I was an American grad student in Britain in the late 70s struggling with being gay and isolated. Tom Robinson meant a lot to me, and, I'm sure, to people like me. It's not just because he was a great and angry, dignified artist. He was (and is) also a kind and friendly person. I could easily have ended up as a young gay suicide, a statistic. But I and others persevered. I'm in my late sixties now and my partner and I have been together over forty years. We've seen it all: Stonewall, AIDS, the lot. There's been a lot of progress and we did our part in the good fight, but young (and old) gay people still need support: Tom Robinson's song still matters. And I'll be grateful to him for the rest of my life.
I am not gay but I firmly believe in your right to be so. All you want to do is be allowed to love the person you fall in love with and if that person is the same sex as you, so what. As long as you are not hurting anyone , nobody should have any right to tell you what to do nad who to love, and since there is so much hate in the world we need all the love we can get. I would rather see a same sex couple loving each other that two people of opposite gender hating each other, that's for sure. Congratulations on the long and happy life you have shared with your partner. I hope you have many more to come. 🏳🌈🥰🥰🥰🥰❤🧡💛💚💙💜
@@ilovemydog6847 Thank you for your nice comment. Although I'm a cat person myself, I fully appreciate anybody who loves animals, especially in this scary and violent world where human beings are the most dangerous creature by far. All the best to you & your loved ones, and God bless!
I remember watching this aged 12 or so with my Mum. Her comment was something like "Why would anyone be glad to be like one of them?" Cue a lot of closetry and years living a double life. I'm nearly 53 now and still having to be careful who I let into my world.
Andrew, people say all sorts of shite they don’t mean. It may be very hurtful but 99% of the time they’re just “saying stuff”.....they don’t often truly mean it. I am just saying that your Mum had no experience of anything outside her own World and will just have been “ignorant” of anything broader than that. I hope this comes across that way I mean it mate
@@dirgethesergal319 I know, I hid for along time. Still do in certain company (older family etc). It's better to find your courage when and where you can and stick it back to them. Very empowering. Being gay was illegal in Scotland till 1980, I was 15! Then the AIDS hysteria was blamed on us but it was drug abusers who spread it. Things are better now but still plenty homophobia. I have been attacked twice, my partner three times, once at gunpoint in broad daylight in the centre of Edinburgh. Police not interested, no action. Group of youths throwing stones at the house shouting abuse, police took 16 hours to attend. Refused accommodation we booked and paid for in Inverness. 'I don't mind if you're gay'. What if I said 'I don't mind if you're straight, but thanks for the permission to be alive'. Sing if you're glad to be gay! Best wishes my friend, stay strong. x
This is doubly poignant because the Secret Policeman's Ball was organised by Amnesty International, who in 1978 didn't count homosexuality as a human right. So they refused to help gay political prisoners. He was/is a very brave person and I love him.
@@therespectedlex9794 White straight guys already have all the rights. You're like a kid with 100 toys crying because another kid with none is being given a few of yours. Grow the fuck up.
@@anonb4632 obviously an international organisation is going to be dealing with issues that are not local to any one country - that is central to their modus operandi..
I just heard this song tonight...and the parts about being called molesters and having books burned just rang so true with what is happening today. It's horrific that the US is going backwards
I’m 65 and was fortunate to be brought up by a mother who showed compassion and consideration towards gay people. She had 2 work colleagues in the ‘50s who were gay men. She and other women in the work place were very protective of them and she brought me up to accept people for who they are. I have never had an issue with a person’s sexuality. I have LGBTQ+ friends and family, who I love dearly. My hope for them is that they will be happy, and safe from the bigots. I saw the TRB in about’78 and the words strike hard as this is how things were then and for some time after. Whilst things have improved, there’s still a long way to go to ensure that we all have equal acceptance and opportunity in society.
I listened to this when I was 14 years old, and I haven't stopped listening to it since, nor ever will. In my opinion, this is one of the most bravest songs ever to be sung, and makes me brave too when I listen to it. Forever glad to be gay 😂
As a straight woman, this man had a huge impact on me, because he spoke the words that I could hear whispering around me, and he told it like it is, no frills. Love him.
