This Is Not A Love Song

On this song, Public Image Ltd. lead singer John Lydon takes the persona of a corporate fat cat, arrogantly explaining how he knows what's best. It is, of course, satire. Lydon rarely got on well with any of his corporate overlords and takes a dim view of big business. It's a theme that remained relevant decades later; in our 2015 interview with Lydon, he discussed the song. "Big business considers itself very wise, when in fact, it's not," he said. "It's a headless chicken of greed and selfishness and all of the things that make life for the rest of us unbearable."

Lydon came up with the title and concept for this track after someone at his record company asked him about writing a nice, marketable love song. This song was a response to that request.

PiL drummer Martin Atkins and guitarist Keith Levene wrote the music for this track, while Lydon supplied the lyrics. They recorded the song in 1982-1983 during sessions for the This Is What You Want... This Is What You Get album, but Levene left the band before the album was completed, and a new version was recorded for the album. This leaves two distinct versions of the song, best identified by which one has a horn section. The horn version is the one on the album (recorded without Levene), and issued as a 12" single in Europe and Japan - this is also the one edited down as a 7" single. The other version appears on the B-side of the 12" single as "Re-Remixed Version," and is the one used in the video. This version appears as "Love Song" on Commercial Zone, a 1984 album of recordings Levene took from the This Is What You Want sessions that he released without consent.