Topping out at number two on Billboard around the same time, the Village People’s only single from their 1978 studio album Cruisin’ reached number one on the UK charts on this day in 1979. Rhythmically complex and with lyrics full of double-entendre, the singer-songwriter Victor Willis has affirmed that the 
song is to be understood on many levels and not just a celebratory anthem but also praising the diversity that the organisation fostered, the boarding house function originally founded in the 1880s to provide affordable rooms for people from rural areas coming into the cities to look for work had by the time the song was composed had seen a demographic shift to the unhomed urban population and displaced youth cohabitating with the older, more typical tenants, with a not insignificant proportion who were gay. Initially, the YMCA was going to sue the band for besmirching their name but later settled and came to embrace the enduring number for singing the praises of the institution. Inscribed by the US Library of Congress into the National Recording Registry as culturally important and “proof that disco never truly died,” the number and routine is a popular cheer for sporting events and over the eventual objection of The Village People, featured in Donald Trump’s campaign rallies—see also. Once defeated, YMCA was adopted by supporters of his challenger Joe Biden and was blasted on loudspeakers as Trump boarded Air Force One for the last time to leave Washington ahead of the inauguration of his successor.
synchronoptica
one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting plus FDR’s Four Freedoms (1941)
two years ago: a figure skater assaulted (1994), Soylent Green (1973) plus the Night of the Big Wind (1839)
three years ago: your daily demon: Amy, photographer Ute Mahler, more links to enjoy, the South Sea Bubble, an airline safety campaign, the Bad Drawing Club plus the US Capitol stormed
four years ago: US threatens Iran, First Nations’ custom emoji plus artists’ final works
five years ago: more links to visit
