hopefully in a more regular schedule.
Well, well, regular. Regular is a relative word.
What is time?
Anyway, this is...
We can't rewind, we've gone too far.
A podcast where a Scotsman, an Irishman and a Bulgarian
discuss the silliest, weirdest or downright most memorable music videos.
And we're returning after our small hiatus
with a song that shook up the puritanical world of 1983.
And it is still to this day one of the most absolutely unashamedly gayest filthiest music
videos of the 80s.
And we love it for it.
This is the absolute smash hit single "Relax" by Frankie Goes To Home.
Don't do it.
Relax.
Don't do it.
When you want to come.
Relax.
Don't do it.
When you want to suck it.
Do it.
Relax.
Don't do it.
When you want to come.
How do we do the entry today?
Just the two of us because New is getting married.
Wee!
Congrats!
We are Irish-less today.
We didn't.
Was Brexit but Irish.
Are you...
No.
Except...
Sure.
Yeah, Neil's getting married, so he's busy doing marriage stuff.
So congratulations to Neil.
I don't remember how you guys did it for when I was getting married.
I listened to that episode, I don't remember it.
So let's just pretend it's the same.
We're all happy for you and blah, blah, blah.
The famous or infamous video, depending on who you ask,
directed by Bernard Rose.
As banned by the BBC and MTV, depicts the banned members at an S&M-themed gay club
and contains pretty much everything you would imagine that would get banned by the BBC.
Buffetta daddies, drag queens, humiliation kings, schoolboy uniforms, police uniforms,
light torches, trumpet, shaving cream, who are you, hold on.
Okay, back on track, banana ennuiens, roman emperors, real tigers, literal iron maidens?
No, seriously, what's going on with this music video?
It's a downward spiral!
It's just a spiral in some direction.
There's spiralling somewhere.
Somewhere. We don't know where, but we're there for the ride.
There are two separate versions of this video.
A PG version directed by our old friend David Mallet,
and this one, which is not so PG, directed by Bernard Rose.
Today, we will be focusing on Bernie's version.
Our old friend Bernie.
A bit of background, Bernard Rose is a very well-respected British filmmaker
who directed Small Town Boy by Brodsky Beat,
another early 80s British banger,
as well as the motherfucking Candyman,
the original Candyman from 1992,
which is such a great movie,
and I implore everyone to drop everything
and go watch it right now.
I've not actually seen it.
Hopefully that sounded convincing.
I'll trust you that it's good.
Everyone pretended David actually wrote this,
which he just said,
and it wasn't written by me.
A horrible movie, a fictional.
Also, you should drop everything
and watch the movie right now, Dave.
Okay.
It's a really good movie.
I can see why it got banned.
Yeah.
I can't think even today it would probably raise a few eyebrows.
I want to say what were they thinking.
I don't think they were thinking that...
Yeah, I genuinely think that they probably didn't expect it to gather that much,
you know, to become a number one top hit.
They were active from 1980 to 1987,
then had a very small three-year active period
between 2004-2007.
I think Relax was a massive hit.
Well, it was a massive hit.
If I, in the 90s, in post-Soviet,
Bulgarian, you know the song.
Not that they knew what it was about,
or understood the lyrics.
I feel like they might have been going for the controversy,
just to kind of make a statement,
if they were big enough for the video to actually get seen.
The reason why I mentioned Bernard Rose
is because he also directed the video for Small Town Boy.
You know Small Town Boy, don't you?
I know the song.
Good, okay.
Don't know the video.
You should play the video just for yourself on the side.
It's basically a story of the...
I think it's semi-autobiographic.
I'm not sure, but basically shows a guy being kicked out of his family because he's gay and
he's moving to the city. There's something very similar about the two videos. They both show
like different coins of the... I'd imagine the 1980s gay culture in the UK. On one hand you have
Section 28 or just prior to Section 28 of bashing and young people being kicked out of their families,
is because of who they are
versus the counterculture of like
underground
SNM team clubs
with fighting
Tiger Cubs
I guess
so it kind of feels like
I've always seen the two videos kind of
thematically related in a sense in a very
Britain be fucked up
in the 80s way
it's kind of shining a spotlight
on a part of the culture that probably
wouldn't have gotten a spotlight at that point.
I don't know if that video was made for the mainstream straight cis audience in the 80s.
Because I presume there's a lot of like, well, I'm sure there's a lot of like wink, wink,
nudge, nudge, that you understood if you were part of that culture.
I'm sure that you didn't actually have to spit on someone's face to get into SM clubs,
not they've been to many or any.
It's not pretty much probably happening.
