‘Jubilee? What Jubilee?’ says Sex Pistols frontman John Lydon

By Dan Lane

As the nation excitedly hangs its festive bunting in time for this weekend's royal celebrations, Sex Pistols frontman John Lydon, AKA Johnny Rotten, has let slip that he actually had no idea the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee was coming up.

The singer, who caused wide-spread public outrage with his band’s single God Save The Queen during Her Majesty Elizabeth II’s Silver Jubilee 35 years ago, was asked what he was planning to do to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee, he told OfficialCharts.com: “I wasn’t actually aware it was coming up! And I’m not joking, this is the actual truth.”

The band’s parody of the British National Anthem, which contains the lyrics ‘God save the Queen / She ain't no human being’ lead to the record being banned by most major national and regional radio stations and it becoming the most heavily censored single in British history.

Lydon also added that he didn’t remember much of Her Majesty’s Silver Jubilee, either.

“When the Sex Pistols did the Jubilee Boat Tour, I was in no fit condition to be aware that was happening.”

Speaking about the current Facebook campaign to get the Sex Pistols’ God Save The Queen to Number 1 on the Official Singles Chart this weekend, Lydon said he doesn’t personally support it.

“I don’t know about them wanting God Save The Queen back at Number 1 for the Jubilee. It shouldn’t be done as some kind of tit for tat. I wrote a record… It wasn’t about a specific moment in time or history; I wrote a record about a subject matter that mattered to me, in a personal way.

“I never did it as an act of spite against the Jubilee,” he added. “I don’t think that’s quite completely been understood.

Watch a video of the full interview below. In related news, Lydon’s other band, Public Image Limited, released This Is PIL, their first album in over 20 years, earlier this week.