John Lydon

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!

Listen, you know this: If there's not a rebellious youth culture, there's no culture at all. It's absolutely essential. It is the future. This is what we're supposed to do as a species, is advance ideas.

You need the past as a guideline. The history of music is a good basis, but to escape that stuff, that tortuous rulebook, you have to learn it first. It's kind of like religion - once you've written the Bible, that's it, move on.

Records were vitally important to the development of music and of all music cultures. With that being pushed by the wayside, I can't see an iPod uniting us. In fact it separates us, the streets are full of people bumping into lamp posts, listening to their own little universe, and there's no sharing in that.

I've always said, I thought the Sex Pistols was more Music Hall than anything else - because I think that really, more truths are said in humour than any other form.

Music can describe emotions far more accurately than words ever can. As soon as I realised that, I knew music was where I wanted to be.