As well as being a great disco hit, Bronksi Beat’s 1984 ‘Smalltown Boy’ was an effective cultural response to Thatcher’s homophobic policies, including the notorious Section 28, as well as being the expression of Jimmy Somerville’s personal story of being a young gay man in Ruchill experiencing prejudice and discrimination and deciding that he needed to leave for London.
Now Glasgow is going to host a ‘Smalltown Boy’ exhibition, at the SWG3 gallery. From 23 August to 20 September, there’ll be a ‘celebration of freedom and acceptance through a diverse range of artistic mediums, including photography, painting, sculpture, and a live rave installation’.
Somerville’s genius for combining accessible and edgy pop with clear indications of progressive political commitment took many forms: his close friendship with Mark Ashton, the Young Communist activist who was a central figure in Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners; and – following Bronski Beat – his partnership with Richard Coles in The Communards.
Interviewed by Mark Perryman for the magazine Marxism Today in May 1986, Coles answered questions about the relationship between their music and politics: ‘Jimmy and I write a lot of love songs. I don’t like to write a song which just goes something like, “We hate Thatcher . . . Vote for Kinnock’” … But a love-song from one man to another is a political statement, it’s a political song, that’s the way we want to do it. A celebration is far more immediate, it touches a chord in someone which is much more resonant than empty sloganising’.
The celebratory exhibition at SWG3 is both a tribute to one of Glasgow’s sons and an indication of the progress which, on the issue of gay rights at least, has been achieved over the last forty years.
Published 13 July 2024.