Rod Stewart, one of the greatt rock ‘n’ roll sgers, is still current wh his new DNCE -release. What many don’t know is 40 years ago he wrote the first pop song to addrs gay rights.
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ROD STEWART: 'I WAS SURROUND BY GAY MEN THE 70S'
Forty years ago, Rod Stewart released The Killg of Geie, a groundbreakg sgle about the murr of a gay man – now tragilly relevant aga the light of events Orlando * is rod steward gay *
Its subject uldn’t be more horribly relevant, given this past weekend’s massacre years ago this Saturday (18 June), Stewart released The Killg of Geie Parts I and II, the first major pop song to tell the tale of a gay man who died, part, bee of his sexual om solely a sad tale, Geie also ranked as the first chart h to prent a gay man wh not only empathy but admiratn. Cocintally, the song’s 40th anniversary arriv durg gay pri month.
A few h songs addrsg gay subjects had appeared before Stewart’s track. Before Geie, however, there had never been an earnt song portrayg the hardship and joy of a gay person’s life for a mass dience. Stewart says that 1976, he didn’t tend to wre a gay story per se.
* is rod steward gay *
“If someone said to me, ‘S down and wre a song about a gay man, ’ would have ightened the daylights out of me, ” he tells the Guardian. Geie’s narrative follows a gay kid om a small town who’s rejected by his parents, g him to flee to New York Cy where he be the toast of the town. The tale ends tragilly when, after leavg the theater one night, Geie ns to a gang of New Jersey kids who target him for beg gay and murr him.
”The sger says he had a sympathy to Geie’s story bee “I was surround by gay men at the time. I had a gay manager and a gay PR guy. Long John Baldry, who disvered me, was gay.
’”This superficial, glam-spired acceptance of homosexualy prevalent the era is reflected the song’s openg l: “In the days of changg ways/So-lled liberated days/A story to md of a iend of me... ” However, unlike a lot of glam rockers, Stewart don’t portray homosexualy as somethg exotic and other: “Geie boy was gay I gus/Noth’ more or noth’ ls/The kst guy I ever knew. ”Though the ath of Geie nforms to an old stereotype of gay liv endg badly, the empathy the song proved stirrg to a generatn of gay people starvg for public portrayals of any kd.