Album: Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols
Year: 1977
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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.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #2186: Sex Pistols – “God Save The Queen”