Public Image Ltd, "Home"

8 Days to Find a Home



Look at the chorus to "Home": "Better days will never be, home sweet home." Then remind yourself that this is PiL, which means John Lydon is delivering the message.

The rest of the song is as acerbic as one could expect the sometime Johnny Rotten to be, skewering warmongering politicians and world leaders but too deft to call them out by name, creating a message that is equally universal in 1986 and 2015. Like the best political artists, Rotten delivers revolutionary ideas with revolutionary music, his post-rock dance beats and free vocals landing as violently as his ideas. Steve Vai, the dizzyingly flashy guitarist then best known for his showmanship on Frank Zappa and David Lee Roth records, shows up to play metal guitar, but Rotten keeps him in check more than any of Vai's previous bosses. I wouldn't want to cross him either.