Sex Pistols: Encyclopedia II - Sex Pistols - God Save the Queen

Sex Pistols - God Save the Queen

The band signed to A&M Records on March 10, 1977, in a ceremony outside of Buckingham Palace. They later went back to the A&M offices for a party, at which the Sex Pistols' unruly behaviour included Sid Vicious trashing the Managing Director's office and vomiting on his desk. As a result, A&M dumped the Pistols on March 16. On May 12, the Pistols signed their third and final record deal with Virgin Records, with the promise of total artistic control.

The group's second single, released by Virgin on May 27, 1977 was God Save the Queen, a stinging attack on the British Royal Family, and by extension the institutions of Britain, delivered in Rotten's trademark sneer. Coming at a time when deference to royalty was still a predominant trait in both the establishment and the country as a whole the record was quickly banned from airplay by the staid BBC, whose Radio 1 dominated music broadcasting at the time.

Nevertheless, in the week of Queen Elizabeth II's Silver Jubilee, the record officially reached number two in some UK charts (although the number-two spot was, tellingly, left blank in several listings, and many believe, with evidence, that the record actually reached number one, and that the charts were rigged to prevent such a spectacle). Meanwhile, the Sex Pistols decided to celebrate the Jubilee, along with the success of their record, by chartering a boat, upon which they sailed down the Thames, past Westminster and the Houses of Parliament, performing their live set. As usual, the event ended in chaos; the boat was raided by the police, despite being licensed for live music, and McLaren, the Pistols and most of their entourage were arrested and taken into custody. It was arguably all good fun and a great publicity stunt, but matters took a distinctly uglier turn when young punk followers of the Sex Pistols became victims of physical attacks in the street by 'pro-royalists', and Rotten himself was assaulted by a razor wielding gang of 'Teddy Boys' outside the Pegasus pub (which was a music venue at the time) close to Newington Green, Islington, who, it seems, didn't see the humour of the Pistols' antics. This delayed the tour of Scandinavia by a couple of weeks, which would have started at the end of June, but because of the attacks, it started in mid-July. This was followed by a secret tour of the UK at the end of August (known as SPOTS, Sex Pistols On Tour Secretly), when the band played under pseudonyms to avoid cancellation.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "God Save the Queen", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki