Wealth & Money Quote by Johnny Thunders

Johnny Thunders’ line lands like a cracked smile in a backstage mirror: defiance first, then the bill. “I wouldn’t change a thing” is the classic rock-myth posture, the tough-guy refusal to regret the wreckage. Coming from Thunders - New York Dolls flameout, punk icon, chronic self-saboteur - it’s not a motivational poster so much as a dare. He’s insisting the chaos was the point: the songs, the speed, the scorched relationships, the legend.

Then he undercuts himself with “except my bank balance,” a punchline that turns bravado into a confession. The joke isn’t just that he was broke; it’s that the romantic story of the artist who “pays in blood” is only cute until rent is due. Thunders uses money as a proxy for everything the punk era pretended not to care about: stability, health, leverage, the ability to opt out instead of being trapped by your own mythology. It’s a sly admission that authenticity doesn’t cover hospital bills.

The intent feels double: keep the myth intact while letting a sliver of reality show. He’s not apologizing for the life, but he’s puncturing the fantasy that self-destruction is somehow pure. In a scene that marketed anti-commercial purity while feeding a music industry machine, the line reads as both a shrug and an indictment: you can burn bright and still get exploited, and the legend rarely collects the royalties.