Anger is an energy.
I was—and still am—a big fan of the punk movement of the mid-to-late 1970s. I was never a particularly big fan of the Sex Pistols. They helped ignite the movement, and I like several songs and movies associated with them, but most of their music never quite met me on the road. Still, the enormous attention they attracted helped lift punk’s other boats.
After the Sex Pistols broke apart, Johnny Rotten reclaimed his real name, John Lydon, and formed Public Image Ltd. PiL was stranger, more adventurous and ultimately much more interesting to me.
“Rise,” co-written by Lydon and producer Bill Laswell, arrived in 1986. Its lyrics were inspired by political violence in apartheid-era South Africa and Northern Ireland, but the message reaches well beyond either conflict. Lydon takes anger—his most recognizable natural resource—and argues that it can be redirected rather than allowed to become more violence.
The musicians surrounding him are extraordinary: Steve Vai on guitar, jazz great Tony Williams on drums, L. Shankar on electric violin and Ryuichi Sakamoto on synthesizer. Together they create something muscular, melodic and strangely uplifting. It is post-punk built on an arena-sized foundation.
And then there is Lydon himself, staring down the camera and apparently blinking only once during the entire video.
Anger is an energy. In “Rise,” it becomes a great song.