“No future, no future, no future”

Past, present and future are the key words for this week’s Song Lyric Sunday. Although there are almost incomprehensible theoretical arguments about the nature of time (as Jim points out in his introduction), we are quite willing to accept Isaac Newton’s keep-it-simple-stupid view that we are living in the present, the past is gone and can’t be replayed or otherwise accessed, and the future is what happens next.

Unless, of course, you went along with the essential nihilism of late seventies punk – epitomised here by one of the Sex Pistols’ most famous (or notorious, depending on your point of view) songs and denied that there would be any future.

Naturally, this song was banned by the BBC when first released. I suspect it doesn’t get much airtime now either.

God save the queen
The fascist regime
They made you a moron
Potential H-bomb

God save the queen
She ain’t no human being
There is no future
In England’s dreaming

Don’t be told what you want
Don’t be told what you need
There’s no future, no future,
No future for you

God save the queen
We mean it man
We love our queen
God saves

God save the queen
‘Cause tourists are money
And our figurehead
Is not what she seems

Oh God save history
God save your mad parade
Oh Lord God have mercy
All crimes are paid

When there’s no future
How can there be sin
We’re the flowers in the dustbin
We’re the poison in your human machine
We’re the future, your future

God save the queen
We mean it man
We love our queen
God saves

God save the queen
We mean it man
And there is no future
In England’s dreaming

No future, no future,
No future for you
No future, no future,
No future for me

No future, no future,
No future for you
No future, no future
For you

Written by Paul Cook, Steve Jones, Glenn Matlock, John Lydon

Song Lyric Sunday 7 November 2021