I think that was one thing I found quite interesting about it was just going back to like when I was growing up it was like wasn't it wasn't ages ago but it was still in terms of like culture it was like it's very different you know it's like there wasn't any like out gay people in my school for example so in terms of what we presumed like gay clubs were like I think in my mind at the time this is probably what I imagined it was like so and this is obviously I think a more a very exaggerated version of what
would actually be going on but I think it's quite interesting from that point of view.
So are you thinking that maybe somewhere they were trying to kind of
parody what people thought it was? As in like they clearly were parodying what people thought it was but
were they were they doing it for the purpose of queer people laughing on this or for the
or just trying to be extra exaggerated for extra extra extra exaggerated for?
That wasn't what I was thinking but that's actually an interesting way of looking at it as well.
I apologize I thought that was what you're trying to say.
I think what I was trying to say is that it could be kind of
playing on people's stereotypes
of what it's like, just sort of embracing
the stereotypes and going like, yeah, fuck it, fuck it,
this is what happens. Just to scare people
off, I don't know. Well, the thing is that the end,
it did get banned very, very swiftly and quickly
from BBC and MTV, which
to surprise to none, honestly,
they banned fucking
Queen, which is so
mucked-dosed compared to this.
Yeah, this video is not
hiding what it's about in this list,
which I do, which I have respect, actually.
it's just like yeah fuck it maybe we should do like a very very very quick description about the
video what actually happens in the video because you have the main character um who is a very
trait aged dressed person like in a like in a suit everything um getting rolled to a like the
front entrance of a club on a horse carriage drawn by a uh a person then he gets greeted by a
leather clad guy um get him into the club way to get to be allowed into the club is to spit in the
face of the person at the front again just looking into different you know kings and things of i i i
can only imagine that they there was probably a level of lol this is funny and nobody will take it
seriously but also everyone thought thought it was serious because the britain in the 80s
well no the most liberal places um so they go they all going so they both going there there's
uh people with all shapes and sizes and uh kings uh you know at the club uh partying there's a
really cool bartender lady with a really fucking cool hairdo there's uh like drag queens there's a
guy who is dressed as a roman emperor just showing up being carried on like on a like a
What's the word? Not tray?
Like a... Chariot sort of thing.
Chariot. But yeah, carried by people again.
He has...
I can't think of what the word would be.
He's been carried in by his loyal servants.
Yeah, basically.
At some point, the main character, protagonist in the suit,
sorry, in the office suit, as opposed to the other suit,
gets dragged onto a stage and he gets to fight a tiger,
which we then realize is a tiny baby tiger cub.
Although, because in the beginning,
they show it in like in extreme close-up
and it looks like a big tiger,
but it's actually like a tiny, very, very tiny tiger.
So it's quite funny.
And then there's, at some point,
it kind of goes into a pandemonium of a woman
who we don't really see much,
but you see her for very brief,
dressed up in a very normal, quote-unquote way.
She gets put into an Iron Maiden,
which gets closed on her.
During all of this,
the guy dressed as an emperor
is having his face shaved
or rather he's covered in a shaving cream,
which is...
Is that in the end of something?
I don't know if you have milk here, Dave.
I don't know.
I never thought that.
I don't know.
There's plenty of anywhere else to go around.
So let's just see it.
Well, what was your first gay club experience
and was it as epic as this one?
I kind of got two that sprang to mind.
first time it kind of goes back to what i was talking about my kind of perceptions growing up
you know and not the most enlightened of times shall we say where the first time i went to a gay
bar and i was like oh i don't know i don't know if i want to go because it's probably going to be
like frankie goes to hollywood and there and shit like that and then i went and it was just like a
normal bar with better music and more glitter the second time that was probably more interesting
because it was um not the second time but i became friends with someone who i work with and you've
trying to convince me for ages to go to a night in Glasgow called which is a bit more in this
direction it's not as ridiculous as this but it's a bit more you know people like this kicking about
it's probably not what this music video is about but when i look at the straight looking guy in the
the shirt and tie and all that stuff i kind of feel like i was like that the first time i went in
there where i was like just had this feeling that i was the most bland person in the room i kind of
never got the feeling that the main character
singer in the video was the bland one
I think it's more like he just
rolling off from his work
job or something. But I have another interesting
story from that same club
I've been back many times
since because it's a fucking great laugh
and I remember talking to
this lassie who was in there
who was like worked on nuclear
submarines sort of prim and proper
very kind of militaristic person
not the kind of person you'd expect in a place like that
and I was kind of talking to her
and I was just like
oh you work on nuclear weapons submarines
cool
when she came in
she was very like serious
and all that stuff
and by the end of the night
she was out her face on
dancing with her shirt off
on the dance floor
surrounded by guys in leather
you know outfits and shit like that
wow
it's like this guy
in the video
he probably leads
like a fairly
sort of prim and proper life
where he's like
you've got a respectful job
and all that stuff
and this is where he goes
to fucking
just cutlass
and dance like an idiot and fight tigers and shit like that.
