"Glad to Be Gay" is a song by
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
punk rock/
new wave group
Tom Robinson Band
Tom Robinson Band (TRB) are a British rock band, established in 1976 by singer, songwriter and bassist Tom Robinson. The band's debut single "2-4-6-8 Motorway" was a top five hit on the UK Singles Chart in 1977, and their third single, "Up A ...
. It is one of their defining songs, and has been considered Britain's national
gay anthem
A gay anthem is a popular song that has become widely popular among, or has become identified with, the gay community, although some of these songs have also become anthems for the wider LGBT community. Not all songs labelled as "gay anthems" ...
.
Song information
The song was originally written by
Tom Robinson
Thomas Giles Robinson (born 1 June 1950) is a British singer, bassist, radio presenter and long-time LGBT rights activist, best known for the hits "Glad to Be Gay", "2-4-6-8 Motorway", and "Don't Take No for an Answer", with his Tom Robinson ...
for a
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
gay pride parade
A pride parade (also known as pride march, pride event, or pride festival) is an outdoor event celebrating lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) social and self-acceptance, achievements, legal rights, and pride. The events ...
in 1976, inspired by the directness and confrontational style of the
Sex Pistols.
["Sing If You're Glad To be Gay"](_blank)
on BothWays.com. An out gay singer, he subsequently formed the Tom Robinson Band with three straight musicians.
Robinson said he wrote the song to the tune of ''
Sara
Sara may refer to:
Arts, media and entertainment Film and television
* ''Sara'' (1992 film), 1992 Iranian film by Dariush Merhjui
* ''Sara'' (1997 film), 1997 Polish film starring Bogusław Linda
* ''Sara'' (2010 film), 2010 Sri Lankan Sinhal ...
'' by
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...
: "But I realised I couldn't rip off Dylan, so I wrote new music, added the chorus and gave it that more upbeat swing."
"Glad to Be Gay" is built on four verses criticising British society's attitudes towards gay people. The first verse criticises the
British police for raiding
gay pubs for no reason after the decriminalisation of homosexuality by the
1967 Sexual Offences Act.
The second verse points to the hypocrisy of ''
Gay News
''Gay News'' was a fortnightly newspaper in the United Kingdom founded in June 1972 in a collaboration between former members of the Gay Liberation Front and members of the Campaign for Homosexual Equality (CHE). At the newspaper's height, circul ...
'' being prosecuted for obscenity instead of magazines like ''
Playboy
''Playboy'' is an American men's Lifestyle magazine, lifestyle and entertainment magazine, formerly in print and currently online. It was founded in Chicago in 1953, by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from H ...
'' or the tabloid newspaper ''
The Sun'', which published photographs of topless girls on
Page 3
Page 3, or Page Three, was a British newspaper convention of publishing a large image of a topless female glamour model (known as a Page 3 girl) on the third page of mainstream red-top tabloids. '' The Sun'' introduced the feature, publishi ...
. It also criticises the way homosexual people are portrayed in other parts of the press, especially in the newspapers ''
Daily Telegraph'', ''
Sunday People'' and ''
Sunday Express''. The third verse points out the extreme consequences of
homophobia, such as violence against gay people.
In the final verse, the song makes a plea for support of the gay cause. This part, originally intended as a bitter attack on complacency of gay people at the Pride march in 1976, became a rallying call for solidarity from people irrespective of their orientation.
Release and reception
"Glad to Be Gay" was originally released in February 1978 on the band's live
EP ''Rising Free''.
The EP reached No. 18 on the
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...
,
after the band's initial success with the single "
2-4-6-8 Motorway
"2-4-6-8 Motorway" is a song by Tom Robinson. It was released as a single in 1977 by British punk rock/ new wave group the Tom Robinson Band, and reached No. 5 in the UK Singles Chart.
Song information
The music and lyrics were written by Tom ...
", which peaked at No. 5. At that time, EPs were also eligible to chart on the
OCC singles chart.
Although "Glad to Be Gay" became the most popular track from the EP,
BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It specialises in modern popular music and current chart hits throughout the day. The station provides alternative genres at night, including electronica, dance, ...
refused to broadcast the song on its Top 40 chart show, choosing the less controversial opening track "Don't Take No for an Answer" instead.