Context; this was at AI fundraiser. Amnesty International had to be dragged into standing up for lgbt rights. So having Tom sing this song at that event was a very big deal.
The priest of my church mentioned this song, we heard that song in the church. It was all about to stand up for who you are and then we got told about this song. And i was one of the young people there. Most of the visitors were old people and no one was mentioning anything bad and i was so proud of my village. It was amazing to know that no one who was there had something to say against the lgbtq+ community. Urgh, so happy:)
“It was amazing to know that no one who was there had something to say against the lgbtq+ community.” No, of course not. The song was “Glad to be GAY”, not “Glad to be LGBTQ+”. The later sham concept hadn’t been concocted back then.
@@Pstephen Yes, I know that there have. But that ridiculous, fraudulent “LGBTQ+” initialism, which doesn’t denote any genuine community or any logical category of persons, wasn’t invented until the late 1980s at the earliest.
Who was it who said, “they’ve made buggery legal now. I’m leaving the country before they make it compulsory” ?? Even in the 80s when I let it be known that I’m a gay man things were not always easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy. I remember having to explain to my Jewish mother that my being gay wasn’t a ‘life choice’, any more than her being left handed was. She never accepted the fact that I hadn’t ‘done this’ just to spite her. After many a falling out, we just didn’t talk about ‘it’. Then, one day, I phoned my mummy dearest and told her, “Mother, I’ve decided to settle down and start a family. I’ve met a lovely American girl, and we’re getting married” “Mazel tov!!” She shrieked down the phone, “dare I ask if she’s Jewish?” “Not only is she Jewish mother. She’s from a wealthy and important Jewish family” “Oh joy of joys! A thousand blessings on you both! What’s this girl’s name?” Gushed mamma “Monica Lewinsky” I replied. There was a loooooong silence. Then mother said, “Whatever happened to that nice black boy you were seeing last year?”
@@Torahboy1 that's appalling. I'm appalled 😄😄. The 'making buggery compulsory' joke I saw recited by Dave Allen, who I liked and by 70s standards was a bit edgy. It demonstrates, with a slight chill, how far we've come and how much we have to defend. I'm straight. I put that out there to let people know there are plenty of allies.
+Bob Cord That is a great type of venue to see him perform. I am looking at his May performances - one may be close to my home in Stoke on Trent to drive to see him again.
"In the early 70s Gay Liberation movement we used ‘gay’ in the same way that ‘queer’ is used today. The ‘gay’ in Gay News, Gay Switchboard, Gay Sweatshop and Gay Liberation Front embraced the entire LGBT spectrum - female, male, bisexual, homosexual and all points in between." - Tom Robinson, Oct 2009
Tom Robinson, interview in Melody Maker, 22 Oct 1977: ‘I want it on record that I was with a woman the other night, and it would be a shame if in singing out about the rights of gay women and men I would be then regarded as a traitor if I then went to bed with whoever I wanted to…. As far as Joe Public is concerned, if you’re interested in other guys you’re a queer… to call ourselves bi-sexual is a cop-out. Some of the top musicians in rock make me laugh"
It's 2021 and this still makes me cry. I've had my nth death threat this week for being a trans lesbian but I'm still proud and I always will be. Partly thanks to this song. Thanks Tom! 💜
I'm sure that wasn't an accident. Well done Tom. How things have changed in Ireland? A gay PM, if nothing else. No one pays any heed which is how it should be.
This song for years was at the end of every (great )dance evening in the Pink Cloud, gaydisco in the city of utrecht. It really meant something then (and now)
I asked Tom about that: "It was just too long for TRB. Constantly, those songs were road-tested, and you just found that if it was five verses long you lost their attention, if you made it four then you kicked it home, the ball went into the goal and that was it. So 2468 Motorway changed and shifted, went from a country song into a stomping rock song. "With Glad To Be Gay you found what the optimum length was, and the optimum curve for the dynamic of taking it down for the quiet third verse and then the stompstompstomp of the fourth verse, double chorus and home. Make it an extra verse longer and they’re ‘oh alright, you’re fuckin gay, get on with it’." gladtobegay.net/versions/trb-demo/
This song was a bombshell to me when it was released. So honest, so angry, so true, such passion. This is a brilliant performance of this distressingly relevant groundbreaking song. Thanks SO much Tom. xx
Just come back to this song 40years on. Great song. I'm not gay and I did sing along. But he is right. You can't really fully understand discrimination until you experience. This I have exoerienced.
i was raised on this type of music but never knew this song. its beautiful. i am a lesbian and living in fear with administration of trump. i hope people cover this song now we need it.
