A sheet of handwritten lyrics by the Sex Pistols frontman John Lydon has sold at auction for more than £50,000 in a special sale of memorabilia from the infamous UK punk band.
The page features original working lyrics to two of the band’s hit singles, Holidays in the Sun and Submission, which are believed to have been written by Lydon, known as Johnny Rotten, in 1977.
It was part of a private collection of artwork, posters and documents that were sold at Sotheby’s on Friday for £354,567.
Lydon’s lyrics for the two singles fetched £50,400, well above their estimated sale price of between £15,000 and £20,000.
The collection was assembled during the 1990s by the contemporary art dealer Paul Stolper and the critic Andrew Wilson, who was formerly the senior curator of modern British art at the Tate.
It highlights how the influential band led a revolution in popular music and culture in the 1970s under their manager Malcolm McLaren.
Another sheet of working manuscript of lyrics to No Feelings by Lydon sold for £44,100.
The Stolper/Wilson collection went to auction in London from 10-21 October after being exhibited at locations around the world including the Villa Medici in Rome, the Musée de la Musique in Paris and the Kunsthalle Vienna.
The collection also featured the work of artist Jamie Reid, whom McLaren met at Croydon School of Art in 1968 and who designed the band’s logo and their instantly recognisable cover art.
Reid’s God Save the Queen poster, owned by the late Sid Vicious, also secured a hefty sale price of £44,100.
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His torn union flag for the band’s first single Anarchy in the UK in 1976, held together by bulldog clips, and the official silver jubilee portrait photograph of the Queen “desecrated” in 1977 by a safety pin through the mouth and featuring ransom lettering reading God Save the Queen, were also included in the sale.
The story of the Sex Pistols’ high-octane and often tumultuous history was documented in the recent Disney+ drama Pistol, directed by Danny Boyle.
Last year, members of the band became embroiled in a high court legal battle after guitarist Steve Jones and drummer Paul Cook sued Lydon, to allow their music to be used in the series.
In a ruling, Sir Anthony Mann found the pair were entitled to invoke “majority voting rules” against Lydon in relation to the use of Sex Pistols material in the series, under the terms of a band member agreement.
