“David Bowie had an incalculable effect on my life, because for the first time, at school, or among young people, you could be queer and you could be one of the good guys.
For the record I’ve never claimed to be anything other than gay. And it’s only with reluctance that I came to about ten years later say, Oh, sod it, you know, if living with a woman makes me bisexual, okay, I’m bisexual.” – Tom Robinson
Still a potent anthem in modern era, here’s the story of Tom‘s incisive and important little ditty from 1978.
It‘s kind of hard to fathom now, but homosexuality was only partly decriminalised in England and Wales in 1967. It was still illegal for two men to get jiggy with Mr Biggy anywhere other than a private home where no one could watch or join in until the Blair government’s sweeping social reforms of the late 1990s and early 2000s.
However, even in the 1970s, gay culture was still a target for abuse, violence and even police victimisation, which, in 1978, led to the release of a folky punky ‘protest‘ song by the Tom Robinson Band called (gasp) Glad To Be Gay, which implored listeners to
Sing if you’re glad to be gaySing if you’re happy that way
And, as not seen on Top Of The Pops...
Now better known as a broadcaster, Tom Robinson’s song was direct, confrontational and heartfelt. Written somewhat in the shadow of New York’s violent 1969 Stonewall riots, which many credit with giving birth to the gay rights movement, the BBC, his future employers, refused to play it on the Top 40 countdown, but it became the defining anthem of gay liberation in Britain. As the singer said before his famous performance of this song at The Secret Policeman‘s Ball in 1979: “You don’t have to be gay to sing this song – but it helps.” However, the lyrics were not anywhere near as straightforward as one might expect:
“I was infuriated by the fact that on the one hand the organisations that should have been campaigning for that were running little low-key discos in town where you could wear a Glad To Be Gay badge. Then you‘d come out, hide the badge, and not do anything about what was going on in the streets to your brothers and sisters further down the road. So Glad To Be Gay was a bitterly ironic attack on the complacency of the gay community at the time, rather than a proclamation that one was glad to be gay.“
On 19 July 2016, the 40th anniversary of his first performance of Glad To Be Gay, Robinson sang it at Downing Street for Britain‘s new Prime Minister, Theresa May. It was an inspired bit of politicking.
Conservative May came to power the previous week with an unsaid pledge to not get Brexit done but, alas, with long record of homophobia, including: – voted against equal age of consent (1998) – voted against gay couple adopting children (2001-02) – didn‘t participate in the Gender Recognition Act (2004) – voted that IVF rights should have a male role model (2008) – ensured that public bodies didn‘t have to reduce discrimination (2010) – sought the repeal of the Human Rights Act (2015) – and opposed Britain’s participation in the European Convention on Human Rights (2016).
As Home Secretary she also fought asylum applications from LGBTQ people and returned them to persecution, even to countries where homosexuality carries the death penalty.
Still, Robinson says he’s proud of the social progress that has been made when it comes to gay rights.
“We’ve come unimaginably far in Western countries, in terms of acceptance and in terms of the normalization of it,” he says. “Now we have stars like Rufus Wainwright who are stars first and foremost — and his sexuality is a non-issue. He writes songs from a gay man’s viewpoint, but there isn’t a thing where he’s ‘The Gay Messiah,’ as he puts it.
“He’s just Rufus Wainwright, and we know he’s going to drag up and do his Bette Midler stuff at some point,” Robinson laughs. “But it’s all judged on the music.
“I think that’s the ideal way we want to be.”
Steve Pafford
