Reflections on Another Jubilee (There's Still No Future in England's Dreaming)

Jamie Reid: sleeve artwork for 'God Save the Queen' 

by the Sex Pistols (Virgin Records, 1977) 

National Portrait Gallery (NPG D48055)

 

 

I.

 

Celebrations to mark the Queen's Platinum Jubilee are set to take place over a special four-day bank holiday weekend from Thursday 2 to Sunday 5 June 2022. 

 

Seeing the Union Jack bunting and hearing all the Gawd bless 'er majesty bullshit reminds me very much of the Silver Jubilee back in the fateful summer of 1977 - the summer of hate as it is sometimes known; i.e., the summer of punk ...

 

II.

Although not old enough to have partied with the Sex Pistols on their notorious jubilee boat trip along the Thames, I was old enough in 1977 to have woken up and realised what side of the bed I was lying on - and it wasn't the side with the red, white and blue sheets.

 

As far as I recall, I was pretty much the only Essex schoolchild who refused to attend (or have anything to do with) the street parties being held on my estate that June. 

 

And my sense of alienation - combined with a long hatred for all the pomp and circumstance surrounding the royal family - meant that I now aligned myself with the Sex Pistols (what this meant in practice was keeping press cuttings about the band, taping 'Pretty Vacant' off the radio [1], and doing my best to perfect a Rotten persona). 

 

The Sex Pistols were the flowers in the dustbin and they were the poison in the human machine, but it was precisely their uncompromising nihilism that made them so attractive; that, and the way they looked [2]. 

 

III. 

 

Finally, while we're on the subject of the Sex Pistols ...

 

Tonight sees the start of Danny Boyle's six-part TV series Pistol - a Disneyfied punk pantomime loosely based on Steve Jones's memoir, in which a kamikaze gang of foul-mouthed yobs is reimagined by a cast of impossibly middle-class actors [3].

 

Were he still with us, I'm sure Malcolm would regard this as a prime example of what he termed karaoke culture [4] - i.e., one lacking in authentic sex, style or subversion.  

 

So, rather than sit through Danny Boyle's load of old bollocks, why not click here to watch a new version of the video for 'God Save the Queen' - one which combines footage shot by Julien Temple at the Marquee in May 1977, with footage of the Thames river boat party (a fun day out which resulted in eleven arrests, including Malcolm's). 

 

 

Notes

[1] I couldn't record 'God Save the Queen', of course, as it was banned from the airwaves. Famously, it was also prevented from getting to number one in the official UK singles chart, although it was the highest selling single during the jubilee week.  

[2] I loved the songs too, but the music was always secondary to the politics, the clothes, and the artwork - which is why I soon came to appreciate that Malcolm was the fabulous architect of chaos and Rotten just another juvenile Bill Grundy. Indeed, he's now something of an admirer of the Queen it appears.

 

[3] For earlier thoughts on Danny Boyle's Pistol click here and here. 

[4] Readers who are interested in this can watch McLaren's TED Talk of October 2009 on authentic creativity versus karaoke culture: click here. 

The Great Rock 'n' Roll Castration

Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious as portrayed by Anson Boon and Louis Partridge

 

Director Danny Boyle irritated me in 2012 with his ludicrous opening ceremony for the London Olympics, featuring a twenty-minute tribute to the NHS, so when I heard that he was making a six-part TV series about the Sex Pistols (based on Steve Jones's Lonely Boy memoir), I began to prepare for a heavily sentimental take on the story.   

 

But, having now read further details of the project - including who's cast to play Rotten and company - and seen images released from on set, I fear what we are about to be offered is a revision of the past that exchanges sneering nihilism for an uplifting tale of smiling punks in touch with their feelings and struggling to live up to their bad boy image, whilst dealing with issues of abuse, deprivation, and addiction 

 

Even the title of the series - Pistol - speaks of castration; of a band rendered sexless and transformed from cocky young 'erberts with an eye for fashion into sensitive boys crying out for attention and who only wanted to be accepted by society and loved as people.*   

 

Still, as a friend of mine said, you never know; the project might be redeemed by a brilliant script (co-written by Frank Cottrell Boyce and Craig Pearce) and some excellent performances from the young cast. I doubt it. But we'll see when the series airs next year.   

 

 

Notes

 

* John Lydon - who has already spoken out against Boyle's project - mocked this idea of poor misunderstood punks on 'Fodderstompf', the closing track of the first Public Image Ltd. album (Virgin Records, 1978): click here.  

 

For a related post to this one in which I discuss the relationship between acting and authenticity and address the question of whether anyone can be a Sex Pistol, click here.