The Sex Pistols and God Save the Queen Quiz

Answer: On a boat on the Thames River

The band members maintain that "God Save the Queen" was not written with an eye toward releasing it during the Silver Jubilee. It had in fact been performed since November of 1976, though under the title "No Future." But clearly the timing of the official release of the single in late May 1977 and the performance on the Thames on June 7th were done with full knowledge of the Jubilee.

The owner of the boat had been tricked into allowing the event. When he realized what was going on, about the time the song was ending, he cut off electrical power and docked.

The police were waiting and arrested 11 people, including Malcolm McLaren, the band's manager.

Answer: fascist

"The fascist regime," one of the most controversial lines in the song, immediately set the tone for the harsh diagnosis of England. The context is key: England was a declining power. The economy was bad with unemployment and few prospects for many in the population.

There was the IRA problem, and internal terrorists. Yet it was Queen Elizabeth's Silver Jubilee, and England was putting on a good show. The Queen even said that England could show the world the way to move forward. In the midst of this celebration, the Sex Pistols released a song that simply exploded the good face England was trying to put on for the world.

Answer: Virgin

On March 10, the Sex Pistols entered into the two year contract with A&M Records. The band was available for signing because EMI had dropped the band after three months of a two year contract. A&M and the band had decided that "God Save the Queen" would be the first single released, and 25,000 copies had been produced.

Then, much as with the EMI deal, the band's crude behavior and violent attitudes immediately created a problem. Indeed, the very day of the signing was marked by fights, drunkenness, and trashing of the A&M offices. Within a week, A&M believed it had made a mistake, paid the band the remainder of their upfront money, and voided the contract.

The 25,000 singles and the masters used to produce them were destroyed. (Evidently, a few of the pressings survived, and today are highly prized collectibles.) But two months later, Virgin Records signed the Sex Pistols, and released "God Save the Queen."

Answer: England's dreaming

Jon Savage's "England's Dreaming: Anarchy, Sex Pistols, Punk Rock, and Beyond" was published in 1991, with an update in 2001. It has been hailed as the "definitive history of the English punk movement" by the New York Times Book Review. Covering eight years, 1971 to 1979, it details the story and the context of the Sex Pistols and punk. Folding in music, personalities, fashion, politics, and culture, the book is one of the essential histories of that era.

Answer: Title over the Queen's eyes; band name over her mouth

The song's title, "God Save the Queen," was written in ransom note style lettering across the Queen's eyes. The band's name, "Sex Pistols," covered her mouth, in the same style. The cover art was designed by Jamie Reid, an anarchist and Situationist artist from the U.K. Reid also designed the cover artwork for other Sex pistols' songs and also their studio album, "Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols." Rolling Stone magazine named that album cover as number 2 in its list of the best album art of all time.

The single cover art for "God Save the Queen" was rated number 1 of all time for records by Q magazine. You may also have seen the alternate cover Reid designed, with swastikas over the Queen's eyes and a safety pin through her lips.

Answer: no future

The phrase "No Future" captured the growing unrest and resentment, and reduced prospects, of many working class youth in England in the late 1970s. It was not just economic. Political unrest in the world and domestically was a large part of it. England's role as an ally of the U.S., with the attendant military presence, was also part of the feeling.

As for the song, "No Future" was the original title and one that Johnny Rotten preferred to "God Save the Queen." Malcolm McLaren, the band's manager, prevailed of course.

Answer: Steve Jones

The original bass player for the Sex Pistols was Glen Matlock, a talented musician who is given songwriting credit along with Johnny Rotten, Steve Jones, and Paul Cook for 10 of the 12 tracks on "Never Mind the Bollocks," including "God Save the Queen." By most accounts, Matlock and Jones were the key writers of the music and Rotten of the lyrics.

He clearly played bass during performances of "God Save the Queen" (including when it was called "No Future") until his departure from the band in early 1977. Sid Vicious, a notoriously bad bass player, was the live performer of the song after that, including on the Thames boat trip.

But Vicious was so bad that he was discouraged from taking part in the recording of the Bollocks album, and lead guitarist Steve Jones ended up filling in the bass parts for the album tracks.

Answer: flowers in the dustbin

"We're the flowers in the dustbin, we're the poison in your human machine." Those are wonderfully evocative lyrics, part signaling frustration at being marginalized, and part signaling the potential for danger to society. Flowers, representing the working class youth of England, that should be seen as full of life, a symbol of beauty and hope, but cast aside, ignored, thrown into the trash.

At the same time the verse sends a message that if the British system continued to fool itself and ignore the situation of the youth and their future, that system was therefore ignoring a toxin within. And in fact, the widespread attention received by "God Save the Queen" along with the earlier "Anarchy in the U.K.," had visible and substantial effects on the culture and politics of the time.

The nation was forced to stop ignoring this youth movement of anti-consumerism, anti-status quo, and mild to moderate anarchism. Inevitably such a movement failed, but its strength at the time forced tensions to be made visible and explored. Frustrations now had a method of expression.

Answer: Number 2 in the BBC's U.K. Singles Chart

The sales position of "God Save the Queen" has been argued back and forth for decades. Officially it placed #2 on the BBC's Singles Chart for the U.K. It clearly rose to #1 in the NME (New Musical Express) singles rankings. There have been reasonable-sounding arguments that the BBC rankings were distorted by pressure from the government and others, to keep the song from placing #1 and being an embarrassment to Britain.

The remaining Sex Pistols themselves firmly believe there was manipulation. However, there are counter arguments that because the BBC rankings depend in part on store sales from selected outlets, and since many of the mainstream outlets were refusing to sell the single, the BBC chart may have simply reflected that fact.

Much of the sales of "God Save the Queen" were due to word-of-mouth publicity and from "negative" stories in the press, and were accomplished through non-traditional sales venues.

Answer: That's a laugh.

In an interview for the DVD on the making of "Never Mind the Bollocks," John Lydon (Johnny Rotten) was asked about his writing of "God Save the Queen." His reply was "I went down and had a cup of tea and wrote it, and said to myself 'That's a laugh; I'll try and sneak that one in.'" He and the other band members were adamant that the song does not express their hatred for the Queen or for England, but rather the exact reverse. Their message was that they loved England and were protesting its direction and the oppressive culture felt by them and much of the working class, youth and adults alike.

Despite Lydon's wondering if he could sneak those lyrics by, the song has become an immortal symbol of the punk movement in England and the world. It's been selected as one of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time (#173) by Rolling Stone magazine. In 2003, it placed third on Q Magazine's list of "100 Songs That Changed The World."