As previously reported on MusicFilter, John Lydon had this to say in response to the Brit Music Awards request for the Pistols to play and recieve a lifetime achievement award.

“I don’t wanna know. And yet again, I can tell you this, they haven’t approached us! Exactly the same scenario, they think they can just come along and use us. We’re not a prop. We were never anyone’s prop, right! I never did this for awards, and never will. I go along with what people vote. And that’s corporate, so not interested. If they find themselves in a dull arse predicament, it’s because they didn’t listen in the first place. All they had to be was honest. They’re just trying to gleam some kind of creditability, but through the back door! And unlike them, Johnny Rotten ain’t no backdoor Johnny! (laughs) The British Music awards, they’ve depended on arseholes for so long, and now the only person they can really blame for getting the music industry into a state of arseholes is themselves. It’s too late to come back here and go, “Oh, help us out.” They’re wasting their own time, and they’ve been doing that for a long time! (laughs) If they’re a lame duck it’s not our fault. Sorry, if you think your country is a lame duck, don’t come back to me, I told you this a long time ago. (laughs) I actually wrote something that meant something, and had a serious effect on society as a whole, and way people viewed things. That’s a lifetime achievement unlike any other pop band; and it’s not down to trivia. It just isn’t. So I’m not interested. Just not interested.”

Also read below for Johns involvement with The Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in New York……

“The Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in New York is gonna put up an exhibition and they want me to explain exactly what the lyrics of ‘God Save the Queen’ were about. Which is a good opportunity to actually get something right. They came to us, so I have a sense of responsibility towards that. But when you try to sneak it and squeak it through the newspapers, it isn’t gonna work.

John and his tartan Jacket, live USA 1978 It’s a museum that I do actually have some respect for, actually I love it. Been there many a time, it’s one of the highlights of New York for me. They’ve gone and got the bloke who used to put on exhibitions at the Victorian & Albert. It’s a British thing involving 17th and 18th century rooms, English style, authentic. And they’re gonna plonk a punk thing right in the middle of it; as the two sides of British culture I suppose. With ‘God Save the Queen’ – the song – being exhibited as the penultimate punk statement, by which all others fall by the wayside, you know. And quite right. It’s not silly words, and it takes a museum to realise this. A different approach to say, the British music awards or the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, so well interested in that.

I think it’s due to start May the 4th, but first I’m gonna give a little speech and they’re gonna broadcast that as you go in. You turn on your little radios or whatever. Then later on that evening it’s a fundraiser for a charity. It sounds very good, sounds like a huge laugh.

The fun of that night will be that Vivienne Westwood will be in the building! Yapping on about what a genius she is. (laughs) The problem for her will be that there will be an exhibition involving a real genius! (laughs) A real person. And not just a few bits of cloth sewn together. (laughs)

For me, it’s about the life you live, the words you speak, and the values you hold. And not how many buttons can fall off a jacket you badly put together! (laughs) And how much you charge for your supposed genius. Loose seams and buttons!

I’m gonna loan them MY original design, which was made by Vivienne,  of the tartan jacket which I wore on the first American tour. The bondage pants fell apart years ago, they rotted actually. (laughs) Quite literally rotted, but the jacket – moth holes and all – is still in existence. I love that tartan. I’ve never been able to get the tartan to do it again.”