JOHNNY ROTTEN COMES FULL CIRCLE: Ex-Sex Pistol John Lydon Quotes Traditional ‘God Save The Queen’ In Tribute To Elizabeth II.

“Send her victorious” is a quote from Britain’s national anthem “God Save The Queen”:

God save the Queen!
Send her victorious,
Happy and glorious,
Long to reign over us,
God save the Queen.

The sentiment is a long way from the Pistols’ headline-making hit “God Save the Queen,” which became a punk anthem (and national scandal) with lyrics like, “God save the Queen/She ain’t no human being” and “God save the queen/’Cause tourists are money/And our figurehead/Is not what she seems.”

The song was released in 1977 during Queen Elizabeth II’s Silver Jubilee celebrations. The BBC banned it, adding to its infamy.

Lydon’s turnabout isn’t quite so shocking, though, to anyone who has been keeping up with the Public Limited Ltd. singer — he’s long expressed his personal fondness for the Queen. In a 2017 interview with UK music site The Quietus, Lydon said he dreaded the inevitable use of the Sex Pistols song when the Queen dies.

The song, he said, was “about a political situation and the demand for obedience to a monarchy I don’t believe in. But she’s a human being and I will sorely miss her as a human being on Planet Earth. It’s not her fault she was born into a gilded cage. Long may she live.”

It’s probably the most punk rock thing ever to act like an adult over the queen’s passing, when academics and talk show hosts are using her death as a platform for cliched rants about racism and colonialism:

● Twitter pulls vile tweet by Carnegie Mellon’s critical race theory professor who said she hoped Queen died ‘an excruciating death’ — after Jeff Bezos led avalanche of condemnation.
● ‘GENOCIDAL EMPIRE:’ View co-host claims Queen Elizabeth wore ‘crown with pillaged stones.’
● The ignorance of Queen Elizabeth’s ‘anti-colonialist’ critics.