As one who bought the original single in 1977 (I still have it) this raised a nostalgic chuckle. It will be an interesting litmus test of the development of British society over the intervening 45 years to see if it still has some power to p1ss people off.
Still a fascist regime? Sex Pistols’ God Save the Queen reissued to mark platinum jubilee
It was Number 1 in just about every chart in the UK on Silver Jubilee day - except, mysteriously, the BBC.
God Save the Queen
Still a fascist regime? Sex Pistols’ God Save the Queen reissued to mark platinum jubilee
It was Number 1 in just about every chart in the UK on Silver Jubilee day - except, mysteriously, the BBC.
God Save the Queen
The song peaked at No. 2 (below Rod Stewart's "I Don't Want to Talk About It" released as a double A-side budget single along with "The First Cut Is the Deepest") on the official UK Singles Chart used by the BBC, though there have been persistent rumours that it was actually the biggest-selling single in the UK at the time, and was kept off No. 1 because it was felt that it might cause offence.
Various sources state that it was indeed the highest-selling single of the week, despite a ban by the BBC and some major retailers. In order to prevent it from reaching the top of the "official" BMRB chart for one week compilers "decreed that shops which sold their own records could not have those records represented in the chart", and thus sales from Virgin Megastores were not counted. Virgin had few doubts that theirs was the higher-selling single; the company's sales total out of stock exceeded the officially cited sales for the Rod Stewart single.