KSAN
Unreleased live concert broadcast on KSAN, 11 June 1978
[Lyrics new to this version are marked in bold]
We’d like to tell you how it is for gay people in Great Britain.
Real easy.
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
And 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 that way
Pictures of naked young women are fun
In Titbits and Playboy, page three of The Sun
There’s no nudes in Gay News our last magazine
But they’ve still found excuses to call it obscene
Read how disgusting we are in the press
The Telegraph, People and Sunday Express
Molesters of children, corruptors of youth
It’s there in the paper it must be the truth
Try and sing if you’re glad to be gay
Sing if you’re happy that way
Don’t try to tell me that if you’re discreet
You’re perfectly safe as you walk down the street
You don’t have to mince or make bitchy remarks
To get beaten or blinded or left in the dark
I had a friend who was gentle and short
He was lonely one evening and went for a walk
Queerbashers caught him, kicked in his teeth
He was only hospitalised for a week
Sing if you’re glad to be gay
Sing if you’re happy that way
And sit back and watch as they close down our clubs
Arrest us for meeting and smash up our pubs
Make sure your boyfriend’s at least 21
And if you’re a lesbian don’t be a mum
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?’
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
Talking to Tom:
TRB did quite well on the east and west coasts, and KSAN was the San Francisco hip AOR station, it played a kind of radical selection, the most new wave friendly. So KSAN would have broadcast it live at the time but also recorded it as it went from wherever the venue was in San Francisco, somewhere down Fisherman’s Wharf I think.
‘If you’re a lesbian, don’t be a mum’ is in there. There had been something in the public consciousness about this, what was it?
I think there had been a divorce case where the father had got custody because the mother was unfit to be a parent because she was a lesbian. He had contested that she and her partner could not bring up the child because the child would be perverted by it therefore he had to have custody, and he won. I don’t recall what the exact case was any more, but that’s where that came up.
The Secret Policeman’s Ball version has ‘being a lesbian’s wonderful fun / you ain’t fit to mother a daughter or son’, which is a re-stating of that point.
Yes, the thing was that there had been some criticism that it was very male-orientated, it didn’t mention lesbians.
