Released on October 13th, 1978, Public Image Ltd's debut single, Public Image b/w The Cowboy Song, turns 45 years old today. It's a single which could arguably be positioned as the cornerstone of post-punk.
After the chaotically spectacular implosion of the Sex Pistols on their first US tour in January of 1978, the music world was eagerly awaiting to see what frontman Johnny Rotten would conceive of as an encore. Few could have foreseen that he had far more in mind than merely "business as usual". The seed for that next step had actually been planted nearly two years earlier during a gig where the Pistols were playing with The Clash, when they were still a five piece with Keith Levene on guitar. During that gig, Levene and Lydon struck up a chat and vowed that, should they find themselves without their respective bands at some point in the future, they'd hook up for their own musical adventure. Sure enough, they were true to their word and, after John went on a sojourn down to Jamaica for Richard Branson to scout for reggae bands, the two started to put their new band together before the summer began to bloom. Finding the next piece of the puzzle was easy, with close friend John Wardle, renamed "Jah Wobble" by a slurring and drunk Sid Vicious, eagerly stepping up to play bass. The only thing left was to get a drummer, which they did via a music press advert where they eventually unearthed young Canadian jazz drummer, Jim Walker, to round out the quartet.
All four of these disparate souls were on the same page about one thing at least, and that was the kind of music they wanted to make wouldn't be a continuation of standard punk three chord thrashing. Keith had very different ideas about what a guitar could do and Wobble was very much looking to bring the depth of dub into the mix. Combined with the flexibility of Walker's drumming, it didn't take long for the fission of their talents to spark and the first flame they ignited was the song, Public Image. Lyrically, it was a snarling backlash aimed at his former band and manager, decrying their inability to appreciate what he was offering and only being concerned with his superficial presence. "You never listen to a word that I said, you only seen me for the clothes that I wear. Or did the interest go so much deeper, it must've been the colour of my hair."
The song is propelled by the subsonic throbbing of Wobble's insistent bass, bouncing off the gunshot impacts of Jim's powerhouse drumming. Filling out the space between the rhythm section and the searing vocals was a wall of harmonic chiming, shimmering and glistening guitar, as Keith shredded out myriads of harmonics from his Veleno aluminum special. It's a sound that was light years away from the "chug-chug" of punk bar chords, inspiring the later sounds of dozens of guitarists in bands like U2 and The Banshees. It was a clarion call, a siren, a great bell ringing and declaring a new approach to the instrument.
While the A-side of the single was laying foundation stones for musical futures, the B-side was content to be a prickly prank, demonstrating that PiL were not shy about spending Virgin Records money on a bit of nonsense. The Cowboy Song takes a galloping western drum & bass rhythm and then slathers it with incomprehensible caterwauling and the irritating noise of a record skipping and scratching, ending it all on a locked groove that repeats that noise indefinitely until the needle is ripped off the record. It's a juvenile joke which shows how young the band were, but I've always found it rather a good laugh, in the grand scheme of things. It showed that PiL didn't take themselves too seriously and could have a sense of humour about themselves and the music business.
That sense of humour was also reflected in the packaging, which featured the 7' single being wrapped like a piece of fish in a custom printed sheet of newspaper. The paper was a parody of the salacious gutter press, which had been stalking Lydon's career from the get-go. It feature lurid made up stories of the band members, with sensational photos and suitably garish typesetting. The whole package worked together brilliantly with the band's name, creating a meta-commentary on the music press while ripping its guts out in the song's lyrics.
The single was a significant hit in the UK, peaking at number 9 in November of that year. A promotional video was created for the song as well, recreating the PiL live set of the time with its green lighting and draped backdrop.
