Lyrics for singles by Tom Robinson

1967 (So Long Ago)

Fighting with the kids on the fairground
Caravans and TV masts
Generating trucks and Alsatians
I never seen you run so fast
Picking through the litter left afterwards
For two-two shells in the grass
Found a pound note and a keyring
Martin, it's funny them days are past

Saturday flicks at the fleapit
When we had the money to go
Always on the side of the outlaws
And staying for the second show
Bonfires down at the bombsite
And watching the embers glow
Candles and cake in the dugout
Martin, it seems so long ago

Nineteen sixty-seven . . .
It seems so long ago
We was only eleven
It seems so long ago

Day return to Southend Central
Nanny's little treat on the train
Every year we sat on her blanket     {Martin and I could hardly stop laughing}
And every year it started to rain    {'Cuz every year it started to rain}
Eating apples off the allotments
And swapping cigarette cards
Lending Fat Freddy's train set
And treading on his restaurant car

[chorus]

Now I don't wanna give up football
And I don't wanna settle down
Maybe there's life after twenty-five
But I don't feel like sticking around
I don't wanna work in a garage
I don't want my dreams to fold
Never want to have to stop laughing
Martin I'm terrified... of getting old

[chorus]

Sing If You're Glad To Be Gay

The British Police are the best in the world
I don't believe one of these stories I've heard
'Bout them raiding gay bars for no reason at all
Lining the customers up by the wall
Picking out people, knocking them down
"Resisting arrest" as they're kicked on the ground
Searching their houses and calling them queer
I don't believe that sort of thing happens here

Sing if you're glad to be gay
Sing if you're happy that way
Sing if you're glad to be gay
Sing if you're happy that way

Pictures of naked young women are fun                     Being a lesbian's wonderful fun
In Titbits and Playboy, page three of The Sun             You ain't fit to mother a daughter or son
There's no nudes in Gay News our last magazine
But they still find excuses to call it obscene
Read how disgusting we are in the press
The News of The World and the Sunday Express              The Evening News and the Sunday Express
Molesters of children, corruptors of youth
It's there in the paper, it must be the truth

[chorus]

Have you heard the story about Peter Wells
Who one day got arrested and dragged to the cells
For being in love with a guy of eighteen
The vicar found out they'd been having a scene
The magistrates sent him for trial by the Crown
He even appealed but they still sent him down
He was only mistreated a couple of years
Cos even in prison they look after the queers

{spoken}  Better believe it . . .

[chorus]

Don't try to kid us that if you're discreet
You're perfectly safe as you walk down the street
You don't have to mince or make bitchy remarks
To get beaten unconscious and left in the dark
I had a friend who was gentle and short
Got lonely one evening and went for a walk
Queerbashers caught him and kicked in his teeth
He was only hospitalised for a week

[chorus]

So sit back and watch as they close all our clubs
Arrest us for meeting and raid all our pubs
Make sure your boyfriend's at least twenty-one
So only your friends and your brothers get done             And if you're a lesbian, don't be a mum
Lie to your workmates, lie to your folks
Put down the queens and tell anti-queer jokes
Gay Lib's ridiculous, join their laughter
"The buggers are legal now, what more are they after?"

[chorus]

Glad To Be Gay (1993 version)

The British Police are the best in the world
I don't believe one of these stories I've heard
'Bout them spending three million to bust up a ring
Of consenting Leather Men doing their thing
It might have been private, where no-one complained
But the judge put an end to their S&M games
He sentenced the members to four or five years
I can't believe that sort of thing... happened here

Sing if you're glad to be gay
Sing if you're happy that way
Sing if you're glad to be gay
Sing if you're happy that way

The Liars of Wapping are really the pits
They pack them with trivia, bingo and tits
With racialist murders on council estates
You get Fergie and phone-in Dianagate tapes
With Clause 28 they all twisted the knife
They hounded Boy George to an inch of his life
If it's "Poofs in the Pulpit" or "Lesbian Scum"
If it's filth and it's fiction it's... there in the Sun

[chorus]

And now there's a nightmare they blame on the gays
That's brutal and lethal and slowly invades
The figures have risen, the bigotry grown
While people are dying despised and alone
Attacked by the Vatican, bashed by The Bill
With cheap politicians all making a kill
The message is simple and obvious, please -
Just lay off the patients and let's fight the disease

[chorus]