What does God Save the Queen mean?

Sex Pistols: God Save the Queen Meaning

Album cover for God Save the Queen album cover

Song Released: 1977


God Save the Queen Lyrics

God save the queen
The fascist regime
They made you a moron
Potential H-bomb

God save the queen
She aint no human being
There is no future
In England's dreaming

Don't be told what you want
Don't be told what you need
There's no...

  1. 1TOP RATED

    #1 top rated interpretation:
    jim morrison
    click a star to vote
    Jun 18th 2005 !⃝

    1977, the queen's jubilee marked 25 years on the throne, to many the royal family already felt like a waste of money and a drain on the country's resources. Released as a single with a picture of the queen with a pin through her nose, the song was banned for a short while. When they went out and played it on the river during the jubilee itself, they were arrested. The song is pure punk and very Johnny Rotten. "God save the queen, 'cos tourists are money, and our figurehead, is not what she seems, God save the Queen, we mean it man! There is no future in England's dreaming."

  2. Reverend_Mother
    click a star to vote
    Sep 30th 2020 !⃝

    GOD SAVE THE QUEEN

    I had been 13 years old for barely four weeks when this song was released. A troubled kid on a bad working class estate.

    My best friend had committed suicide September 1976 age 12 yrs. Threw himself off a tower block.

    My so-called father was the worst alcoholic reprobate in Newcastle and brutal to myself and my mother when at home.

    School was hell due to poisonous masculinity and homophobia and the fact that I knew I was trans and was attracted to boys I knew and some male teachers and especially David Bowie.

    This was the UK for many of my generation.
    Hell even before thatcher.

    I was attacked on several occasions once with an iron bar by local yobs. The only reason I wasn’t killed being that the local street gangs leader was fond of me and gave his protection. Another boy was thrown off the local bridge by those same thugs.

    When I was 15 I visited Consett steel works for a work experience but by the time I left school a few months later the works had been not only closed but been bulldozed into the ground despite it’s accounts being well into profit and it’s order book full for several years.

    In 1977 we were all gathered in our school hall and given a blue pouch with a coin for the jubilee. The majority of these ended the day in the till of the local sweet shop.

    We were told we had the next day off school but MUST go to central Newcastle to cheer for the queens visit.

    I was belted with the strap/tawse that dinner time for saying Fuck the Queen.

    I was strapped two days later for NOT going and saying that the old cow was lucky I didn’t attend since if I did I would have thrown a petrol Bomb. At her.

    So The Sex Pistols
    God Save The Queen

    Really meant something to me and many of my generation.

    I got strapped many times more for singing the lyrics around our school yard and bringing my tape recorder from home with a home recorded tape.

    You see, I was lucky. I had the single which was virtually impossible to get hold of in my area.

    I was the cool kid at school for a while taking kids tapes and bootlegging it for them.

    Let’s get it straight whatever John and the band meant to do with that song

    For us working class kids from some of the hardest estates on Tyneside it meant a huge 2 fingers to all we hated, the royals & toffs & government and older generations especially wartimers and it’s no future lyrics came true for us very soon after in thatchers britain. The call for No Future for her and her brood was ignored nor even heard by many even working class including kids and a moment was lost.

    When there's no future
    How can there be sin
    We're the flowers in the dustbin
    We're the poison in your human machine
    We're the future you're future

    P.s 1 boy from my class died of aids, 3 were shot dead by police 2 did prison time

  3. Doorag
    click a star to vote
    Feb 2nd 2020 !⃝

    The Song is how the working class population were still in the favour of the queen and the Aristocracy, in spite of the fact that they have been mistreating them.
    The opening Verse:

    God Save the Queen,
    The Fascist Regime,
    They made you a Moron,
    A Potential H-bomb.

    "The Fascist Regime" refers to how the poor and working class population were incredibly out of control of who was in power and how they are now being manipulated as a result of it.

    "They made you a Moron" refers to how the media and politicians controls what the population see and hear, this implies that the people of the country have been made ignorant by 'They' (the Rich/powerful)

    "A potential H-Bomb" refers to how powerful the lower classes could be, but how they are refusing to do so because the rich has manipulated them to not question their position.

    "God save the Queen" refers to how the people will positively view a higher, and Tyrannical, power they are taught to do so, the verse works sort of in an Orwellian way, and is used in an Ironic way, Lydon doesn't say "they make God Save the Queen" but rather using this 'Mantra', making the line more significant because it like they too have been manipulated.

  4. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Aug 28th 2019 !⃝

    Wonderful lyrics expressing working class( my point of view) despair and doubt.
    A society transformation into: " Rich people only", and the sovereign doing nothing. The working class left to themselves...that's what these lyrics express to me, but also the benefit of the doubt: These tourists are money... and we love our queen, we mean it man... Those on the bottom, forgotten and left alone as always...

  5. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Jul 5th 2013 !⃝

    Johnny Rotton tried to demonstrate to the youth with no voice that speaking out and going against the norm is what brings round change and to rebelling is a good thing. This song supports this view in that we shouldnt blindly accept what people say about the monarchy and take their views because the whole business of politics and monarchy is corrupt and all is never as it seems.

  6. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Mar 13th 2012 !⃝

    God Save The Queen'' by the Sex Pistols was released in 1977 and reached number 2 in the UK charts.

    This version of ``God Save The Queen'' is about the young people of the time rebelling against the British Monarchy and British politics.

    A lot of people felt alienated by the double standards of the old-fashioned royal monarchy and the hypocrisy of the political system.

    The lyrics to this song attack the whole system in a violent way calling the Queen a moron and saying that she isn't a human being and that she is an accident waiting to happen.

    It also makes a point of saying that the only use of the Queen is to attract tourists to the country and to make money out of them.

  7. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Mar 13th 2012 !⃝

    God Save The Queen'' by the Sex Pistols was released in 1977 and reached number 2 in the UK charts.

    This version of ``God Save The Queen'' is about the young people of the time rebelling against the British Monarchy and British politics.

    A lot of people felt alienated by the double standards of the old-fashioned royal monarchy and the hypocrisy of the political system.

    The lyrics to this song attack the whole system in a violent way calling the Queen a moron and saying that she isn't a human being and that she is an accident waiting to happen.

    It also makes a point of saying that the only use of the Queen is to attract tourists to the country and to make money out of them.

  8. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Aug 3rd 2009 !⃝

    This song is about how Johnny feels about the queen and how people were/are treated by the monarchy.


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