I feel like that's kind of a rough analogue
to what this lassie who worked on the nuclear submarines was thinking.
Fair enough.
What was your first one?
I don't remember my first one.
Sorry.
You came out of the womb straight into a gay bar.
It would have probably been at my freshest week in 2009.
Me being completely fresh-faced in Glasgow,
where people are like, let's go to this club.
I can tell you a very funny one.
I was already dating Scott
and we were very early on in our relationship.
It was me, Scott and a gay friend.
And I went to grab drinks
and as it's very usual,
women will just talk at the bar or wherever
because that's just a normal club experience anywhere.
You know, just like waiting for something
and you just start talking to someone, whatever.
So I would just chat into this woman.
And it was very like, we were all like laughing,
whatever, waiting for drinks.
Behind me, there was a conversation happening
where that woman's friends were talking to Scott,
my friend, and apparently the conversation
hasn't been told, went along the lines of,
oh, that's like, that's our power, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Is your friend, is your friend single to Scott?
Just being like, no, she's actually my girlfriend.
next thing I know
unknown to this conversation is
like her
getting dragged by her friends
because we were just having nice chat
and I was like oh yeah bye I'm gonna see you on the dance floor
and it's called my pal dragging me away
so apparently all this
completely oblivious to me
in a gay club because I'm a fucking idiot
I wasn't just having a nice chat with this
woman and she was actually hitting on me
it was very embarrassing
yeah I know
I'm just going to point out here
I don't know if
I'm sure there's a lot of people
who are listening
might notice
or might have
called this out
I'm bi
and I'm fully
fully
completely
oblivious to everything
and everyone
who have ever
hit it on me
I do apologize
to anyone
who's done that
and I'll be just like
hi you're very friendly
thanks bye
so yeah
what else to say
about the video
what else we've got here
innuendos
just innuendos
there's a lot of them
the one thing
like obviously the gist in your end is everything you'd imagine you know like
being sprayed out on the song just talking about you coming and lazy beeps and shit you know
the usual stuff um there was a lot of bananas there was a lot of bananas which was
there was a lot of bananas that's not i'm not just like saying the word there was literally
bananas yeah um including like some very like very close-ups of the lead singer just being very very
very essentially looking on bananas um so that's that was the video was done in 83 i i do apologize
my aids knowledge is not amazing as in like no i mean it's fine just i can't remember the exact
year when you've been kicked off it would have been around then am i going crazy thinking that
all the bananas has condoms on them because i think they did but i don't think they were like
they were not shown
but they were glistening
if that makes sense
as they would
as you said that
I've got the video
playing in a loop
and I did see something
that looked like that
see if another one comes up
it's not very clear
but I think
maybe you might be right
was that video
just incredibly
ahead of its time
when playing safe
so I just
wonder if there was
like a very slight
not just always
always put the condom
on your bananas
yeah
I can't say this
straight face
but yeah
yeah I think you might be right
so the next touch of it is I have to
look closer. I can't believe you're actually
discussing the
symbolism of bananas
in the video about the gay bar, I'm sorry
stop motion
you have, you've put a note about stop motion
what is that about? It's not stop motion
but it's just the one point where they're doing
I don't know if this
phrase universally translates
but vinegar stroke
are you aware of that one? Nope
you're going to have to
you're free to explain it
it's your cum face basically
so when their boats
writhing around on the floor
it's kind of like
all stop motion
not actual stop motion but it's like
I thought that was quite funny
I just found it funny
because that's once again blatantly what they're going for
yeah I mean the whole video is
you know the dance
that's the thing about this video I remember even
when I was hearing this when I was younger
not the most worldly wise person yet
even then going like
hmm they're talking about shit
so it's like
nothing about this is subtle
in this latest which is fine
yeah the funny thing is like when I was doing the
research there's a very funny
description how
in terms of like the
public reception of the song and the video
and I'm just quoting from
Wikipedia here because we always do our
research, due diligence in doing research
by Wikipedia.
Throughout the relaxed
controversy,
the bad continued to publicly
deny that the songs
were sexual, all to
be the earliest of
before the internet where you can just look up the
lyrics. Nevertheless,
by 1984, it was clear that
1984, which is for two years,
it was clear that the public were
aware of the sexual nature of the lyrics,
but the scandal had fueled
sales anyway. In 1985,
with the release of the Welcome to
the Pleasuredome album, which included
the song Relax, the band
dropped any public pretense
about the lyrics.
