In the 1970s, a youngish housewife in the west suburbs of Chicago dances to this tune on the green shag carpet. She gets her toddler to do it, swinging him by the arms. Her high school age son looks on with a combination of horror and embarrassment.
More than 40 years later, at her grandson's bar mitzvah in Buffalo Grove, Illinois, Bubby Ruth Goldstein (known for her get up and go) takes over the dance floor from her hip hop loving grandson and his friends when the band, in an effort to get everyone involved (an exhausting but necessary requirement for such functions), tries the nostalgia trick. It works.
Has this song become only a nostalgic camp crowd pleaser? Perhaps. I know the current Village People perform primarily on the nostalgia circuit (I saw them at gay Halsted Market Days and at “straight” Taste of Chicago because these popular commercialized festivals attract multiple ages and they need the “older crowd” of boomers with the spending power these days).
But there's a history behind and after it which, despite the campy appeal of the piece, is quite interesting because what we normally seem to think is true about this song ain't necessarily so.
According to Felipe Rose, the group's founder in an interview with the Huffington Post, "I don't think Jacques' intent (Jacques Morali, the original producer of the group) was, 'Oh, I'm just going to put together a group for the gay audience,'" says group member Eric Anzalone (the biker). "He knew the music industry and he knew if he had a hit in the clubs -- which, in the '70s, the gay, the Latin clubs -- that was the place to be." Thus, perhaps, the gay subtext was not meant originally.
But then, also according to the Huffington Post, explaining to Rose that the controversy was actually about whether Victor Willis (one of the original members, no longer peforming with group, the leather guy) was against it being used as a gay rights anthem, and not about whether he was against Russia using it at the Sochi Olympics, Willis said, "To the band? Well first of all, the song was never written about anything to do with gay... "It was just a filler song, based on the ex-producer seeing the YMCA sign during lunch and asking us what it meant. Sure, there was ambiguity and they were using a double entendre, but it was really just supposed to be one more song to fill out the album."
From what I have heard (not seen) about many YMCAs in general (one friend told me all one had to do was leave your bedroom door open as a signal for sex), one could argue that there was no way getting around a gay subtext.
I also found out that the famous hand motions came from the kids on Dick Clark's famous American Bandstand, according to Ray Simpson, the cop in the group. He said, "The kids from Dick Clark's 'American Bandstand' actually started the hand motions because we weren't smart enough to come up with that...We decided that was good, let's put it in the show."
I think there's more to this song than camp and nostalgia. Gay sex at the Young Men's Christian, yes Christian Association? Enough said. I just find it interesting that in addition to this irony, the ladies love it too. I haven't yet told my mom (the woman I refer to the first paragraph) that she was dancing to what is now a gay anthem of liberation. Perhaps she needed to feel, however vicariously, liberation as well in those tumultuous seventies.
Now, one reader's amazing response to this bog post:
Enjoyed the YMCA feature. A few points though - Willis was the original cop (the much missed, gorgeous (& straight) Glenn Hughes was the Leatherman). Ray Simpson replaced Willis as cop when he left prior to Can't Stop The Music. The "classic" VP lineup didn't come together until their second album, Macho Man. Only Willis and Felipe Rose are on the first album. As for them not being put together for a gay audience - that seems more than a little revisionist not to mention a tad disingenuous. Check out the cover of the first album (attached) and see if you think there's anything remotely veiled about it! The song list for the album was San Francisco ("Folsom Street on the way to Polk and Castro" - what were those famous for?), In Hollywood, Fire Island (who's favourite summer resort?) and Village People as in Greenwich Village, famous in the 70s because...? Back in '77 I was a 16 year old disco boy and I well remember the way they not-so-subtley repositioned themselves when they gained mass fame and success. (I still have many of the cuttings from the UK press back then).
The second album, with Macho Man, I Am What I Am (not THAT version) and Key West was still pretty out there too!
As the other straight man in the group I guess Willis (who also wrote many of their lyrics) might feel embarassed about the gay aspect, though it clearly didn't concern him too much at the time. Quite why Felipe Rose should come out with such nonsense is another matter. Given how far the acceptance of gay people and their rights has come on since then it seems wierd to spout that garbage now. Ah well!
Fun to read nonetheless, just wanted to set the record straight (so to speak).