A true legend and true to himself. I believe Tom changed the way things were and helped create a better world that we live today. It makes no difference who we love and happiness counts.
Hearing this song as a kid and watching John Hurt in ‘The Naked Civil Servant’ when I was 15 was my introduction to the fact that there actually are gay people in the world. I simply had no idea up to that point (‘sheltered upbringing’ you might say). But Tom Robinson was seriously brave with this song back then. Simply being gay was enough to get a criminal record (the Sexual Offences Act of 1967 didn’t stop prosecutions, there were more than 50,000 AFTER that act was passed). And it is an incredibly powerful song.
Gay for life ;p. Glad to be Gay, miss you Mr Robinson :c. This song will forever be in my head and in my heart. Hope young childrens will know this song and remember what it mean! :p
I was in the audience in 2000 at Greenbelt. The show was fantastic, I was very disappointed with my fellow Christians who complained. I had been ordained just over a year. Some couldn't understand my response, I didn't understand theirs. I no longer attend Greenbelt.
This song is very blunt and strident. It used to be thought of as the GAY NATIONAL ANTHEM, but now society is more accepting of gay, bisexual and lesbian people which is VERY encouraging.
A number of people don't realise why the age of consent was set at 21, back then. When homosexuality was decriminalise in the UK it was in 1967 and the age at which you could vote then was 21, basically if you were mature enough to decide who ran the country you were mature enough to decide to have sex with someone of the same gender. It was the only way to get it through parliament at the time. It wasn''t until the 1970s that the age at which you could vote was lowered to 18. Though it was quite a few decades later that the age of consent was lowered to 18.
A number of people don't realise why the age of consent was set at 21, back then. When homosexuality was decriminalise in the UK it was in 1967 and the age at which you could vote then was 21, basically if you were mature enough to decide who ran the country you were mature enough to decide to have sex with someone of the same gender. It wasn''t until the 1970s that the age at which you could vote was lowered to 18. Though it was quite a few decades later that the age of consent was lowered to 18.
The age of consent for heterosexuals was 16 at that time, and had been 16 since 1885 (before that it was even lower). The argument about being old enough to vote doesn't seem to have been an issue there.
I used to play this song really loud to the old bitch who used to live next door to us in Pittsburgh in the late 70s. When did I give up being an activist? Has anything really changed in the past 40 years?
Man, I really really really wish someone would post Robinson's '1967,' from this same album. It's quite lovely, and impossible to find. It might be listed as "not so long ago" in some places.
It’s sort of a punk anthem for the LGBTQ+ community. You can hear the anger and sadness in his voice. On behalf of straight people everywhere I’m ashamed and want to apologise to the LGBTQ+ community for the shitty way you’ve been treated. You deserve so much better.
This is the first time I've heard this in full. I knew some of it from the movie Pride and I knew bits of it from radio. I wanted to hear it in full because I was watching a tv music quiz show and this song was one of the questions. (Who sang Glad to be gay?) Nobody got the answer. I did.
@@holzmann- He keeps calling himself gay for some reason, kinda glad he's not popular and the conservatives don't have a brain to look him up or he would be the poster boy for "BeING gAY is a ChOICe!", argument.
@@KiltedGreen Yeah, I don’t know what’s up with him. I do recall a British tabloid with the headlines, „Britain‘s most famous gay man now straight, married with kids“ or words to that effect. It reminds me of Anne Kronenberg of San Francisco. She was a well-known lesbian and gay rights advocate in the 1970s. However, as stated in Wikipedia, “While Kronenberg identified as a lesbian in the 1970s, she later fell in love with a man she met in Washington, D.C. in the 1980s, whom she later married. She currently lives in California with her husband, stepson, daughter and son.[4]” Truth is stranger than fiction as they say.
