John Lydon, vocals: I was very vulnerable. I was facing endless legal nonsense from McLaren, and I had nowhere to live, and I was flat fucking broke. Changing my name back to Lydon was to deal with McClaren’s lawsuit. He wanted to continue using “Johnny Rotten” under different guises, and I wouldn’t allow that to happen. The pressure was relentless. But I wasn’t going to go back to a no-hope council flat and let the bastards beat me.

Jah Wobble, bass: Look at reruns of The Sweeney. That’s what 1978 was like. Corrugated iron, poor-looking. Post-war. It was the real fag-end of punk up the King’s Road. It was bad-tempered and macho, with fascist skinhead losers drinking cider. As a reaction, we wore suits, had a bit of flair. I never did like punk.

Lydon: When I finally got back to England, I decided to form a new band. I did so with Jah Wobble, a life-long friend, and Keith Levene, who we’d met on tour with the Sex Pistols when he was in The Clash. It was friends together. We got Jim Walker on drums, a very strange personality, but he could play. The first thing I wanted was to not sound the same as the Pistols. And after the first 20 minutes in a rehearsal room, we knew damn well we weren’t going to.

“Public Image” came out of a lovely little jingle, messing about in the studio early on, that we all hooked into. The title came from a Muriel Spark novel, about a movie star going mad with egotism, and what can happen to you if you don’t control your public image. I understood the victim’s role, and how you can inflict damage on yourself far greater than anyone else can. The band-name came from the song. We weren’t sure we even wanted a name. We chucked the “Limited” on the end to say we were curtailing public drunken druggery.

It was done more or less instantly. A couple of quick rehearsals, then straight into recording. The first days in the studio were exhilarating. Which I never felt with the Pistols, ’cos we were under so much pressure and confusion. With PiL, we all went into it with an open mind, and the song shows it. We could go right into everything to the furthest degree. I felt fear. With the shackles off, did I have the talent to match the freedoms offered? Are you making a fool of yourself here? I’d talk to myself like that.

Wobble: The first few months of PiL were deliriously happy, and you can hear it in “Public Image” – it’s a major-key pop song, a Zulu, African tune. I was like a fucking prize fighter coming out of the corner. It was the first bassline I ever did, and what I do now is still based on it – open strings, notes rather than chords. It’s between major and minor, and there’s root-notes and some other notes that make sub-tones with the root-note, thank you very much. The bass is three-quarters of the signal on that record. I just put it down, nobody told me anything. We all did our parts. It was an extremely democratic single.

Lydon: The previous year was consistent hell. I was being put on the chopping block for no right reason. The lyrics tell you an entire story about that. Every line means something. “You got what you wanted, my own creation, my grand finale and my goodbye”. It’s also my hello. Everybody had their words to say about me, but nobody asked me how I felt. This is it. It’s not defiant. It’s an explanation. Here’s the truth. Because I can’t afford to lie. I’m a human being. That’s hand on heart, in the law-court, telling it how it is, your honour. I am innocent.

Wobble: It set his world to rights, he was full of righteous indignation. “Two sides to every story!… Somebody had to stop me!” There was all this fucking rage that had built up over a year or two.

Lydon: They couldn’t understand my sleeve artwork [designed by Dennis Morris], because I wanted it to go out in a raggy old newspaper. Which is vital to the message – it was through the media I was being shredded. And so here it is, a public image for you. Look – we can all play that game.