YMCA (song)
Encyclopedia
"Y.M.C.A." is a song recorded by American disco group Village People
Village People
Village People is a concept disco group that formed in the United States in 1977, well known for their on-stage costumes depicting American cultural stereotypes, as well as their catchy tunes and suggestive lyrics....

. It was released in 1978 as the only single from the album Cruisin'. The song reached No. 2 on the U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 charts in early 1979 and reached No.1 in the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 around the same time, becoming the group's biggest hit. It is one of the fewer than thirty all-time singles to have sold 10 million (or more) copies worldwide.

The song continues to remain popular and is played at many sporting events in the USA and Europe. It is frequently played during breaks in the action at sporting events with crowds using the dance as an opportunity to stretch. Moreover, the song also remains particularly popular due to its status as a disco classic and gay anthem
Gay anthem
A gay anthem is a song that has become widely popular among, or has become identified with, the LGBT community; usually with gay men. The lyrics of gay anthems are often marked with hope against the odds, pride, unity, or defiance...

, even among listeners who are otherwise uninvolved in disco or gay culture. It is also known to be a favorite at weddings and school dances. A popular dance in which the arms are used to spell out the four letters of the song's title may have much to do with this.
YMCA appeared as Space Shuttle Wakeup call on mission STS-106, on day 11. In 2009, YMCA was entered into the Guinness World Book of Records when over 44,000 people danced to the song with Village People singing live at the Sun Bowl game in Texas.
"Y.M.C.A." is number 7 on VH1
VH1
VH1 or Vh1 is an American cable television network based in New York City. Launched on January 1, 1985 in the old space of Turner Broadcasting's short-lived Cable Music Channel, the original purpose of the channel was to build on the success of MTV by playing music videos, but targeting a slightly...

's list of The 100 Greatest Dance Songs of the 20th Century.

Content

Taken at face value, its lyrics
Lyrics
Lyrics are a set of words that make up a song. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist or lyrist. The meaning of lyrics can either be explicit or implicit. Some lyrics are abstract, almost unintelligible, and, in such cases, their explication emphasizes form, articulation, meter, and symmetry of...

 extol the virtues of the Young Men's Christian Association
YMCA
The Young Men's Christian Association is a worldwide organization of more than 45 million members from 125 national federations affiliated through the World Alliance of YMCAs...

. In gay culture from which the group sprang, the song was implicitly understood as celebrating the YMCA's reputation as a popular cruising
Cruising for sex
Cruising for sex, or cruising is the act of walking or driving about a locality in search of a sex partner, usually of the anonymous, casual, one-time variety...

 and hookup
Casual sex
Casual sex or hooking up refers to certain types of human sexual activity outside the context of a romantic relationship. The term is not always used consistently: some use it to refer to any extramarital sex, some use it to refer to sex in a casual relationship, whereas others reserve its use for...

 spot, particularly for the younger gay men to whom it was addressed. However, Victor Willis
Victor Willis
Victor Edward Willis is a singer, songwriter, actor; and most known as the original lead singer of the disco group Village People. His persona was the Cop and Naval Officer....

, Village People lead singer and writer of the lyrics, insists that he did not write YMCA as a gay anthem (Willis is heterosexual). Rather, Willis said he wrote the song as a reflection of young urban black youth fun at the YMCA such as basketball
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...

 and swimming, etc. That said, Willis has often acknowledged his fondness for double entendre
Double entendre
A double entendre or adianoeta is a figure of speech in which a spoken phrase is devised to be understood in either of two ways. Often the first meaning is straightforward, while the second meaning is less so: often risqué or ironic....

. Willis also revealed that he wrote the song in Vancouver
Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...

, British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...

.

Song structure

The song, played in the key
Key (music)
In music theory, the term key is used in many different and sometimes contradictory ways. A common use is to speak of music as being "in" a specific key, such as in the key of C major or in the key of F-sharp. Sometimes the terms "major" or "minor" are appended, as in the key of A minor or in the...

 of F-sharp major, begins with a brass riff, backed by the constant pulse that typified disco. Many different instruments are used throughout for an overall orchestral feel, another disco convention, but it is brass that stands out.

As with other Village People hits, the lead vocals are handled by Willis and the background vocals are supplied by Willis and professional background singers. The distinctive vocal line features the repeated "Young man!" ecphonesis
Ecphonesis
An ecphonesis is an emotional, exclamatory phrase used in poetry, drama, or song. It is a rhetorical device that originated in ancient literature...

 followed by Willis singing the verse lines. The background vocals join in throughout the song.

