“The Killing of Georgie (Part I and II)” is a song written and recorded by Rod Stewart. It was released as a track on his album, A Night on the Town, in 1976. The song tells the story of a gay man who was killed in New York City. It is a two-part song: Part I, the more popular hit, was blended into the more melancholy and sombre Part II of the song. (More from Wikipedia)
Other 1970’s recordings have danced around gay issues, such as Rod Stewart’s 1976 minor hit “The Killing of Georgie” – about the murder of a gay friend of his in New York back when he was in Faces – and it was an open secret that Freddie Mercury was gay though closeted; he was the frontman of a band called Queen after all. It was many years later though before openly gay songs and performers would arrive on the popular music scene, such as British musician Tom Robinson in the late 1970’s (he collaborated with Peter Gabriel on one EP that I own), and mid-1980’s sensation Frankie Goes to Hollywood. By the way, it is interesting that the first hit songs by arguably the two most famous Liverpool rock bands – the Beatles’ “Please Please Me” and Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s “Relax” – deal fairly openly with the topic of oral sex.
(March 2013)
