“Because I allowed President-elect Trump to use YMCA and why the song is not a gay anthem.” This is the title of the long post by Victor Willis, member of the Village People (“policeman” and “naval officer” in various phases of the group). He is the author of the lyrics of the piece, as established in 2015 by a San Diego court which after a legal battle granted him authorship of 13 of the group's songs. The music of YMCA it is instead by Jacques Morali, the producer and creator of the Village People.
Contained in the album Cruising and released as a single in 1978, YMCA (the acronym stands for Young Men's Christian Association, the Christian Association of Young People founded in the mid-nineteenth century) is considered one of the greatest gay anthems. Even though it was not intended to be so, it has been adopted by the community. Donald Trump used it as a song-symbol of his electoral campaigns, accompanied by a dance-meme.
«In the face of a thousand complaints received in 2020» about Trump's use of it in the previous election campaign, Willis decided to ask the then President of the United States not to use the song anymore. Having obtained permission to use it for political purposes from the BMI, a sort of American SIAE, Trump continued to play it at rallies. Thinking that Trump really liked the song and given the refusal of many artists to grant him music for the campaign, Willis did not “have the courage” to fight to prevent him from using the song.
Not only that: the revival of YMCA born from Trump's use of it took the song to number one in the United States for the first time since its release. “The financial benefits are also notable,” writes the Village People singer. «It is estimated that YMCA has made millions of dollars since the President-elect has been using it. I am therefore happy to have allowed it and I thank him for choosing my song.”
Being YMCA considered a gay anthem, many criticized or mocked Trump for using it, as he is not a well-known defender of the rights of the LGBTQ+ community. Willis sees it differently. «As I have said several times in the past, this is a false assumption based on the fact that my co-writer was gay, that some (not all) of the Village People were gay, and that the group's first album was focused on the style of gay life. The assumption is also based on the fact that the YMCA was apparently used as a gay hangout and so, combined with the fact that one of the authors and some of the Village People were gay, it had to be a message to gays. I repeat: stop thinking badly. It's not like that.”
When he wrote the piece, Willis didn't know that the YMCA was associated with gays, “nor did Jacques Morali (who was gay) tell me.” And so he wrote the text based on the information he had about the association, its meeting places, its activities «such as swimming, basketball, athletics, food and cheap rooms. When I sing “going out with the boys”, it's 70s slang spread among black boys, it has nothing to do with gays.”
What disturbs Willis is that the song is associated with what he calls “illicit activities” carried out in the men's branches of the Young Men's Christian Association, whatever they may be. And so, maybe thinking about pieces like that of the Guardian in which the song is defined as “a hymn to sodomy in the shower”, he declares that, as the author of the lyrics, he has instructed his lawyer wife to “sue starting from January 2025 any newspaper that falsely states or alludes to the fact That YMCA is somehow a gay anthem” based on the fact that “it alludes to illicit acts, which is defamatory”, not specifying what such illicit acts would be (in the post he writes both elicitis the correct form illicit). That said, Willis “doesn't mind that gays consider it their anthem”, but recalls that the song is also heard at “weddings, bar mitzvahs, sporting events, commercials, films”.
For Willis, YMCA is a universal anthem that speaks to “people of all kinds, including President-elect Trump. But it's not at all a gay anthem as some people falsely claim. This thing has to stop because it damages the song.”