Now we're quoting Mark O'Toole.
Everything I say is complete
lies. Like when people
ask you about what Relax
is about, when it first came out
we used to pretend it was about
motivation. I find
it so... This is why I keep
thinking like this video was not made for like the straight public.
Actually, I totally respect the fact that they were feigning ignorance just going like,
oh yeah, it's not. But when in the song, there's literally the sound of like water flowing after
he says, it's so fucking blatant. But I find that hysterical that they were like, no, no,
no, it's about getting up and going for a jog in the morning. Yeah.
It's just going with your laser beams. It's just, you know, just.
It's laser beams of productivity.
Yeah, definitely productivity of some form.
Yeah, it's great, isn't it?
The sort of old saying that all songs are about sex or drugs,
no exceptions, but it's usually more subtle than this.
Usually it's like, you know, a metaphor alluding towards
being off your face or fucking someone.
It's never usually quite blam in your face.
Well, if you pardon the expression.
Yeah, we talked about the sledgehammer, which is against the ball chugging.
And it's kind of obvious once you listen to the lyrics a bit, but it's again, it's not
directly saying, like, I want to fuck my wife or whoever the person was.
Although the video just literally starts with sperm flying around, not flying.
Flying sperm sounds dangerous.
That's what this video is about.
So we've got swimming sperm for that one.
We've got flying for this one.
It's just flying everywhere.
Anyway.
Fucking hell.
Can't believe we put this shit on the internet.
Okay, final point.
Do you want to start?
This video just doesn't give a fuck.
It's, yeah, it doesn't give a fuck.
And I respect that.
That's it.
I'm going to say it gives a lot of fucks.
as long as you've wrapped your banana before you give the fuck then you're good
my favorite favorite part it's just this is just a random one there's lots of good shit but i think
one bit that sticks out to me is uh the guy with the fan who's fanning like the emperor up on the
balcony uh he there's just one split second shot where he just has this incredible intense look in
his face like he's just like totally into waving this fan he's like he's living for this moment and
the runner-up is just which is isn't technically the music video that's the song but it's funny i
wish everyone could see the face of david just made you'll have to imagine it and the worst part
is i don't think the emperor ever finishes shaving yeah he's just constantly being shaved maybe maybe
his beard grows really fast he just hits like uh like that bridge in san francisco where they start
painting it one side and then by the time they finish they've got to start again that sounds
not very effective or efficient they should use probably better paint my final points are that
this video is fantastic it's budget crazy it's not bad at all but you need to be prepared and you
need to be warned that um there's a lot of things there that you will see that you might like you need
been the right mindset to not freak out about trigger warning weird weird chair happening
yeah trigger warning which is happening um not necessarily bad it's fun it's a really fun video
but you need to be prepared it literally starts with someone's beating in someone's face i can't
underline enough how everything that we see is very clearly consensual despite the fact it's all
this depravity and all this stuff.
Depravity, wow.
I mean, it is a point.
But it all feels like it's in good fun
is the point, which is nice.
Yes. Good clean depravity.
Yeah, except for the couple things
that are not, which is the
woman in the Iron Maiden,
which is, I guess the joke is like, we do that
to, I don't know what's supposed to be
straight, but it's what we do to people.
I'm like, just throwing someone
to a tiger cub and be like,
it's what we do to people.
Oh, like enough, obviously.
Okay, so my favorite part is Batting the lady with the fucking great hairdo and just kind of dancing around.
And I think she's supposed to be sort of a dominatrix because she kicks some guy who is in her feet a couple of times.
You do, you lady.
But also at some point, there's a split second video, like, shot of her pulling her top up as in, like, just adjusting it.
And I just felt, for a second, it just felt so funny and relatable to me when I saw that.
And I was like, she's just having the time of her life and she just doesn't give a fuck.
She's just dancing around and putting her top up.
And yes, lady, whoever you are, props to you.
Worst part for me was that I don't think there is a worst part because I don't think that video was made for us.
And I don't think it's up to us to judge whether something was bad or not.
Also, it's for a year old video, fuck.
Gay clubs are still funny.
There you go.
Some things never change.
some things never change
I've never been to an SNM club nowadays
I don't know if you have to spit in someone's face to get in
maybe some you do and that's also consensual
I hope
and with that in mind
take a look at our show notes
to links to today's video
our show links
to Instagram
and our social medias and Twitter
and all of that
also please email us
but nothing not consensual
to go to
gfarcast at gmail.com
com
dot com
we'd love to hear your thoughts
and your recommendations for videos
if you have any thoughts
on this yeah
oh yes
that was a chaotic one
we need Neil to keep us on the straight and narrow
no pun telling