Sex Pistols to rerelease punk hit 'God Save The Queen' to coincide with Platinum Jubilee
Watch: Sex Pistols rerelease God Save The Queen for jubilee
The Sex Pistols are rereleasing their anti-royalist hit God Save The Queen to coincide with Her Majesty's Platinum Jubliee.
The punk anthem was first released in 1977 at the same time as the Queen's Silver Jubilee, and despite being banned by the BBC and every independent radio station reached number two in the UK singles charts.
To mark the Queen's Platinum Jubilee in June - when HRH Elizabeth II will celebrate 70 years on the throne - 4,000 copies of God Save The Queen will be re-released through Virgin record, along with 1,977 copies of the rare A&M version.
The lyrics to the anti-authoritarian single - sung by John Lydon - called the Royal Family a "fascist regime".
Read more: John Lydon says he was 'completely ostracised' from Sex Pistols TV show
The song includes the lines: "She ain't no human being/And there's no future."
And other lyrics to the tune are: "We mean it man/We love our queen," and "Cause tourists are money/And our figurehead/Is not what she seems."
The track was famously kept off the top spot in the singles charts by Rod Stewart's I Don't Want To Talk About It, with rumours that the charts had been manipulated to prevent the Sex Pistol's anti-establishment anthem from reaching number one.
The Sex Pistols were arrested after they promoted the record on a boat trip along the River Thames.
The band's drummer, Paul Cook, has denied it was released to coincide with the jubilee.
He said "We weren't aware of it at the time. It wasn't a contrived effort to go out and shock everyone."
The band were dropped by their record label A&M at the time and released the single through Virgin records after signing a new deal.
The rerelease also coincides with the launch of Pistol - a biographical TV series about the Sex Pistols directed by Danny Boyle - on Disney+.
The six part show stars Anson Boon as Lydon, aka frontman Johnny Rotten, Louis Partridge as bassist Sid Vicious, Toby Wallace as guitarist Steve Jones, Jacob Slater as Cook and Christian Lees as original member Glen Matlock, who was replaced by Vicious.
The cast also includes Maisie Williams as punk model and actor Pamela Rooke, aka Jordan, Thomas Brodie-Sangster as their manager Malcolm McLaren, Talulah Riley as fashion designer Vivienne Westwood and Sydney Chandler as musician Chrissie Hynde.
The new trailer shows Boon as Johnny Rotten saying: "We're invisible, we're p**sed off, we're bored. So maybe that should be our image!"
While Brodie-Sangster as McLaren declares: "My vision for The Sex Pistols is one of dirt, danger and desire. Whether you can play is not a criteria, it's whether you've got something to say."
The series is based on Jones’ 2017 memoir Lonely Boy: Tales from a Sex Pistol.
But Lydon - who said he has not been consulted on the show at all - launched a legal case at the High Court to prevent the band's music from being used.
A judge ruled against him in August last year, saying that The Sex Pistols were able to green light the songs via a majority vote as per their written agreement.
The band formed in 1975 and split in 1978, but made waves in that time with the release of their 1977 album Never Mind the B*****ks, Here's the Sex Pistols.
Read more: Why the Sex Pistols were fired by their record label
The album has repeatedly been ranked as one of the greatest records of all time, appearing just behind The Beatles' classic Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band on a Rolling Stone list in 1987.
Pistol will debut in the UK via Disney+ and in the USA via Hulu on 31 May.