This wasn't the first "Gay song". Valentino recorded "I was Born This Way" two years earlier. The record was then picked up and distributed by Motown Records, no less.
Well yes, there was also Everybody Involved's "A Gay Song" in 1972, and Chris Robison's first album the same year. Or go right back to the 1920s and you've got Kokomo Arnold singing "Sissy Man Blues" and Ma Rainey singing "Prove It On Me". Not sure that any of those songs had the cultural impact of this one though.
The only disappointment mine have is that they won't have grandkids. I haven't told my mum of the three turkey baster kids, god help them if I did. :-D
I was an American grad student in Britain in the late 70s struggling with being gay and isolated. Tom Robinson meant a lot to me, and, I'm sure, to people like me. It's not just because he was a great and angry, dignified artist. He was (and is) also a kind and friendly person. I could easily have ended up as a young gay suicide, a statistic. But I and others persevered. I'm in my late sixties now and my partner and I have been together over forty years. We've seen it all: Stonewall, AIDS, the lot. There's been a lot of progress and we did our part in the good fight, but young (and old) gay people still need support: Tom Robinson's song still matters. And I'll be grateful to him for the rest of my life.
Big up!
I am not gay but I firmly believe in your right to be so. All you want to do is be allowed to love the person you fall in love with and if that person is the same sex as you, so what. As long as you are not hurting anyone , nobody should have any right to tell you what to do nad who to love, and since there is so much hate in the world we need all the love we can get. I would rather see a same sex couple loving each other that two people of opposite gender hating each other, that's for sure. Congratulations on the long and happy life you have shared with your partner. I hope you have many more to come. 🏳🌈🥰🥰🥰🥰❤🧡💛💚💙💜
@@ilovemydog6847 Thank you for your nice comment. Although I'm a cat person myself, I fully appreciate anybody who loves animals, especially in this scary and violent world where human beings are the most dangerous creature by far. All the best to you & your loved ones, and God bless!
xx
The world is a better place with you and your partner in it!
I remember watching this aged 12 or so with my Mum. Her comment was something like "Why would anyone be glad to be like one of them?" Cue a lot of closetry and years living a double life. I'm nearly 53 now and still having to be careful who I let into my world.
Stay strong.
we shouldn't have to hide
That’s very sad. I’m very sorry that’s been your life so far. Anyone who can’t accept you for who you are doesn’t deserve to be in your world anyway.
Andrew, people say all sorts of shite they don’t mean. It may be very hurtful but 99% of the time they’re just “saying stuff”.....they don’t often truly mean it. I am just saying that your Mum had no experience of anything outside her own World and will just have been “ignorant” of anything broader than that. I hope this comes across that way I mean it mate
@@dirgethesergal319 I know, I hid for along time. Still do in certain company (older family etc). It's better to find your courage when and where you can and stick it back to them. Very empowering. Being gay was illegal in Scotland till 1980, I was 15! Then the AIDS hysteria was blamed on us but it was drug abusers who spread it. Things are better now but still plenty homophobia. I have been attacked twice, my partner three times, once at gunpoint in broad daylight in the centre of Edinburgh. Police not interested, no action. Group of youths throwing stones at the house shouting abuse, police took 16 hours to attend. Refused accommodation we booked and paid for in Inverness. 'I don't mind if you're gay'. What if I said 'I don't mind if you're straight, but thanks for the permission to be alive'. Sing if you're glad to be gay! Best wishes my friend, stay strong. x
Im not a gay man but love this song and what it stands for
Ray Perry This is one of the better versions. Sometimes it can sound dreary. I prefer 2 4 6 8 which does have a gay background.
I totally agree
@@anonb4632 it's not dreary it's irony, pathos even....Dreary??
@@seriouslyseriously1063 Doesn't matter if it's irony, pathos or whatever, it's still a dirge.
Solidarity is vitally important. Thank you.
You could feel the anger in Tom's performances of 'Glad To Be Gay' back then, he certainly wasn't always a mild mannered radio presenter.
Yes, you can feel the rage. He can barely keep from snarling at the audience. And it was warranted.
