OK - on the "Smalltown boy" video.
Can anybody tell me what it's all about? I'm guessing that there are "gay" overtones but is there a storyline here too?
I've never been a massive fan of Bronski Beat or the Communards, but I did like the song 'Smalltown Boy" Shytot, and I can actually clearly remember the day when I first saw the video to the song 20 years ago!
I was off sick from school one particular day in 1984 (a genuine illness rather than pulling a schoolboy "sickie"! )
Anyway, this particular day I happened to be sitting at home on the sofa - probably with a glass of lucozade as my mum always used to buy that drink for me when I was ill - and ITV (or Thames Television as it was back then) - played the video to 'Smalltown Boy' during the early afternoon.
Back then, to fill in a bit of time between schedules, Thames Television occasionally used to play the odd pop video, in between programmes like 'The Sullivans' and 'Crown Court', introduced in articulate tones by one of their continuity announcers.
I can remember really enjoying the song and video to 'Smalltown Boy' - and it cheered me up when I was ill.
Back then, I was only 9, and of course the 'gay' overtone of the video didn't register with me at the time.
It's only later that I realised what the actual story was about.
One of the first scenes in the video is at the breakfast table, where an unhappy looking Jimmy Summerville is eating his cornflakes alongside a disaproving looking mother and father.
We then see Jimmy walking along a station platform, joining a train - eating an apple, and looking rather sad.
The journey that Jimmy makes is to the swimming pool, where he enters the pool area as a spectator.
We see footage of a young dark-haired man, probably in his early 20's, diving into the pool. (He's not my type really - The wrong sex for a start
)
Anyway, Jimmy gazes at this young man, clearly admiring him.
(When I saw the video for the first time, I merely thought that this was for his swimming ability rather than anything to do with his body! )
Later on in the changing room area, the young man is drying himself with a towel, and looks angry at Jimmy when Summerville 'gives him the eye', so to speak.
The clear implication in the video is that the swimmer/diver is heterosexual, whereas Jimmy is gay.
The first two verses of the song are:
You leave in the morning
With everything you own
In a little black case
Alone on a platform
The wind and the rain
On a sad and lonely face
Mother will never understand
Why you had to leave
But the answers you seek
Will never be found at home
The love that you need
Will never be found at home
In other words, the love that he 'needs' is a homosexual one.
Summerville goes on to sing in a striking falsetto voice:
Pushed around and kicked around
Always a lonely boy
You were the one
That they'd talk about around town
As they put you down
And as hard as they would try
They'd hurt to make you cry
But you never cried to them
Just to your soul
No you never cried to them
Just to your soul
Run away, turn away, run away, turn away
After having his advances knocked back by the swimmer, Jimmy finds himself running away from a group of hard lads who look as if they are chasing him with the sole intention of kicking and beating him up.
The lyric "Pushed around and kicked around, always a lonely boy" is an indication of the homophobia the singer had to face in the "smalltown streets".
The message of the melancholy song (and video) seems to be that being gay isn't easy - Homophobia, alienation, loneliness and discrimination were all part of the "smalltown attitudes" that gay people faced back in 1984.
Times have changed since then of course. The gay age of consent has been lowered from 21 to 16, and attitudes have become more liberalised.
Indeed, you only have to look at dreadful programmes like 'Big Brother' these days to see how far things have changed in the last 20 years.
It seems to be almost obligatory these days for programmes like BB to feature at least one gay man!
A different culture and set of attitudes to the ones we had 20 years ago or more.
