On May 27, 1977, before the patriotic celebrations of the 25th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II’s accession to the throne, the punk group The Sex Pistols released an incendiary song that unleashed a storm of controversy and made them famous overnight. tomorrow.
The song, God Save the Queen (“God save the queen”), was a scathing criticism of the monarchy and the traditional political order it represented.
Accompanied by basic guitar beats, raw energy and fiercely caustic lyrics, it proclaimed that the queen “is no human being”, that the people “have no future” and that the United Kingdom was “a fascist regime”.
The album, and the timing of its release on the eve of the Silver Jubilee, appeared to be a direct challenge to the traditional reverence given to the monarch at the time. A few days later, The BBC was quick to issue a complete ban on the song. on their radio stations and TV channels.
The director of BBC Radio 2, Charles McLelland, classified the song as “a gross bad taste”while Labor MP Marcus Lipton denounced her, saying that “if pop music was going to be used to destroy our established institutions, then it should be destroyed first.”
Many chain stores, such as Woolworths, simply They refused to have the single in their inventory.
The Sex Pistols emerged as a part of the punk movement rapidly spreading across the UK in the mid-1970s, as the country struggled with economic stagnation and faced an unemployment crisis, electricity blackouts and simmering racial tensions.
With its spirit of improvisation and anti-authoritarian stance, punk was the answer to the boredom, social conformity, and alienation that many young people felt. The music that emerged articulated the hypocrisy they perceived of both the British ruling class and traditional culture.
Unabashed, rebellious and belligerent, The Sex Pistols were the embodiment of punk ethics.
Six months before the single’s release, in November 1976, one of those traditional institutions, the UK’s national broadcaster, the BBC, invited the band for an interview on its current affairs programme, Nationwide.
The station was interested in understanding the cultural movement that reflected the anger, frustration and disappointment which seemed to be prevalent among the country’s youth and which clearly concerned its older viewers just as much.
At the time, the band consisted of singer Johnny Rotten (real name John Lydon), guitarist Steve Jones, drummer Paul Cook and bassist Glen Matlock, who was later replaced by Sid Vicious. They were presented within a segment that was intended to familiarize the audience with what they described as “the cult of punk.”
“Well, it may not be the best rock ‘n’ roll in the world, but it is certainly the most controversial,” said presenter Lionel Morton’s narration with an evident disapproving tone and then warned viewers that a London newspaper had branded The Sex Pistols from “the most aggressive and unpleasant band ever seen.”
Their co-presenter Maggie Norden, who was actually much younger than the band’s manager, Malcom McLaren, also seemed to have difficulty understanding the attraction of so many young people to the East. visceral and nihilistic homemade rock and the group’s disdain for authority. He put it to McLaren that “they were more interested in chaos than anything else.”
“Well, that’s an accusation from people who don’t really understand what kids want,” McLaren responded.
“Kids want excitement, they want things that transform what is basically a very boring life for them right now, and music, young rock music, is the only thing they have, the thing they think they can control. And if you look at the chart, it really has nothing to do with that.”
“Despicable, petty”
Norden berated the band, stating that “they were trying to scandalize everyone,” in addition to considering their “outlandish” clothing. You asked Johnny Rotten if he was satisfied with the term punk, noting that it meant “despicable, mean.”
“The press put it on us. It’s her problem, not ours. We never called ourselves punk,” she replied enigmatically.
The presenter continued to question them about what was wrong with the bands from the ’60s that were still around, like The Rolling Stones and The Who, with whom she seemed to be most comfortable in terms of the sound of teenage rebellion.
Johnny Rotten dismissed them simply by saying, “They just don’t mean anything to anyone.”
“You have to destroy to create”
The program Nationwide from the BBC had also invited music journalist Giovanni Dadomo, who at the time wrote for the publications Sounds and ZigZag, to challenge the band.
He accused them of making “unoriginal” music. and called the Pistols’ attitude “boring.”
“Destruction by itself is, at the end of the day, dull,” said Dadomo. “You know it doesn’t offer any hope, it doesn’t really seek change. He’s just saying, ‘we don’t like this, we’re different, look at us.’
McLaren responded: “You have to destroy to create, you know well. You have to break it down and build it up again in a different way.”
It is unknown how sincere Dadomo was with himself and with his own perspective, given that the following year he would form and sing in his own rock band that he would call The Snivelling Shits.
McLaren remained adamant in his belief that the band would overcome the coordinated resistance of the music industry, media and political institutions, convinced that young people had the power to change public opinion.
“It won’t be a journalist, it won’t really be the music industry. He will be the kid on the street because he is the one who buys the record,” he stated.
“Does it matter if the album doesn’t sell?” Norden asked.
“There is no doubt that it will sell,” McLaren assured.
He was referring to the single with which The Sex Pistols debuted, Anarchy in the UK (“Anarchy in the United Kingdom”), which would reach number 38 on the British chart. That song would also be censored by the BBC after the band’s controversial appearance on the television show Today, which was full of swear words and descended into chaos.
On this occasion, however, the attempts to repress God Save the Queen They only served to boost his popularity. The album sold like hot cakes. in the stores that offered it, rising to second place on the chart. First place was denied, somewhat ironically given the veto, to a song titled I Don’t Want to Talk About It (“I don’t want to talk about it”), by Rod Stewart.
That generated accusations that the chart had been manipulated to prevent the Pistols from reaching number one, which was interpreted by the punks as further evidence of the efforts of the traditional establishments to silence dissent.
Violence against the gang
And despite all the questions asked during the interview in Nationwide, of the BBC, about dangerous behavior at performances by The Sex Pistols, it was members of the band or those associated with their songs who were subjected to violence.
After the commotion caused by the album, on June 19, 1977, Johnny Rotten and the song’s producers, Chris Thomas and Bill Price, were attacked with knives outside a pub in north London. The next day, the drummer, Paul Cook, was assaulted by six men armed with knives at the entrance to a subway station.
On June 7, less than two weeks after the release of God Save the Queen, the band hired a boat to sail down the River Thames and defiantly played the song as it sailed past Parliament House. The Pistols invited music journalist Allan Jones to ride on the boat and watch them play live.
“Naturally, when they played ‘God Save the Queen,’ that ship could have imploded. It was incredible,” he told the BBC in 2012.
But it wouldn’t last long. Police forced the boat to dock, which led to a fight and 11 people, including McLaren, were arrested.
The controversy and vetoes did not end for the band with God Save the Queen.
His first album Never Mind the Bollocks (“Don’t pay attention to stupidity”), released that same year, was also banned from major retail chains.
It also triggered a obscenity trial after the manager of the Virgin Records record store in Nottingham (central England) was arrested for exposing the “indecent printed matter” on the sleeve, which was created by designer Jamie Reed.
Three months after the album’s release, The Sex Pistols disbanded after a disastrous and chaotic tour of the United States.
But the group’s impact reverberated far beyond its brief existence, and God Save the Queenwith its torn musicality, It has not lost any of its power: remains the faithful representation of punk’s anti-authoritarian spirit.
“The song hasn’t lost any of its power over the years,” Jones told the BBC in 2012.
“The emotions behind the song, the sense of defiance, of rebellion are still completely relevant and will continue to play more exciting than anything else that’s on the billboard right now”.
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