This is doubly poignant because the Secret Policeman's Ball was organised by Amnesty International, who in 1978 didn't count homosexuality as a human right. So they refused to help gay political prisoners. He was/is a very brave person and I love him.
MarkPMus Amnesty are a bunch of hypocrites, they always deal with trendy foreign causes out there never domestic ones nearer home. Anywhere but here.
MarkPMus I'm still waiting for them to acknowledge men's rights... or whites, or straights.
@@therespectedlex9794
White straight guys already have all the rights. You're like a kid with 100 toys crying because another kid with none is being given a few of yours. Grow the fuck up.
Totally agree , board of directors to be paid before any charity
@@anonb4632 obviously an international organisation is going to be dealing with issues that are not local to any one country - that is central to their modus operandi..
I just heard this song tonight...and the parts about being called molesters and having books burned just rang so true with what is happening today. It's horrific that the US is going backwards
I've known of this important song for decades, but aside from that I agree with your every word. 😞
@@bobdavis4848why do most white LGBT folks hate blacks?
I'm straight, but the passion in this song always makes me cry. Why do we have to find reasons to hate each other? I don't know. Raymondo
I’m 65 and was fortunate to be brought up by a mother who showed compassion and consideration towards gay people. She had 2 work colleagues in the ‘50s who were gay men. She and other women in the work place were very protective of them and she brought me up to accept people for who they are. I have never had an issue with a person’s sexuality. I have LGBTQ+ friends and family, who I love dearly. My hope for them is that they will be happy, and safe from the bigots. I saw the TRB in about’78 and the words strike hard as this is how things were then and for some time after. Whilst things have improved, there’s still a long way to go to ensure that we all have equal acceptance and opportunity in society.
I listened to this when I was 14 years old, and I haven't stopped listening to it since, nor ever will. In my opinion, this is one of the most bravest songs ever to be sung, and makes me brave too when I listen to it. Forever glad to be gay 😂
As a straight woman, this man had a huge impact on me, because he spoke the words that I could hear whispering around me, and he told it like it is, no frills. Love him.
+Suzey Non Theist his barely controlled rage is still pretty obvious
And he was sexy on legs.
@@belladorset5916 And he married a woman! These things aren't set in stone. We're all human
Context; this was at AI fundraiser. Amnesty International had to be dragged into standing up for lgbt rights. So having Tom sing this song at that event was a very big deal.
The priest of my church mentioned this song, we heard that song in the church. It was all about to stand up for who you are and then we got told about this song. And i was one of the young people there. Most of the visitors were old people and no one was mentioning anything bad and i was so proud of my village. It was amazing to know that no one who was there had something to say against the lgbtq+ community. Urgh, so happy:)
“It was amazing to know that no one who was there had something to say against the lgbtq+ community.”
No, of course not. The song was “Glad to be GAY”, not “Glad to be LGBTQ+”. The later sham concept hadn’t been concocted back then.
@@gaiopescatore - Sham? Seriously? You're talking about human beings here.
@@Pstephen Yes, seriously.
@@gaiopescatore No, it's bullshit. There have been trans people around for years.
@@Pstephen Yes, I know that there have. But that ridiculous, fraudulent “LGBTQ+” initialism, which doesn’t denote any genuine community or any logical category of persons, wasn’t invented until the late 1980s at the earliest.
"The buggars are legal now, what more do they want?" Just profound.
Who was it who said, “they’ve made buggery legal now. I’m leaving the country before they make it compulsory” ??
Even in the 80s when I let it be known that I’m a gay man things were not always easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy.
I remember having to explain to my Jewish mother that my being gay wasn’t a ‘life choice’, any more than her being left handed was.
She never accepted the fact that I hadn’t ‘done this’ just to spite her. After many a falling out, we just didn’t talk about ‘it’.
Then, one day, I phoned my mummy dearest and told her, “Mother, I’ve decided to settle down and start a family. I’ve met a lovely American girl, and we’re getting married”
“Mazel tov!!” She shrieked down the phone, “dare I ask if she’s Jewish?”
