jesus is Lord. Every knee shall bow!

Three days earlier, PiL had released Metal Box -- three 12-inch 45-rpm disks that blow apart not just the Hippies but the Punks too. With Metal Box we're on new terrain. But at least it's a way forward. Dylan, inviting those in his audience calling for "Rock'n Roll!!" to "go and see Kiss and you can rock'n roll all the way down to the pit!" had, like most Hippies, run out of ideas. He should have listened to "Poptones":