PiL “Home”

Published On: January 31, 2019Tags: , , , , , , ,

PiL “Home” b/w “Round” 1986. Spinning a little Public Image Ltd today because it’s John Lydon’s birthday (b. 1956) and Home is where we’ve been pretty much stuck for the past week, with an almost-blizzard followed by sub-sub zero temps that have had schools and businesses (including bars!) closed for days and days. “Home” was the second and final single from PiL’s Album. It reached #75 on the UK charts and features Steve Vai on an extensive and rather virtuosic guitar solo, giving the song a borderline heavy metal feel (offset nicely, though, with Lydon’s sneer). The b-side “Round” is also on Album. It’s got a really groovy and experimental rhythm and a really lovely guitar melody line that recalls the other single from Album, “Rise.” (As an aside, I was reading a bit about Album on Allmusic, which is usually pretty great and accurate, and it credits PiL’s “Round” to a bunch of guys, none of whom were Lydon. I started clicking on their names and they’re all members of Jethro Tull. Tull’s song “Round” is an under-a-minute instrumental from their 1968 debut album This Was. Punk/post-punk, the Sex Pistols/PiL actively and purposely rebelled against the overworked, overwrought complexity of prog rock bands like Jethro Tull so I find the mistake amusing.)