To many this song represents the horrendous nihilism which supposedly drove the punk movement: noisy and tuneless. To others it remains the paragon of rock 'n' roll excellence at a time when the music world had become both complacent and obsessed with material gain. Sex Pistol's drummer Paul Cook's claims that this song had nothing at all to do with the Queen's Silver Jubilee taking place in seem ingenuous to the point of perversity. But even if the band were being deliberately provocative this was no simple three-chord thrash. Behind the two fingered salute to the establishment was a social critique of a country which had fallen on hard times and was in danger of ignoring its younger generation.
BBC Radio 2 - The People's Songs - God Save The Queen
It was released as the band's second single and was later included on their only studio album, Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols. The record's lyrics, as well as the cover, were controversial at the time; both the British Broadcasting Corporation BBC and the Independent Broadcasting Authority refused to play the song, including a total ban of its airing by the BBC. The song reached No. This led to accusations by some that the charts had been "fixed" to prevent the song from reaching No. The single was released on 27 May , and was regarded by many of the general public as an assault on Queen Elizabeth II and the monarchy. The song's title is taken directly from the national anthem of the United Kingdom of the same name. At the time, it was highly controversial for its equation of the queen with a " fascist regime" and for the lyric "there is no future in England's dreaming".