Victor Willis, writer of “YMCA,” wants to clarify something: the song is not gay themed. “There is nothing gay about it,” he says in a Facebook post.
Willis is thrilled Donald Trump likes the song, especially since the Village People singer says he’s made millions from it since Trump started using it.
Willis also says his wife will start suing people who insist the song is gay themed. Whoever Willis’s wife is, she’s pretty busy according to him carrying out their efforts. He says “my wife” more often in his post below than the word “fiancee” is used in a famous “Seinfeld” episode.
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So Willis is raking in the dough, the song — about picking up men in the local Y — isn’t gay, and everyone should leave him alone.
His key paragraph: “The financial benefits have been great as well as Y.M.C.A. is estimated to gross several million dollars since the President Elect’s continued use of the song. Therefore, I’m glad I allowed the President Elect’s continued use of Y.M.C.A. And I thank him for choosing to use my song.”
It’s unclear what and his co-writer make from licensing “YMCA.” But Luminate indicates that the song has sold the equivalent of 265,750 copies thanks almost entirely to streaming this year. That’s not a huge number in sales, which only came to 16,383 in downloads. So his excitement should be taken with some skepticism.
Willis writes:
“To Village People fans and the media:
I am the singer and writer of the lyrics to the hit Y.M.C.A. In fact, as was adjudicated and ruled in a U.S. District Court, I wrote 100% of the lyrics, and my writing partner, Jacques Morali wrote the music.
Since 2020, I’ve received over a thousand complaints about President Elect Trump’s use of Y.M.C.A. With that many complaints, I decided to ask the President Elect to stop using Y.M.C.A. because his use had become a nuisance to me.
However, the use continued because the Trump campaign knew they had obtained a political use license from BMI and absent that license being terminated, they had every right to continue using Y.M.C.A. And they did.
In fact, I started noticing numerous artists withdrawing the President Elect’s use of their material. But by the time I said to my wife one day, hey, “Trump” seems to genuinely like Y.M.C.A. and he’s having a lot of fun with it.
As such, I simply didn’t have the heart to prevent his continued use of my song in the face of so many artists withdrawing his use of their material. So I told my wife to inform BMI to not withdraw the Trump campaign political use license. My French partners were contemplating legal action out of France. So I had my wife contact our French partners and asked them to stay out of the Trump campaign’s use of Y.M.C.A. because it is a U.S. matter, and I will make the decision on his use. Our French partners quickly backed off of their objection to his use.
Y.M.C.A. has benefited greatly from use by the President Elect. For example, Y.M.C.A. was stuck at #2 on the Billboard chart prior to the President Elect’s use. However, the song finally made it to #1 on a Billboard chart after over 45 years (and held on to #1 for two weeks) due to the President Elect’s use.
The financial benefits have been great as well as Y.M.C.A. is estimated to gross several million dollars since the President Elect’s continued use of the song. Therefore, I’m glad I allowed the President Elect’s continued use of Y.M.C.A. And I thank him for choosing to use my song.
There’s been a lot of talk, especially of late, that Y.M.C.A. is somehow a gay anthem. As I’ve said numerous times in the past, that is a false assumption based on the fact that my writing partner was gay, and some (not all) of Village People were gay, and that the first Village People album was totally about gay life.
This assumption is also based on the fact that the YMCA was apparently being used as some sort of gay hangout and since one of the writers was gay and some of the Village People are gay, the song must be a message to gay people. To that I say once again, get your minds out of the gutter. It is not.
Sadly, when the President Elect started using the song, people attempting to brand the song as a gay anthem reached a fever pitch as many used it to say, oh, Trump don’t know the song is a gay anthem? This was done in a manner to attempt to shame the President Elect’s use of the song.
As I stated on numerous occasions, I knew nothing about the Y being a hang out for gays when I wrote the lyrics to Y.M.C.A. and Jacques Morali (who was gay) never once stated such to me. In fact, Jacques never once told me how to write my lyrics otherwise I would have said to him, you don’t need me, why don’t you simply write the lyrics.
I therefore wrote Y.M.C.A. about the things I knew about the Y in the urban areas of San Francisco such as swimming, basketball, track, and cheap food and cheap rooms. And when I say, “hang out with all the boys” that is simply 1970s black slang for black guys hanging-out together for sports, gambling or whatever. There’s nothing gay about that.
So, to the extent that Y.M.C.A. is considered a gay anthem based on the fact that gays once used certain YMCA’s for elicit activity, the assumption that the song alludes to that is completely misguided.
Therefore, since I wrote the lyrics and ought to know what the lyrics I wrote is really about, come January 2025, my wife will start suing each and every news organization that falsely refers to Y.M.C.A., either in their headlines or alluded to in the base of the story, that Y.M.C.A. is somehow a gay anthem because such notion is based solely on the song’s lyrics alluding to elicit activity for which it does not. However, I don’t mind that gays think of the song as their anthem.
But you’d be hard-pressed to find Y.M.C.A. on the play list at any gay club, parade or other gay activity in a way that would suggest it’s somehow an anthem to the community other than alluding to illicit activity, which is defamatory, and damaging to the song. But it stops in 2025.
However, you know where you-will find Y.M.C.A.? On the play list of almost every wedding, bar mitzvah, sporting organization, and the song is used in commercials and motion pictures and products worldwide.
The true anthem is Y.M.C.A.’s appeal to people of all strips including President Elect Trump. But the song is not really a gay anthem other than certain people falsely suggesting that it is. And this must stop because it is damaging to the song.”