“Not only is she Jewish mother. She’s from a wealthy and important Jewish family”
“Oh joy of joys! A thousand blessings on you both! What’s this girl’s name?” Gushed mamma
“Monica Lewinsky” I replied.
There was a loooooong silence.
Then mother said, “Whatever happened to that nice black boy you were seeing last year?”
@@Torahboy1 that's appalling. I'm appalled 😄😄. The 'making buggery compulsory' joke I saw recited by Dave Allen, who I liked and by 70s standards was a bit edgy. It demonstrates, with a slight chill, how far we've come and how much we have to defend.
I'm straight. I put that out there to let people know there are plenty of allies.
Sp profound. All they wanted was to be left alo --- [reads any news in 2023] -- oh..
😂😂😂😂
This is the first performance I ever saw of Tom Robinson - now have all his albums and seen him perform about 10 times. Brilliant performer.
+Jeff Walker ..he's in Sheffield next week..small pub...should be really good.
+Bob Cord That is a great type of venue to see him perform. I am looking at his May performances - one may be close to my home in Stoke on Trent to drive to see him again.
I was 21 that year. Amazing song. ❤ And performed at an Amnesty International event, which is even more amazing.
quite possibly the greatest "join along" chorus ever!
A great song, and as he says: you don't have to be gay to join in (and agree with the sentiment).
This song is still so relevant today, even after 45 years so many of these lyrics still ring true
"In the early 70s Gay Liberation movement we used ‘gay’ in the same way that ‘queer’ is used today. The ‘gay’ in Gay News, Gay Switchboard, Gay Sweatshop and Gay Liberation Front embraced the entire LGBT spectrum - female, male, bisexual, homosexual and all points in between."
- Tom Robinson, Oct 2009
As an early member of CHE I was proud when this came out. Many of a march I was on, sunny or in the pissing rain.
still is my man
Tom Robinson, interview in Melody Maker, 22 Oct 1977:
‘I want it on record that I was with a woman the other night, and it would be a shame if in singing out about the rights of gay women and men I would be then regarded as a traitor if I then went to bed with whoever I wanted to…. As far as Joe Public is concerned, if you’re interested in other guys you’re a queer… to call ourselves bi-sexual is a cop-out. Some of the top musicians in rock make me laugh"
It's 2021 and this still makes me cry. I've had my nth death threat this week for being a trans lesbian but I'm still proud and I always will be. Partly thanks to this song. Thanks Tom! 💜
When i was 16 i had a massive crush on one of my work mates , this mean't so much to me , THANKS x
One of my heroes. And dang he was hot back then too.
He was so cool! And yup, as a teenage girl, I always thought he was eminently snoggable.
I had a huge crush on him when I was 13.
I say. You're quite right, but we mustn't lose track of the song's profundity by lusting after the performer.
He played this on Irish TV on the Late Late Show, a fairly conservative mainstream talk show. It was beautiful.
I'm sure that wasn't an accident. Well done Tom. How things have changed in Ireland? A gay PM, if nothing else. No one pays any heed which is how it should be.
I grew up on Tom Robinson, still one of the best songs ever
What intensely intense intensity. Wonderful.
What a courageous performance. XXX
This song for years was at the end of every (great )dance evening in the Pink Cloud, gaydisco in the city of utrecht. It really meant something then (and now)
Came to my college in the 80's never forgot him and this song.
If anything ever made me think about gay rights it is this.
My girlfriend Jillian (she actually was the comment below me lol) made this stuck in my head. Haha, oh Jillian.
are you guys still a couple?
He should've made the Peter Wells verse permanent
I asked Tom about that:
"It was just too long for TRB. Constantly, those songs were road-tested, and you just found that if it was five verses long you lost their attention, if you made it four then you kicked it home, the ball went into the goal and that was it. So 2468 Motorway changed and shifted, went from a country song into a stomping rock song.
