Johnny Rotten / John Lydon was and remains the first voice of British punk and yet consistently refuses to identify with punk as a subculture. In revisiting his observations on his career with the Sex Pistols and Public Image Ltd (PiL) in the 1976–1980 period, this article considers how ‘narratives of self’ enable us to gain insights into individual subjectivity and the (trans) formation of identity. Through this material we can investigate the role of Lydon's idiosyncratic cultural capital in his creative process. It is suggested that this investigation requires us to consider ideas of cultural continuity and flow in relation to Lydon, the creative contexts within which he operated and the relationship between progressive music, punk and post-punk in the 1970s.