John Lydon’s Handwritten Sex Pistols Lyrics Headed to Auction Block

John Lydon’s handwritten lyrics to the Sex Pistols classics “Holidays in the Sun” and “Submission” are headed to auction. The Pistols frontman wrote out the lyrics in green pen on opposite sides of the same sheet of paper, crossing out words and phrases and adding the discarded line “a cheap holiday in other people’s misery” on the top in pencil.

RR Auction estimates that the document will sell for a minimum of $80,000, but the highest offer is $30,800 at press time. It comes with a certificate of authenticity and a signed letter of provenance from music journalist Jon Savage, who collected the document during his research for his 1991 book England’s Dreaming: Anarchy, Sex Pistols, Punk Rock, and Beyond. The auction closes on November 21.

The lyrics were displayed at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame from 1996 and 2000 and were later shown at London’s Hospital Exhibition in 2004 and the Urbis PUNK: Sex, Seditionaries & the Sex Pistols exhibition in Manchester in 2005.

The Sex Pistols have been dormant since the conclusion of their 2008 European festival tour. Relations between Lydon and his three bandmates have been strained for years, but they hit a new low in 2021 when he sued them over the use of their music in the FX miniseries Pistol, which was based on the memoir of guitarist Steve Jones.

Earlier this year, Jones, drummer Paul Cook, and bassist Glen Matlock started performing across England with vocalist Frank Carter, billing themselves as Frank Carter and Sex Pistols. Lydon, meanwhile, is hitting the road next summer with his post-Pistols band Public Image Ltd.

The “Holidays in the Sun” and “Submission” lyrics are the spotlight item in RR Auction’s Marvels of Modern Music auction, which features over 400 items. Other highlights include a copy of With The Beatles signed by all four members of the band ($50,000+), Prince’s blue custom Cloud guitar ($60,000+), a 1963 Beatles Winter Gardens program signed by the entire band, and a signed copy of Queen’s A Night at the Opera.