The Lost Album of the Sex Pistols: A Dreamlike Journey Through Noise, Punk, and Ghosts

I don’t know if it’s ever happened to you… but it has to me. Many times.

That dream. That damned dream. The one that feels like it’s finally going to give you the answer you’ve been looking for all these years. That moment where everything clicks, where everything makes sense… and just when you’re about to understand it all… you wake up!

And all you can do is stare at the ceiling, breathing heavily, whispering:

Why?

Why did I have to wake up at that exact second?

And yeah… this time, it happened again.

Here’s something you have to understand: dreams don’t follow normal logic. They take pieces of what we’ve lived, what we’ve seen, what haunts us. Things that stuck to us without us noticing. And they blend them in some kind of emotional blender to tell us a story that makes no sense… but is full of meaning.

So yeah… this time, I dreamt I was chasing someone. Like crazy. Johnny Rotten.

Yes, that Johnny Rotten. The one from the Sex Pistols. Now better known as John Lydon, frontman of Public Image Ltd.

In the dream, he had come to Monterrey.

And I was desperate. Chasing him like my life depended on it. Like I needed to speak to him at all costs.

Maybe in the dream, Lydon thought I was some kind of stalker. And I wouldn’t blame him. But after a long pursuit… I caught up to him. In a bathroom. Yes, a bathroom.

And I asked him, as politely as possible:

—John, can I ask you a question? Just one.

Picture that: me, speaking with all the respect in the world to Johnny Rotten,

one of the rudest, most unbearable punks to ever live. I was sure he’d tell me to f*** off, with his classic contempt. But I asked anyway.

—John, can I ask you just one question?

And strangely enough, he agrees. Politely.

—Of course, John Lydon replies… in a bathroom.

So I drop the bomb:

—John, if the Sex Pistols had recorded a second studio album… what do you think it would’ve sounded like?

And just as he’s about to answer…

BOOM!

The alarm.

I woke up in a rush of frustration and adrenaline. The first thing I did was open ChatGPT and ask it the same thing. I couldn’t be left with the doubt.

Though, to be honest… I didn’t really need AI. With a bit of punk memory, I could try to answer it myself.

The truth is, by 1979, when the Pistols collapsed, Lydon no longer had a say in the band. The power had shifted to Steve Jones and Paul Cook. He didn’t get along with them. And with Sid Vicious… forget it. They had gone from friends to sworn enemies.

If we listen to The Great Rock ’n’ Roll Swindle—that patchwork of a record, that Frankenstein stitched together from studio leftovers— there are some songs I like, sure…but many have no direction. No soul. No clue.

There’s Silly Thing, Lonely Boy, My Way.

Sung by Steve Jones, I think with help from Cook. Some are good… but they don’t sound like the Pistols.

The guitars, inspired by Chuck Berry, sound limp. They sound like something else.

And My Way… well, that’s a parody, a sketch, a bad joke. Sid Vicious was a dead end.

And that makes me think: if they had made a second album, it would’ve been a disaster. A directionless pastiche. Something completely disconnected from what they once were.

It’s worth remembering: Chris Thomas, the producer of several songs from the Beatles' White Album, was the true architect behind the sound of the Sex Pistols. They weren’t great musicians. But he made them sound powerful, sharp, unique.

Not even The Clash, not even The Damned, had that brutal production that turned Never Mind the Bollocks into a bomb.

Martin Hannett would do something similar months later with Joy Division. Hannett created Joy Division’s sound. Just like Thomas sculpted the Pistols'.

And honestly, I doubt Chris Thomas would’ve agreed to produce a second album. By then, Malcolm McLaren would’ve had even more control.

And what we saw in The Great Rock ’n’ Roll Swindle is exactly the kind of “direction” he had in mind: more circus than music. More show than substance.

But… what if the unthinkable had happened?

What if Lydon had stayed?

Because he wasn’t about playing the game.

Lydon wasn’t Chuck Berry. Lydon was Klaus Dinger, Peter Hammill, Lee Scratch Perry. He wasn’t going to tolerate those ridiculous recycled rock guitars.

And Sid Vicious? Sure, he had the look. The attitude. But musically, he brought nothing.

When they reunited in the 90s for the famous Filthy Lucre Tour, they brought back the original bassist: Glen Matlock.

He’s the one who actually wrote many of the songs. And Matlock was more into the Beatles and the Monkees than into the Stooges or MC5. His songs now sound like classic hard rock.

So the real question would be:

Would they have allowed Matlock to return and let Lydon take creative control?

Maybe not. Maybe Lydon would’ve brought in Jah Wobble, the bassist from PIL.

A guy just as technically limited as Sid… but way more disciplined. And that discipline allowed him, along with Keith Levene, to create a unique sound.

Public Image Ltd was something else. Dark. Experimental. Hypnotic.

A parallel universe to punk. An anti-rock ’n’ roll sound. An anti-Chuck Berry sound.

If Lydon got his way and brought in Wobble, the sound would’ve been more radical. Weirder. More dangerous.

A bit—just a bit—like the first PIL albums.

I imagine an album where, on one side, Lydon and Wobble push into the experimental…and on the other, Jones and Cook fight to keep a raw hard rock edge, like in that brilliant first album by The Professionals. And McLaren in the middle, pulling the strings like a puppet master.

The result?

A dysfunctional bomb with flashes of genius.

And what would it have sounded like?

Maybe like a cross between minimalist-era Wire and the krautrock-pop of the Buzzcocks. An impossible mix between the debuts of Public Image Ltd and The Professionals. Maybe—just maybe—with Chris Thomas as producer, by some miracle.

That could’ve been the Sex Pistols’ second album. An unstable cocktail. With glimpses of brilliance, sure…but probably doomed to collapse.

Would it have been a rebirth or a tragedy?

Art or trash?

Dreaming of an album that never existed…

sometimes says more about us than about the band. Like in a Steven Soderbergh movie, sometimes you’re chasing ghosts—

and sometimes, you are a ghost.