Music Video
The narrative music video features band member Jimmy Somerville as the boy who has experienced the issues described in the lyrics. In the beginning of the clip, he is seen on a train, contemplating his childhood and the events that have caused him to leave his parents' home: at a local swimming pool, his friends (played by band members Larry Steinbachek and Steve Bronski) dare him to chat up a man that he fancies, for which he is later attacked in an alley by a gang of homophobes, and a "bobby" brings him back to his home. It is implied that the boy's parents learn of his homosexuality for the first time through this incident and are shocked but only the father seems unsupportive. The boy then catches a train to London, on which he is reunited with his friends. The video ends with "friends" Steinbachek and Bronski joining him.
Read more about this topic: Smalltown Boy
Famous quotes containing the words music and/or video:
“See where my Love sits in the beds of spices,
Beset all round with camphor, myrrh, and roses,
And interlaced with curious devices
Which her apart from all the world incloses!
There doth she tune her lute for her delight,
And with sweet music makes the ground to move,
Whilst I, poor I, do sit in heavy plight,
Wailing alone my unrespected love;”
—Bartholomew Griffin (d. 1602)
“We attempt to remember our collective American childhood, the way it was, but what we often remember is a combination of real past, pieces reshaped by bitterness and love, and, of course, the video past—the portrayals of family life on such television programs as “Leave it to Beaver” and “Father Knows Best” and all the rest.”
—Richard Louv (20th century)