This is a cool cover of a song that will always be near to my heart because I remember first hearing it when I was a sophomore in high school (1984). I had left Pittsburgh for boarding school in Michigan to PLAY HOCKEY (which should give you an idea about exactly how deep in the closet I was), and somehow ended up becoming friends with some of the new-wave kids, in particular this guy Scott (still one of my best friends), who had all the great new bands from the UK and I remember being at his house (he was a “day student” or more derisively among the boarders a “day gay,” which was a universal term, people just said it without thinking twice: “oh is he a day gay?”) and hearing this song, and sort of being afraid of it/having my mind blown, in part because it was SO GAY (not that we even talked about it in those terms, but of course I knew), but in a serious and sparse but still emotive way (obv) that was very different (to me anyway) than more comical stuff like Frankie Goes to Hollywood, etc. Not that there’s anything wrong with Frankie, etc., but it’s nice to remember that being gay—or maybe more to the point, BEING VERY GAY—doesn’t mean you have to be any LESS serious (or less serious about the art you’re making) than your non-homosexual counterparts, and that others can’t appreciate it for what it is, which in case it wasn’t obvious, I’m now talking about the thing you hear about a lot in publishing where supposedly nobody reads “serious” slash literary gay fiction except gays, which is a bullshit attitude I expect to fight until the day I die.
Smalltown Boy (Bronski Beat)
Electrelane
(via theawl)
