{"id":15483,"date":"2010-09-08T11:05:45","date_gmt":"2010-09-08T10:05:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/?p=15483"},"modified":"2017-05-11T14:58:06","modified_gmt":"2017-05-11T13:58:06","slug":"will-self-on-god-save-the-queensex-pistols","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/?p=15483","title":{"rendered":"Will Self on God Save the Queen\/Sex Pistols"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the summer of 1977 I was 15 years old and wore an old tropical linen jacket I\u2019d bought in a charity shop for a quid. It wasn\u2019t so much off-white as ruinous, and it matched the colour of my shoes &#8212; winkle-pickers I\u2019d painted myself using some kind of weird leather paint. Naturally I had to lie on my skinny rump to force my El Greco feet through the eight-inch ankles of my drainpipe jeans. Given all this sartorial mayhem it goes without saying that I absolutely concurred with the Sex Pistol\u2019s front man, Johnny Rotten, when he sang, &#8220;God save the queen \/ The fascist regime&#8221;. Admittedly the causal connective \u2018it\u2019s\u2019 was lost in all the filth and the fury of his delivery, but we knew what he meant.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Sex Pistols - God Save The Queen (HD OFFICAL MUSIC VIDEO)\" width=\"1080\" height=\"810\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/dtUH2YSFlVU?feature=oembed\"  allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Actually, I can barely remember the circumstantial pomp that went into the celebration of the Queen\u2019s Silver Jubilee, all I can recall is the Sex Pistols\u2019 treasonable ditty, and the fact that it was banned from being played on the radio. At least I\u2019m certain it was banned from the BBC\u2019s Radio 1. I\u2019m not so sure about the commercial stations, but then Britain in the late 1970s still had the anomalous character of a socialist democracy with a vertiginous class system; an anomaly of which the state broadcaster was a key component.<\/p>\n<p>Actually, being banned by the BBC wasn\u2019t that crushing a piece of censorship; other far more anodyne ditties used to be blanked from the charts, or have their lyrics bleeped out by reason of their mild smuttiness. And of course, like all censorship, ridding the Sex Pistols\u2019 &#8220;God Save the Queen&#8221; from the airwaves only ensured its fizzing presence in the brainwaves of disaffected youth. Malcolm McLaren, the band\u2019s Situationist-inspired manager, got reams of publicity from the banning, together with a special cruise he organised on the day of the Jubilee, during which the band were to blast Parliament with their subversive sounds.<br \/>\n<strong><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-15278\" title=\"SH_Cover_small\" src=\"http:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/SH_Cover_small.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"164\" height=\"250\" \/><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>This is an extract from <\/strong><a title=\"Index on Censorship: Smashed Hits 2.0\" href=\"http:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/2010\/09\/new-issue-smashed-hits-2-0\/\"><strong>Smashed Hits 2.0<\/strong><\/a><strong>, the new issue of Index on Censorship, out now. To read the rest of the article go to <\/strong><a title=\"Index on Censorship: Subscribe\" href=\"http:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/subscribe\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>www.indexoncensorship.org\/subscribe<\/strong><\/a><strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Will Self\u2019s\u00a0novels, short story collections and non-fiction include The Book of Dave (Viking) and The Butt <\/em><em>(Bloomsbury)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>To listen to contributors\u2019 playlists go to <a title=\"Index on Censorship: Music\" href=\"http:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/music\" target=\"_blank\">indexoncensorship.org\/music<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the summer of 1977 I was 15 years old and wore an old tropical linen jacket I\u2019d bought in a charity shop for a quid. It wasn\u2019t so much off-white as ruinous, and it matched the colour of my shoes &#8212; winkle-pickers I\u2019d painted myself using some kind of weird leather paint. Naturally I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[9107],"tags":[1296,2593,2469,2591,2592],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15483"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15483"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15483\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90439,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15483\/revisions\/90439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}