With no blacks, no Jews and no gays

Today would have been the 85th birthday of the world-famous Harvey Milk, the (first in the US) out-gay public official in San Francisco who was assassinated in 1978.

By way of a little tribute to the "first modern-day gay martyr" (as some Americans would have it), and in recognition of our usual upbeat way to celebrate a weekend, I simply must play one of my favourite disco choons from that era - a time when Mr Milk represented what everyone thought may have been a new epoch of freedom for us gayers...

Produced by the genius that is August Darnell, who also gave us Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band and Kid Creole and the Coconuts, here is Machine and There But For The Grace Of God Go I:

Machine - There But For The Grace Of God Go I

Carlos and Carmen Vidal just had a child
A lovely girl with a crooked smile
Now they gotta split 'cause the Bronx ain't fit
For a kid to grow up in
Let's find a place they say, somewhere far away
With no blacks, no Jews and no gays

There but for the grace of God, there go I
There but for the grace of God, there go I, I, I, I, I, I, I

Poppy and the family left the dirty streets
To find a quiet place overseas
And year after year the kid has to hear
The do's and don'ts and the dears
And when she's ten years old she digs that rock'n'roll
But Poppy bans it from the home

There but for the grace of God, there go I
There but for the grace of God, oh go I (could be me, could be you)
There but for the grace of God, oh go I, I, I, I, I, I, I

Baby, she turns out to be a natural freak
Gaining weight and losing sleep
And when she's sweet sixteen, she packs her things and leaves
With a man she met on the street
Carmen starts to bawl, bangs her head to the wall
Too much love is worse than none at all

There but for the grace of God, there go I
There but for the grace of God, there go I
There but for the grace of God, oh go I
There but for the grace of God, oh go I, I, I, I, I, I, I

Thank Disco It's Friday!

RIP Harvey Bernard Milk (22nd May 1930 – 27th November 1978)

Read our previous tribute to Harvey Milk