John Lydon’s Handwritten Sex Pistols Lyrics Are Going Up for Auction

Just in time for the 47th anniversary of their sole album, handwritten lyrics for songs on the Sex Pistols’ Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols are up for auction.

Penned by frontman John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten), the lyrics are for the songs “Holidays in the Sun”, which opened the band’s 1977 debut, and “Submission”, which appeared as a standalone single with the record, and was included in later editions.

Though influential, Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols was not a chart success in the U.S, ultimately peaking at No. 106 on the Billboard 200 after 12 weeks on the chart.

The lyrics are penned in green and black ballpoint pen on both sides of the 8 x 13 sheet, which feature the full lyrics to “Holidays in the Sun” (written as “Holiday in the Sun”) on one side, along with the opening line, “A cheap holiday in other peoples misery”, added in pencil. The other side features green ballpoint lyrics for “Submission”, though Lydon had not yet added the title at the time of writing.

The sheet is presented in “fine condition, with three folds and general light handling wear”, and features a signed letter of authenticity, and one from music journalist Jon Savage, from whose personal collection the lyrics are derived from.

The letter notes that the lyrics were “collected during the research of England’s Dreaming, now regarded as the classic book on Punk Rock and that period (1975-79) in British social and political life”, and that “it was most likely written when the Sex Pistols signed a publishing deal with Warner Brothers in autumn 1977 and is an original from the collection of Jamie Reid that came into my possession during 1980”.

The lyrics themselves have been on loan to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland since 1996, where it has been “prominently displayed in the Museum’s Punk exhibit”, and has also been show at London’s Hospital Exhibition in 2004, and at the ‘PUNK: Sex, Seditionaries & the Sex Pistols’ exhibition at Manchester’s Urbis building in 2005.

The auction is scheduled to close on Nov. 21, and though 14 bids at the time of writing have seen the price reach $30,800, it is estimated to exceed $80,000 by the time the hammer falls.

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