"With Glad To Be Gay you found what the optimum length was, and the optimum curve for the dynamic of taking it down for the quiet third verse and then the stompstompstomp of the fourth verse, double chorus and home. Make it an extra verse longer and they’re ‘oh alright, you’re fuckin gay, get on with it’."
gladtobegay.net/versions/trb-demo/
For more on Peter Wells, including an audiobook biography read by Tom Robonson, see:
gladtobegay.net/peter-wells/
@@gladtobegaynet tx from france
This song was so ahead of its time
i sing and im happy to be gay
This song was a bombshell to me when it was released. So honest, so angry, so true, such passion. This is a brilliant performance of this distressingly relevant groundbreaking song. Thanks SO much Tom. xx
Just come back to this song 40years on. Great song. I'm not gay and I did sing along. But he is right. You can't really fully understand discrimination until you experience. This I have exoerienced.
i was raised on this type of music but never knew this song. its beautiful. i am a lesbian and living in fear with administration of trump. i hope people cover this song now we need it.
I'm not gay, but I love this song...and yes, I sing along!
An incredible, angry, defiant performance! Well done!
A true legend and true to himself. I believe Tom changed the way things were and helped create a better world that we live today. It makes no difference who we love and happiness counts.
Wow oh wow. Devastating performance. Cheers & kudos.
Hearing this song as a kid and watching John Hurt in ‘The Naked Civil Servant’ when I was 15 was my introduction to the fact that there actually are gay people in the world. I simply had no idea up to that point (‘sheltered upbringing’ you might say). But Tom Robinson was seriously brave with this song back then. Simply being gay was enough to get a criminal record (the Sexual Offences Act of 1967 didn’t stop prosecutions, there were more than 50,000 AFTER that act was passed). And it is an incredibly powerful song.
Imagine the act that had to follow him on stage. OMG - like having to follow The Beatles the first time they played the Ed Sullivan Show.
He should have sung this at the Sochi Olympics...
+itsjemmabond I would have support this, but I'm betting that there would be a chance that there would be a "mysterious disappearance."
Sung. Not sang. Please learn your own damned language.
@@jjdecani Would it kill you to be a tad polite? Please learn your own damn manners.
Lol
Remember seeing this and how ballsy this was in that era. Tom Robinson forever a legend.
One of my favourite songs.
one of my all time fave songs
Gay for life ;p. Glad to be Gay, miss you Mr Robinson :c.
This song will forever be in my head and in my heart. Hope young childrens will know this song and remember what it mean! :p
15 year old here!! I know what it means. Happy you were here!!
Damn they need a remake of this for Florida
I was in the audience in 2000 at Greenbelt. The show was fantastic, I was very disappointed with my fellow Christians who complained. I had been ordained just over a year. Some couldn't understand my response, I didn't understand theirs.
I no longer attend Greenbelt.
This is from long before 2000 hun.
didn't blink once
I support Tom and everything he sings for the full 100%
I do hope things have changed for u gay folks
Love you for caring!
Tommo, I am 50 now... catchin up wiv u.. fkn luv u dude
This song is very blunt and strident. It used to be thought of as the GAY NATIONAL ANTHEM, but now society is more accepting of gay, bisexual and lesbian people which is VERY encouraging.
What are you talking about? Florida just canceled it's pride events because of the laws they are passing. We are backsliding hard.
@@gwenc1371😂😂😂😂
a lovely man I met last year after a TRB concert and I gave him a hug and a kiss, and I am not gay (yet!)
Just checking in - are you gay yet?
After all the years it was still inspiring to hear Tom declaring the truth. Thank you Tom.
we all need a bit of love
Wow, what nice memories. Acapulco Oct. 1979
A number of people don't realise why the age of consent was set at 21, back then.
When homosexuality was decriminalise in the UK it was in 1967 and the age at which you could vote then was 21, basically if you were mature enough to decide who ran the country you were mature enough to decide to have sex with someone of the same gender. It was the only way to get it through parliament at the time.
It wasn''t until the 1970s that the age at which you could vote was lowered to 18. Though it was quite a few decades later that the age of consent was lowered to 18.
long live tom
I love this man...
Tom is a GIANT
Love his snarling fury hereboos 3 Tell 'em about it Tom! xxxx
A number of people don't realise why the age of consent was set at 21, back then.
When homosexuality was decriminalise in the UK it was in 1967 and the age at which you could vote then was 21, basically if you were mature enough to decide who ran the country you were mature enough to decide to have sex with someone of the same gender.
