Y.M.C.A.
Who wrote the song “Y.M.C.A.”?
Why is “Y.M.C.A.” considered a gay anthem?
How has “Y.M.C.A.” been used in political contexts?
Y.M.C.A., hit song by the American disco group the Village People, released on the album Cruisin’ in 1978 and written by the group’s lead singer Victor Willis and producer Jacques Morali. Since its debut, the song has been embraced as an anthem of the LGBTQ community and has remained popular, becoming a party staple, spawning a dance, and providing a musical backdrop (albeit controversially) for the political rallies and presidential campaigns of Donald Trump.
The song’s namesake
The song’s title references the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), a nonpolitical Christian movement that was founded in London in 1844 to develop character through group activities and citizenship training. By the time of the Village People’s song, the YMCA—or, as it is known to many Americans, “the Y”—had evolved into a global organization with popular recreation centers around the world where young men could exercise, play sports, and seek shelter. With its chorus proclaiming “It’s fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A.” and lyrics such as “You can get yourself clean, you can have a good meal,” the Village People’s song celebrates the centers’ amenities.
Composition and dance
The Village People’s lead singer Victor Willis was the only one of the group’s six performing members who wrote music. Most of the rest were hired from an advertisement, placed by producers Jacques Morali and Henri Belolo, calling for macho-type dancers with mustaches to appeal to a gay male aesthetic and create the illusion of a full band.
“Y.M.C.A.” was written to round out the Village People’s third album, Cruisin’, whose track list was slim even after the addition, amounting to only six songs. Morali and Willis wrote it collaboratively, with Morali providing the chorus, melody, and outline and Willis completing the remainder of the lyrics. “I was a bit skeptical about some of our hits, but the minute I heard ‘Y.M.C.A.,’ I knew we had something special,” Village People member David Hodo told SPIN magazine in 2008. “Because it sounded like a commercial. And everyone likes commercials.”
The song is written in the key of F# major and features an intricate brass instrument arrangement and a full orchestra, with a backing track stressed by rhythmic handclaps. Those claps spontaneously inspired the song’s now-famous dance at a performance in 1979 on the television show American Bandstand. As the Village People clapped above their heads during the chorus, the audience mistook the group’s clapping motions for making the letter “Y.” Immediately, the audience responded by spelling out the song’s name with their arms. The Village People not only joined in the moment but also added the choreography to their future performances.
A gay anthem
It’s fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A.
They have everything for young men to enjoy
You can hang out with all the boys
Almost since its release, “Y.M.C.A.” has been considered a gay anthem because its lyrics spoke to the experiences of many LGBTQ people in the 1970s. Several members of the group and the Village People’s production team were gay. According to group member Randy Jones, their target audience was patrons of “Black, Latin, and gay underground clubs.” Even the title of the album on which “Y.M.C.A.” appears, Cruisin’, references the gay subculture of subtly “cruising” for sexual partners in public spaces so as not to be identified, and possibly condemned, by nearby heterosexuals.
The group’s aesthetic also evoked gay male culture, with each member dressed as a macho stereotype, including a police officer, a cowboy, and a leather-clad biker. “Village People’s incantation offered up other, more lascivious, considerations” than the Young Men’s Christian Association intended, wrote Josiah Howard for a Pride month entry on the U.S. Library of Congress blog in June 2021. “As [the Village People] covertly revealed, the YMCA was not only a place where one could ‘have fun’ and ‘have a good time,’ it was also a place where, if you so desired, you could ‘hang out with all the boys.’ ”
However, members of the Village People have disagreed on the song’s underlying meaning. In 2008 Hodo, who is stylized in the song’s music video as a construction worker, told SPIN, “ ‘Y.M.C.A.’ certainly has a gay origin.…Our first album was possibly the gayest album ever.” (The group’s 1977 eponymous debut album includes songs dedicated to San Francisco and to Fire Island in New York, places that have long been meccas for gay men.)
Willis has long denied that “Y.M.C.A.” purposely alludes to homosexuality. “It was not written to be a gay song because of the simple fact I’m not gay,” he told News Corp Australia Network in 2017. “I wanted to write a song that could fit anyone’s lifestyle.” Other members of the group have not expressed certainty either way. “Was it a gay song? I don’t know,” Horace Ott, who arranged the song’s brass instrumentals, told SPIN. “It certainly appealed to a lot of people who embraced that lifestyle.”
Enduring popularity and legacy
Ultimately, the song indeed “appealed to a lot of people.” When it was released, “Y.M.C.A.” reached number two on the Billboard Hot 100 and soon became a disco-era classic. In the 21st century “Y.M.C.A.” is still frequently played and danced to at events ranging from sports games to wedding receptions and high-school proms.
“Y.M.C.A.” was one of 33 Village People songs that were part of a lawsuit by lead singer and songwriter Victor Willis to reclaim his copyright, which in the 1970s he had agreed to transfer to producers Jacques Morali and Henri Belolo. In 2013 he won his case. Two years later he won another case that granted him half of the songs’ royalties instead of one-third, after a judge ruled that Belolo should not share a songwriting credit.
In 2017 YMCA Australia partnered with singer Boy George to produce a slowed-down cover version of “Y.M.C.A.” in support of a campaign to raise awareness about the issues of mental health, youth unemployment, and marriage equality. This is believed to be the YMCA organization’s first public embrace of its namesake song. (Though the organization had at first attempted to sue the Village People over the name, the YMCA eventually accepted the song as good publicity.)
In 2020 U.S. Pres. Donald Trump began ending his political rallies by playing “Y.M.C.A.” Willis objected to Trump’s use of the song and asked him to stop. However, during his 2024 presidential campaign Trump resurrected the song for his rallies.
In 2019 the Library of Congress added “Y.M.C.A.” to the National Recording Registry, a list of audio recordings deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” Two years later the song was inducted into the Recording Academy’s Grammy Hall of Fame.