Tom Robinson: Eton Rifle

Radio 6 Music should be safe from the government’s attempts to curb the BBC. It was claimed last week that the Downing Street spin team go into hyperdrive whenever Sam Cameron complains about hearing a bad news story on her favourite station. One of 6’s presenters is Tom Robinson, the former punk protest singer, who told a TMS elf about being invited to perform at Eton. “One of the beaks was a fan,” he said. “It was daunting standing in front of 600 sons of the ruling elite, looking at me and thinking ‘who the eff is this?’” He kicked the gig off with his 1978 hit Glad to be Gay, an apt anthem for Eton, since a former headmaster was the first man to be convicted under the 1533 Buggery Act. *

Times Diary.

PS Listen to Tom Robinson's Live At Eton ep on Lastfm.

* Nicholas Udall.

Banned: 2 4 6 8 Motorway!

Tom Robinson Band, Glad to Be Gay (1978) Originally written for a London gay pride parade, this song became a gay anthem after being banned by the BBC.

Telegraph.

Nope, Glad To Be Gay was not banned - it was a b-side on an ep so would not have been played anyway.
And what the fuck is a "gay anthem"?
It may have not been played on account of it being one of the most boring songs in the entire history of music.

PS At a quick glance most of these songs weren't actually "banned by the BBC."

Glad To Be Gay: Persecution - Complex

I'm now married with kids, but Glad to Be Gay was about anyone who didn't conform, from lesbians to transgenders, a way of recognising that most of us have complex sexualities. I never imagined that, 35 years later, it would be called the gay national anthem, or that we'd have openly gay pop stars and a Tory prime minister campaigning for gay marriage. I received a letter from a US teenager who had been disowned by his Christian parents. He'd just taken an overdose when Glad to Be Gay came on his college radio station. He put his fingers down his throat, threw up, and moved to San Franscisco, where he was now living happily. It would have been worth writing the song for him alone.

Tom Robinson talks to Dave Simpson in The Guardian about writing the much misunderstood Glad To Be Gay.

• Tom's website. Lots of anniversary stuff going on.
Suggested title for Tom's next compilation LP... Now That's What I Call... Worthy (But Boring).