It wasn''t until the 1970s that the age at which you could vote was lowered to 18. Though it was quite a few decades later that the age of consent was lowered to 18.
The age of consent for heterosexuals was 16 at that time, and had been 16 since 1885 (before that it was even lower). The argument about being old enough to vote doesn't seem to have been an issue there.
FIGHT THE POWER!!!!
Poetry in motion beautiful
🎶 I was 15 when this came out 🎵
Fun Fact: the BBC banned this.
I bough his record when I was 16, only listened with headphones worried that my parents would hear the gay part
I used to play this song really loud to the old bitch who used to live next door to us in Pittsburgh in the late 70s. When did I give up being an activist? Has anything really changed in the past 40 years?
Wonderful, wonderful.
Will always be a hero
I was so in love with Tom. Of course I was far too young, and an ocean away.
SING IT lOUD, SO THEY HEAR!
Amended updated lyrics, and still immensely powerful
A true classic.
Tom!
this is a great version. Especially if you join in AND SING ALONG.
Man, I really really really wish someone would post Robinson's '1967,' from this same album. It's quite lovely, and impossible to find. It might be listed as "not so long ago" in some places.
It’s sort of a punk anthem for the LGBTQ+ community. You can hear the anger and sadness in his voice. On behalf of straight people everywhere I’m ashamed and want to apologise to the LGBTQ+ community for the shitty way you’ve been treated. You deserve so much better.
i love this song!
this performance in a cinema turned me on to gay rights
This is the first time I've heard this in full. I knew some of it from the movie Pride and I knew bits of it from radio. I wanted to hear it in full because I was watching a tv music quiz show and this song was one of the questions. (Who sang Glad to be gay?) Nobody got the answer. I did.
Brutally harsh but so true. Kudos!
Great video and nice message to others ;-)
It's still the same today.
Good on ya, mate!
Didn’t Tom Robinson make a 180 in later years, marry a woman and have kids. Odd world we live in??Wow.
He is bisexual
@@holzmann- He keeps calling himself gay for some reason, kinda glad he's not popular and the conservatives don't have a brain to look him up or he would be the poster boy for "BeING gAY is a ChOICe!", argument.
Yes he married a woman. No, he didn’t make a 180. That’s just looking at the surface.
@@KiltedGreen Yeah, I don’t know what’s up with him. I do recall a British tabloid with the headlines, „Britain‘s most famous gay man now straight, married with kids“ or words to that effect. It reminds me of Anne Kronenberg of San Francisco. She was a well-known lesbian and gay rights advocate in the 1970s. However, as stated in Wikipedia, “While Kronenberg identified as a lesbian in the 1970s, she later fell in love with a man she met in Washington, D.C. in the 1980s, whom she later married. She currently lives in California with her husband, stepson, daughter and son.[4]” Truth is stranger than fiction as they say.
@@KiltedGreen if you know anymore, let me know
This wasn't the first "Gay song". Valentino recorded "I was Born This Way" two years earlier. The record was then picked up and distributed by Motown Records, no less.
and Rod Stewart - Killing Georgie from 1975
Well yes, there was also Everybody Involved's "A Gay Song" in 1972, and Chris Robison's first album the same year.
Or go right back to the 1920s and you've got Kokomo Arnold singing "Sissy Man Blues" and Ma Rainey singing "Prove It On Me".
Not sure that any of those songs had the cultural impact of this one though.
@@sl1975sl Cultural impact among whom exactly? The same cultural impact Bob Marley (eventually) had on white liberals once it was deemed safe?
Thank god times have changed...
I am so suprised this was allowed in 1979, I thought he would have booed.
What a Great Man Artist and free! Love this song. Im married with 3 kids and not Gay but I would stand up for everything he said!!!
Luv luv 2 hunnyB..nice christmas Tune😉
Reality..
It's still relevant.
@joecoyote42 I knew a California Green once, but that was a long time ago when I was Fab.
Such a great song
HAY! I'm Happy That Way!!! AND my parents are bitterly disappointed. HAH!
The only disappointment mine have is that they won't have grandkids. I haven't told my mum of the three turkey baster kids, god help them if I did. :-D
I sing:
"This way"!