Joe Strummer 20 years gone 22 Dec 2022

Twenty years ago…how did that happen. I had broken up for Christmas and was going for my first
lunchtime session of the holidays, glad at last to be free from my office for a week or so. Pretty much
as soon as I entered my local a friend, Scott, asked “Have you heard?”.
“Heard what?” I said
“Strummers dead, but it might be a rumour, I haven’t seen it on the news or anything” he replied.
“He can’t be dead” I thought and clung to the possibility that it was indeed just a rumour. Nobody
else made mention of it so as the afternoon wore on I was pretty certain, yeah it’s a mistake, but I
better get home in time for the news, just incase.
And I did.. and bang it was true. I’ve never felt devastation of loss for someone I’ve never met but I
came pretty bloody close at that moment. Shock, sadness, loss and a huge feeling of being cheated.
Cheated out of future music, not just music, soundbites, wisdom, just knowing Strummer was about
somewhere and doing fine, a friend I hadn’t met.
So anyway, I composed myself and told the missus I was going to the pub and might be a while. I
kind of was. I hooked up with a few mates who were doing the same as me, just wanting to find
someone else to talk to, who’d understand, who wouldn’t think we were stupid feeling the way we
did. The evening wore on and Jeff the landlord bless him, let me stay late and we yarned, cried and
laughed at stupid Christmas rubbish and I weaved home quite sometime after I should have.
The missus was not happy. Didn’t speak to me most of Christmas Eve which was a strain as we were
at my parents….She just couldn’t get my need to be with friends, the fact that this guy dying
mattered to me…As I look back now with Rose tinted testicles – I think that was the beginning of the
end for her. Never mind.

Wonder what the reaction will be when Lydon goes?🤔

I reckon Lydon's legacy will be null and void.

As for Joe Strummer. To be honest, it didn't really affect me at all. It's conjecture but it'd be interesting to see what he'd be doing now and what he'd think of the modern, digital world?🤔

No,he's part of the reason why we wouldn't be here. 

Without Cook, Jones, Matlock and McLaren he wouldn't be in the Pistols.

His legacy-if he retains one-will be as a caricature who 'sold out'.

A joke figure and the gift that keeps giving.

A spectacular own goal and he's given his detractors plenty of ammunition.👍

^That's naive to say the least.

Given the passage of time when his influence on music was quite strong(45 years and counting)and his demise in the future, he's been viewed a lot differently.

The past is pretty vague for a lot of people and only his ardent arselickers and sycophants see him for the person he was then possibly because they hold the same right views as him now.

A lot of these people obviously have mental health problems if they can't see the distinction between young Johhny Rotten and aging John Lydon.

Times change and people evolve and some evolve for the worse.

I've no sympathy whatsoever for Lydon. He thinks he's bigger than his legacy and now he has none.

Well, journalists are always right aren't they?

Look at Vivienne Westwood for example, punk was a footnote in her career and as Lydon's so called legacy wanes and becomes even more tarnished the caricature aspect of what Lydon became will come into focus more, not any lucidity or value that he may have had to you, me or anyone else.

Let's be honest he hasn't really made a decent record since around 81 and if you asked most people today about the music of PiL, they wouldn't have a clue.

Queen loving, butter promoting sellout who courts the company and orbit of Piers Morgan and Nigel Farage is how many people view Jimmy Rotten these days.