Song Meaning
The song addresses key issues in 1980s LGBT culture. It addresses family rejection for being homosexual and homophobia in British society. It also deals with loneliness and bullying through societal and familial rejection.
A subsequent promotional music video was made, and a "young gay man" (Jimmy Somerville, lead singer of Bronski Beat) was used to depict these issues.
Read more about this topic: Smalltown Boy
Famous quotes containing the words song and/or meaning:
“Even their song is not a sure thing.
It is not a language;
it is a kind of breathing.
They are two asthmatics
whose breath sobs in and out
through a small fuzzy pipe.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“The literature of the poor, the feelings of the child, the philosophy of the street, the meaning of household life, are the topics of the time. It is a great stride. It is a sign,—is it not? of new vigor, when the extremities are made active, when currents of warm life run into the hands and the feet.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)