Cabaret 79
Recorded live at the Collegiate Theatre, London, during a week of Tom’s concerts of gay songs, 18-23 June 1979
Released as ‘Glad To Be Gay 79’ on Cabaret 79 [Panic/Statik Records ROBBO2], 1982
Album reissued as Cabaret 79: Glad To Be Gay [Castaway Northwest CNWVP0003CD], 1997
[Lyrics new to this version are marked in bold]
For the purposes of this evening, it’s ‘this way’…
The British Police are the best in the world
I don’t believe one of these stories I’ve heard
‘Bout them raiding gay pubs for no reason at all
Lining the customers up by the wall
Picking out people, knocking them down
Resisting arrest as they’re kicked on the ground
Searching their houses, calling them queer
I don’t believe that sort of thing happens here
Sing if you’re glad to be gay
Sing if you’re happy this way
Pictures of naked young women are fun
In Penthouse and Playboy, page three of The Sun
There’s no nudes in Gay News our one magazine
But they still find excuses to call it obscene
Read how disgusting we are in the press
In the Evening News and the Sunday Express
Molesters of children, corruptors of youth
It’s there in the paper it must be the truth
Sing if you’re glad to be gay
Sing if you’re happy this way
Have you heard the story about Peter Wells
Who one day was arrested and dragged to the cells
For being in love with a man of 18
The vicar found out they’d been having a scene
The magistrate sent him for trial by the Crown
He even appealed but they still sent him down
He was only mistreated a couple of years
Cos even in prison they look after the queers
Sing if you’re glad to be gay
Sing if you’re happy this way
And sit back and watch as they close all our clubs
Arrest us for meeting and raid all our pubs
Make sure your boyfriend’s at least 21
So only your friends and your brothers get done
Lie to your workmates, lie to your folks
Put down the queens and tell anti-queer jokes
Gay Lib’s ridiculous, join their laughter
‘The buggers are legal now, what more are they after?’
Tell them!
Sing if you’re glad to be gay
Sing if you’re happy that way
Sing if you’re glad to be gay
Sing if you’re happy this way
Explanatory notes:
“For the purposes of this evening, it’s ‘this way’.”
The concert was part of a week of Gay Pride concerts at the Bloomsbury Theatre (known at the time as the Collegiate Theatre) at University of London, so a gay audience was presumed.
