Album: Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols
Year: 1977
. . .
While people might prefer “Anarchy in the U.K.,” because it was first, I think that the Sex Pistols’s finest rabble-rousing achievement is their second single, the incandescent “God Save The Queen,” which took the stakes set by “Anarchy” and raised them tremendously.
For one thing, it proved that “Anarchy in the U.K.” wasn’t a one-off, even if co-writer Glen Matlock had left the band, and it was one of the few recordings they let his replacement, the hapless Sid Vicious, actually play bass on. For another thing, while “Anarchy in the U.K.” was pretty self-aggrandizing, “God Save The Queen” both went after a specific target — and lord knows I would have loved to see an episode of The Crown about the royal reaction to this song — while somehow also telling an entire generation that they had, well, no future.
It starts with a rip-roaring near-rockabilly riff — with the guitars turned up to 94, of course — from Steve Jones, accompanied by Paul Cook smashing, rolling and building and after they establish the main riff, Johnny Rotten is off.
God save the queen
The fascist regime
They made you a morrron
Potential H-bombGod save the queen
She ain’t no human being
There is no future
In England’s dreaming
I mean. What can you even say about that? At this point Queen Elizabeth had been on the throne for a quarter-century, and the whole country was about to celebrate that fact, but instead Rotten is telling the punters that the Royals are fascists who aren’t human and who not only making you stupid — his trilling of the “r” in “moron” is gobsmackingly fierce — but stealing your future.
Of course written like that, it sound like a Doctor Who plot, and is crucially missing the amazing Steve Jones rhythm guitar part which basically responds to every single line. Not that Rotten gives a shit, he’s too busy continuing his rant.
Don’t be told what you want
Don’t be told what you need
There’s no future, no future,
No future for youGod save the queen
We mean it maaaaaaaaaaaan
We love our queen
God saves
Whoo boy, that’s some pretty heavy shit — the sarcasm just drips from the mic when Rotten sings “we mean it, maaaaaaaan” and given that the song was originally called “No Future,” you could posit that it wasn’t as much of an attack on the Queen as a person, but rather the Queen as symbol of a Britain that Rotten saw in deep decline.
God save the queen
‘Cause tourists are money
And our figurehead
Is not what she seems
Oh God save history
God save your mad parade
Oh Lord God have mercy
All crimes are paid
Or not. Either way, Rotten’s quick “hah” after he sings “our figurehead” is one of those details that once you hear, you can never unhear. Meanwhile, the rest of the Sex Pistols — even Sid! — are supporting Rotten’s ranting by staying on top of every word, every beat, every utterance. There’s even a cool stop-time part just before that verse, just to remind you that, oh yeah, there’s a band supporting all of this madness.
Meanwhile Rotten just keeps piling on, opening up the final verse with an absolutely chilling question.
Oh when there’s no future
How can there be sin?
We’re the flowers
In the dustbin
We’re the poison
In your human machine
We’re the future
Your future
Of course, he doesn’t do anything so gauche as providing an answer: “God Save The Queen” is all about raising the questions. Though I guess, now that I think about it, it could be posited as the reason that they needed anarchy in the first place.
But of course, you don’t have do all of that thinking about what it all means if you don’t want to — not when Steve Jones utterly storms through the late guitar break after the second chorus, building up to a repeat of the first verse, and of course yet another utterly smashing — and totally catchy! — outro. Everybody sing along:
No future
No future
No future for you
No future
No future
No future for me
No future
No future
No future for you
With Paul Cook setting up every single “no future” with a cool double smash of his snare drum & crash cymbal, the whole band singing in the background — I love how they come in just slightly late each time — and of course, Rotten’s howling “noooooooooo fuuuuuuu-tuuure” getting more and more desperate with each repetition, it’s also as chilling as it is catchy.
It’s fun to sing about how we’re all totally fucked!!!
And 45 years later, with the Queen alive, if not necessarily kicking, and environmental apocalypse seemingly imminent, yelling “no future for me” is still kinda apropos.
In any event, “God Save The Queen” was a massive smash in the U.K., making it to #2 on the official charts — and a lot of people thought that it was really #1 (where it landed on the N.M.E. charts, but the chartmakers couldn’t have something so subversive as the biggest song in the country), and sent the Pistols into a stratosphere of utter madness, where everything just got weirder and crazier.
“God Save The Queen”
“God Save The Queen” Video
“God Save The Queen” live in San Francisco, 1978
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