Even though the Chart Show wouldn't play it,
John Peel did broadcast the track.
On the rival station
Capital Radio
Capital London is a radio station owned and operated by the Global media company as part of its national Capital FM Network. As Capital Radio it was launched in the London area in 1973 as one of Britain's first two commercial radio stations. ...
, the song reached No. 1 on the listener-voted Hitline chart for six consecutive weeks.
It was subsequently featured on the American pressing of the band's debut album ''
Power in the Darkness
''Power in the Darkness'' is the debut studio album by English punk band Tom Robinson Band, released in early 1978. The UK LP had ten tracks. It included inside the album cover a stencil similar to the cover art, but with the album title replaced ...
'' in May 1978, and the 2004 UK reissue of the album.
Notable performances and cover versions
Over the course of his solo career, Tom Robinson has performed the song with its lyric updated to reflect current events. There have been ten versions officially released. Later lyrics addressed
AIDS ("The message is simple and obvious, please – just lay off the patients and let's fight the disease"), and extended attacks on the
tabloid press
Tabloid journalism is a popular style of largely sensationalist journalism (usually dramatized and sometimes unverifiable or even blatantly false), which takes its name from the tabloid newspaper format: a small-sized newspaper also known as ...
.
From 1996, it also addressed what Robinson calls his 'late onset
bisexuality'.
The 6 November 1977, episode of
Granada Television's ''
So It Goes'' featured a live performance of the song by the Tom Robinson Band.
In 1979, Tom Robinson performed at the ''
Secret Policeman's Ball'', a benefit concert staged by the British section of
Amnesty International to raise funds for its research and campaign work in the
human rights
Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...
arena. For this performance he reinstated a verse about Peter Wells not used since the original demo. Wells was a young man, later shot dead, who had been imprisoned for two-and-a-half years for sex with an 18-year-old man. Had his partner been a woman it would have been legal, but the gay age of consent was 21 as opposed to 16 for heterosexuals. Robinson sang this pointedly, as Amnesty were refusing to acknowledge gay prisoners as "political prisoners".
"Secret Policeman’s Ball"
gladtobegay.net.
Queercore
Queercore (or homocore) is a cultural/social movement that began in the mid-1980s as an offshoot of the punk subculture and a music genre that comes from punk rock. It is distinguished by its discontent with society in general, and specifical ...
band Sister George
Sister George was an English queercore band from London that was formed in 1994. The group's name was inspired by the 1968 film ''The Killing of Sister George'', which was an adaptation of the play of the same name.
Although queercore bands h ...
covered the song – retitled "100xNo" – on their 1993 album ''Drag King''. In 2008, the song was covered by the Finnish
Finnish may refer to:
* Something or someone from, or related to Finland
* Culture of Finland
* Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland
* Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people
* Finnish cuisine
See also ...
group Eläkeläiset
Eläkeläiset (Finnish for "pensioners") are a Finnish humppa band founded in 1993. They specialise in humppa and jenkka music and have been successful in Germany, Finland and elsewhere.
Current members of the band are Onni Waris (keyboard, voc ...
.
In the last episode of the first series of the BBC One
BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, ...
drama '' Ashes to Ashes'', a 31-year-old fictionalised version of Tom Robinson (portrayed by Mathew Baynton
Mathew John Baynton (born 18 November 1980) is an English actor, writer, comedian, singer, and musician best known as a member of the British Horrible Histories troupe in which he starred in the TV series ''Horrible Histories''; as well as an a ...
) is incarcerated with several members of the Gay Liberation Front
Gay Liberation Front (GLF) was the name of several gay liberation groups, the first of which was formed in New York City in 1969, immediately after the Stonewall riots. Similar organizations also formed in the UK and Canada. The GLF provided a ...
. He sings "Glad to Be Gay" in his police-station cell.
See also
*List of songs banned by the BBC
This article lists songs and whole discographies which have been banned by the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) over the years. During its history the corporation has banned songs from a number of high-profile artists, including Cliff Richa ...
References
External links
Glad to Be Gay
comprehensive fansite with all versions and background material
{{authority control
1978 songs
Tom Robinson Band songs
LGBT-related songs
Songs written by Tom Robinson
EMI Records singles
Songs banned by the BBC