If you think the YMCA by Village of the People It was a hilarious anthem, think again. According to Victor Willis, who wrote the lyrics, it’s an excellent song that’s entirely heterosexual – and anyone who suggests otherwise must be “dripping from the chest”.
“Come January 2025,” Willis added on Facebook, “my wife will start asking for anything and everything that falsely refers to the YMCA, either in the headlines or alluded to in the base of the story, that the YMCA is somehow a hilarious anthem that such a concept is alluded to in a single song lyric to elicit relies on [sic] for whom I do not need “
YMCA appeared on the Village’s third album, Cruisin’. It was an international smash, reaching No 1 in 17 countries in October 1978. Its much-loved staple at sporting events, wedding receptions and student discos sold 12m copies. In 2020, the poster was preserved by the National Register of the US Library of Congress as “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”, and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
That same year, Donald Trump started playing at rallies, and he did so consistently, often dancing to another Village People hit, Macho Man. While most musicians reacted with horror to Trump using their songs, Willis says the YMCA has a “huge benefit.”
Willis said on Facebook: “The financial benefits have been great … the YMCA is estimated to have grossed several million dollars since the President-Elect’s continued use of the song. Therefore, I am glad that I have allowed the President-Elect’s continued use of the YMCA. And I thank him for choosing my song to use.
Earlier it was set to YMCA music advising young people who were new to the big city to run the eponymous men’s hostel and gym, where they would find like-minded friends in the common showers. However, Willis wrote that the line “You can hang with all the boys” is “just a 1970s Black slang for Black guys to hang out together for sports, gambling or whatever. Nothing gay about that.”
However, it cannot be denied that the Village People came together to appeal to the gay chick market, as disco swept America in the late 70s. Their name comes from Greenwich Village, that part of New York’s most charming gay neighborhood. In 1977, French record producer Jacques Morali made an album called Village People, on which Willis was the singer.
When it was hit, Morali, who died of Aids in 1991, took the band to New York gay clubs and along the way read: “Macho Types Wanted: Must Dance and Mustache.” He dresses them up as gay male fantasy archetypes including the cowboy, the leather man, the cop, the American and the fabric worker.
However, he quickly got to the audience. In 1979, the US Navy forced him to enlist in the Navy using his song, and to this day another song, Go West, is sung by Arsenal fans, with the lyrics changed to “nil to Arsenal”.
Perhaps all three tunes have returned to their heterosexual roots – although Willis added: “I don’t mind that gays think of the YMCA as an anthem.”