Legendary Rock Songs: GOD SAVE THE QUEEN: SEX PISTOLS.
Theme: GOD SAVE THE QUEEN.
Disc:Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols..
Year:1977.
Along with their first single “Anarchy In The UK”, this ironic celebration of the 25th anniversary on the throne of Queen Elizabeth II of England released in March '77 put the Pistols in the eye of the storm and made them legends. The acid vision that the cheeky Johnny Rotten made of the “God save the queen” and the role of the monarchy in the socially disadvantaged England of the end of the 70's caused a scandal of capital dimensions in the British Isles. It meant the definitive boarding of the punk philosophy to the boat of the hypocritical established morality and the subjugation before the power. The revolution had arrived and the Sex Pistols were at the helm. Seeing the potential of the group, the house EMI had acquired their services, but was forced to get rid of them when the controversy that they began to carry overflowed all expectations and the group was a real affront to the unimpeachable honorability of the British record company, which decided not to tarnish its name or get into trouble even if the termination of the contract cost them 25,000 pounds.
Finally it was Virgin who dared to record their first and only album in life, preceded by this single, which they decided to release to coincide with the Silver Jubilee of his monarchic majesty. The song was a full-fledged controversial provocation, with Rotten spitting with his characteristic accent one criticism after another in a sarcastic tone and putting his finger on the sore spot with each new phrase. He was dedicated to the “Human” character of the queen, branded her reign as a “fascist regime” and all the monarchical paraphernalia as “demented parade”, affirming the little future of the English youth to continue being somehow governed by the monarch.
That repetitive “No Future” had soon become the hallmark of the whole punk movement and its social discontent. All this sung in a sour tone over dirty and direct chords that were a real breath of fresh air and a deconstruction towards the basics of the dominant coordinates of rock n' roll of the time. A return to the roots, to the vital youth pulse, to the spontaneity, the impudence and the going against the rules... the rock n' roll was born again renamed as punk.
From the cover itself, which has recently been chosen as the best in history by the British media, “God Save The Queen” was a full-fledged attack against the monarchical institution, for that picture of the queen covering her eyes and mouth with the name of the band and the song as a censorship; the same that the institutions applied to the band by forbidding them to play in English territory. As you all know, the Pistols went “over the edge” and rocked defiantly aboard a boat on the River Thames in London. Eventually the song was banned by the BBC and other major radio stations, which did not stop their unstoppable rise to the top of the British charts, where a blank space was left to avoid recognizing the Pistols' top position in the charts.
Even the British Phonographic Institute called the BMRB (British Market Research Bureau, responsible for making the ranking of music hits according to their sales), to manipulate the figures generated by the single in favor of “I Don't Want To Talk About It” by an already institutionalized Rod Stewar. Anyway, everybody knew who had been number one in England on the Jubilee weekend. And the “SEX PISTOLS” were a potential H-bomb.
Thanks for reading my people, and I hope you are all super well, here I leave this editorial on this subject which is one of the most legendary punk songs and especially of this band which is one of the most iconic in the rock music industry. I hope you like it, a thousand blessings.
