Old punks don’t die, they just sell out: When I was a teenager hearing those lines spewing from the mouths of the now infamous Stern Brothers, I didn’t fully appreciate the significance of what they were saying. Regardless of what your interpretation of “sell out” is, or if you even care who does what with their lives and music, one thing remains true all these years later: Old punks don’t die, they just sell out.
And while your digesting thoughts of famous punk musicians who have gone onto use their iconography to help attain commercial success hawking weird products, we present you with one-time anarchist John Lydon helping push Country Life butter in this English spot. According to a story in The Guardian UK, the campaign marks the first time the 52-year-old has appeared in a TV commercial.
“People know I only do things that I want to or that I believe in and I have to do it my way,” said Lydon on deciding to appear in the TV ad. “I’ve never done anything like this before and never thought I would, but this Country Life ad was made for me and I couldn’t resist the opportunity.”
Our guess is that money had something to do with the irresistible nature of the opportunity, but before you judge Lydon for saying something as ridiculous as, “It’s not about Great Britain, it’s about Great Butter,” even doing a butter commercial can’t come without controversy for the old punk. As also reported by The Guardian, Dairy Crest – the maker of Country Life Butter – has just announced that it is seeking job cuts and could close its Nottingham dairy. So we’ll pretend like he’s actually doing it to help save jobs and not feel as guilty about taking pleasure in seeing this.
