Victor Willis, who is best known for being a founding member of the Village People, is calling out the media for perpetuating the idea that "Y.M.C.A." is a gay anthem.
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00:00Before I give my point of view on this, your point of view is way more important.
00:07So why do you have a problem with people calling YMCA a gay anthem?
00:13People can, I don't mind people thinking if they want to take it as their anthem, it's
00:17fine.
00:18But when the media starts saying, every time they open up with a situation about talking
00:25about the Village People song YMCA, they start saying, yeah, the Gay Anthem, the Village
00:32People Gay Anthem, YMCA, or they put it anywhere in context about it being a gay anthem, those
00:41are things that, that you're playing the song and they're hurting the song.
00:46And it kind of upsets me because I'm the writer of the lyrics and the singer and I didn't
00:51say anything about anything gay.
00:53You say it's hurting the song when people introduce it that way.
00:56And by the way, I mean, I agree with Harvey.
00:59I don't even know why anybody would introduce it as Gay Anthem YMCA.
01:03It's just sort of socially known as that.
01:06You don't even have to say it.
01:08But why do you feel it's hurting the song if people introduce it that way?
01:13Well, it's because the media is the media.
01:17There are people that they believe anything you say, the media, they watch, they'll watch
01:25TV, they'll watch your show and anything that if you say this, that, you know, this is this,
01:31they believe it.
01:32I mean, you know, if you say birds don't fly, they'll believe it because you said it.
01:37When you kind of parse the words from YMCA, it feels like it's all double entendres.
01:41They're all double entendres.
01:43I mean, and you you're so talented.
01:46You must have known the double entendres of the whole song.
01:51You know, hang out with all the boys, do whatever you feel, all of that stuff.
01:56You got to know that it's going to be received in a certain way in different communities.
02:01Of course.
02:02I mean, you know, basically that was something because of my lifestyle and Jacques's lifestyle.
02:09I tried to write the songs open, which is something that I tried to specialize in was
02:15writing basically in a double entendre.
02:19But again, when I wrote the lyrics to YMCA, I can only write what it was that I knew about
02:27the YMCA.
02:28And if Jacques, for example, my writing partner, has said to me, well, write the song and make
02:36sure you put something in there about gay life or whatever.
02:40I probably would have said, well, look, Jacques, you don't need me to write it, write it yourself
02:43then because but Jacques never ever bothered me about my lyrics.
02:46Look, I you know, I'm a gay guy and I was in my 20s when your song came out.
02:54And I can tell you with my friends and my community and other people outside of my community,
03:01everybody kind of thought of it as a gay anthem.
03:04And it kind of reminds me to give you an example.
03:07Leslie Gore, a long time ago, wrote a song called You Don't Own Me.
03:11And that was just a song about a girl.
03:15But it became a feminist anthem, even though she didn't necessarily write it as a feminist
03:20anthem.
03:21But a lot of people took it that way.
03:23So if people like me and others think of it as a gay anthem, even if you didn't write
03:29it that way and you can look beyond it, shouldn't that be kind of a good thing?
03:34Well, it's fine with me.
03:36I mean, if that's how you want to accept it, that's fine with me.
03:41But if you if you want to go into the looking at it as another, my other way of looking
03:47at it is, for example, you take any playlist and any of the gay bars or the gay music places
03:56or their parades, et cetera.
03:59YMCA is not on the list.
04:02But if you want to if you go to the list playlist of weddings, if you go to play the list of
04:08weddings or sports events, bar mitzvahs, movie productions or commercials, YMCA is on the
04:17list.
04:18Well, well, well, it was on the list when I was when I was in my.
04:23Yeah.
04:24I mean, Victor, I agree with you that it is on the list that all those other things, sporting
04:27events, you hear it.
04:28I mean, it's a song that goes beyond just being a gay anthem.
04:32But for the gay community, it does feel like an anthem.
04:35It has been for almost 50 years now.
04:38So I'm just curious, like if you were going to sue a media outlet, what would the have
04:43you spoken to lawyers about what the lawsuit would would be?
04:46I haven't gotten into that and I wouldn't have to speak.
04:50I wouldn't have to speak anywhere but to my wife because she's a lawyer.