Bronski Beat - Smalltown Boy (1984)
Perils & perks of being a small town queer.
An embarrassing reveal here is that I first heard this song in the closing credits of social media reality show, The Circle. Considering how ubiquitous and influential this Jimmy Somerville ‘synth-pop psalm’ is, that should surprise you. Yet, now I’m perhaps in the minority of people under the age of 40 who have seen and appreciated this politically potent and tender music video.
As I’ve since learned since those rolling credits, what has contributed to this tune’s lasting appeal is not only that it’s an incredibly danceable bit of post-disco, but also that the song and music video were directly responding to an epidemic of anti-gay incidents in the UK, and paved the way for other gay musicians to respond to this violence as well.
An article honoring the song’s legacy in DJ Mag brings the “enduring influence” of Bronski Beat and Smalltown Boy into full focus. What they did was build “a crucial link between the golden age of disco, queer liberation, the AIDS crisis, and the tribes of LGBTQ clubland today.”
Throughout the video, you see the eponymous ‘smalltown boy’ reflecting on having to leave his home and family for ‘the love that you need’ after experiencing gay-bashing. My first time watching the video, I audibly gasped when the man from the pool chased the main character with a gaggle of cops, who then transport the main character to his parent’s house and out him as queer. All’s well that ends well, though, because in the last scene, you see him and his two friends walking down the train station, perhaps to a better, bigger-city, life.
As 1980s Music Video Closet writes about Smalltown Boy, “The video is highly exceptional: an openly gay video by an openly gay band that actually made it onto MTV’s rotation, albeit sparingly.” I appreciated reading that Bronski Beat insisted on creating a ‘serious’ video, in contrast to the gay representation that dominated in music at the time (Elton John with his glamour, Frankie Goes to Hollywood with their humor).
More on the lore from Bernard Rose, director of the music video who had just worked with Frankie Goes to Hollywood on their S&M hit ‘Relax’ —
The band had originally intended to depict a far more graphic homophobic assault scene that also involved cottaging, the practice of cruising for gay sex in public spaces, but were eventually dissuaded by [Colin] Bell, fearing a similar backlash.
Rose remains immensely proud of the project to this day, and believes the story's endurance lies in its ambiguities and lack of definition. “That’s what’s so powerful about it, the film deals with it very concisely, and without words. It’s all implication,” he says. “You have to fill in the narrative for yourself.”
It’s exciting to look back and see how musicians have always inserted their political will into the world through their work. Doubly exciting that Bronski Beat was so explicit in what they were aiming to accomplish. It’s one of the many models for queer artists now, who still have a mandate to do more than put out pop drivel that inoculates people from the world.
Thanks for reading Looping Records!