I Frequently Say There's a Song For Everything...

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Today's horrible news about an Islamic extremist terrorist shooting patrons in an Orlando gay bar brought a song to mind. I frequently say there's a song for everything or about everything, and even here something came to the forefront. In 1976 Rod Stewart released the album A Night on the Town, which contained his biggest (and to me, worst) hit, "Tonight's the Night (Gonna Be All Right)." Eww, I shudder just thinking how awful that song is. However, the album did contain two other minor hits, either of which were infinitely superior to that hunk of garbage that stayed at #1 for nine weeks. One was Stewart's cover of the Cat Stevens song "The First Cut is the Deepest." The other was "The Killing of Georgie." I fell in love with this song from the instant I heard it, and to this day I wonder why it wasn't a bigger hit. Today it seems a most appropriate song. The song is about a gay friend of Stewart's from back in his Faces day (he's never said, or at least I haven't read, if the guy's name really was "Georgie" or not). The friend was murdered in New York City sometime in late 1975. The song (which is now 40 years old) tells of a man who left home, rejected by his parents for being gay, fleeing to New York. There he found an accepting world, in the entertainment world ("accepted by Manhattan's elite and all the places that were chic") and the gay world ("along the boulevards he'd cruise and all the old queens blew a fuse"), Georgie's life was looking up. Then, one night, after he left opening night of a Broadway play before the play ended and cut through an alley, he was accosted by a gang who killed him. The lyrics of the song make it clear that Georgie was not killed just for being gay, but rather was a victim of a random act of violence, a man who paid for being in "the wrong place at the wrong time." Still, the somber line, "Georgie's life ended there" is being echoed and re-echoed, with different names, over four dozen times tonight in Orlando. Near the end of the song Stewart quotes words of wisdom from his friend: "Youth's a mask but it don't last, live it long or live it fast." Then he finishes, "Georgie was a friend of mine." I hope you enjoy this song, and you'll take a moment to remember the 50 "Georgies" who lost their lives to a coward early in the morning of June 12. The Killing of Georgie (Parts 1 and 2) Written by Rod Stewart From A Night on the Town, 1976