History

Contrary to popular belief, the song wasn't produced as YMCA radio commercial (even though lyrics sounds like one to certain degree). Executive producer Henri Belolo
Henri Belolo
Henri Belolo is a French music producer active during the disco era. Together with his friend and composer Jacques Morali, he created The Ritchie Family as well as their most successful group, Village People....

 recalls that he saw the YMCA sign while walking down the street with composer Jacques Morali
Jacques Morali
Jacques Morali was a French music producer, who is best remembered for being the creator and driving force behind the disco group, Village People....

, who seemed to know the institution fairly well: "Henri, let me tell you something. This is a place where a lot of people go when they are in town. And they get good friends and they go out." And Henri got the idea: "Why don't we write a song about it?" However, Willis (the writer) recalls it was actually Jacques Morali who, while in the studio, asked him, "What exactly is the YMCA?" Willis then quickly wrote the famous lyrics and melody and it was the last track created for the album Cruisin'.

Initially during the single's release, the YMCA threatened to sue the band over trademark infringement and concerns about the song's double entendre
Double entendre
A double entendre or adianoeta is a figure of speech in which a spoken phrase is devised to be understood in either of two ways. Often the first meaning is straightforward, while the second meaning is less so: often risqué or ironic....

s. They ultimately dropped the lawsuit when they noticed that membership significantly increased in the wake of the song's popularity. Today, the organization is happy to be associated with the song and sees it as a positive public representation.

The song became a number one hit throughout the world (although not in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 where it lost to Rod Stewart
Rod Stewart
Roderick David "Rod" Stewart, CBE is a British singer-songwriter and musician, born and raised in North London, England and currently residing in Epping. He is of Scottish and English ancestry....

's "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?
Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?
"Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?" is a 1978 hit song for Rod Stewart. It was written by Stewart and Carmine Appice, and produced by Tom Dowd."Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?" spent one week at the top of the British charts in December 1978 and four weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100, starting 10 February 1979...

"). It has remained popular at parties, sporting events, weddings and functions ever since.

In 2011, Willis filed a notice of copyright termination to the song as lyricist under the 1976 copyright act which allows recording artists and writers to reclaim their master recordings and publishing rights initially granted to record companies and publishers. The 1976 copyright act allows for termination of copyright grants after 35 years. The grant of copyright must have been signed after January 1, 1978. 2013 marks the year the publishing rights to Y.M.C.A. would revert back to Willis pursuant to the notice of termination, subject to litigation already filed by the publisher seeking to prevent such reversion.

Origin of hand movement and dance

YMCA is also the name of a group dance
Group dance
Group dances are danced by groups of people simultaneously, as opposed to individuals dancing alone or individually, and as opposed to couples dancing together but independently of others dancing at the same time, if any....

 with cheerleader Y-M-C-A choreography invented to fit the song. One of the phases involves moving arms to form the letters Y-M-C-A as they are sung in the chorus:
Y arms outstretched and raised upwards
M made by bending the elbows from the 'Y' pose so the fingertips meet over the chest
C arms extended to the left
A hands held together above head


The dance originated on Dick Clark's American Bandstand
American Bandstand
American Bandstand is an American music-performance show that aired in various versions from 1952 to 1989 and was hosted from 1956 until its final season by Dick Clark, who also served as producer...

. During the January 6, 1979 episode, which featured the Village People as guests throughout the hour, the dance was performed by audience members while the group performed "YMCA." Clark then said to Willis that he would like to show him something. Clark again played the song with the audience doing the YMCA hand gestures. Willis immediately picked up on the dance and mimicked the hand movements back at the audience as other Village People members stared at him with puzzled looks. Clark then turned to Willis and said, "Victor, think you can work this dance into your routine?" Willis responded, "I think we're gonna have to."

At the original Yankee Stadium, the grounds crew traditionally took a break from grooming the infield
Infielder
An infielder is a baseball player stationed at one of four defensive "infield" positions on the baseball field.-Standard arrangement of positions:In a game of baseball, two teams of nine players take turns playing offensive and defensive roles...

 after the sixth inning
Innings
An inning, or innings, is a fixed-length segment of a game in any of a variety of sports – most notably cricket and baseball during which one team attempts to score while the other team attempts to prevent the first from scoring. In cricket, the term innings is both singular and plural and is...

 to lead the crowd in the dance; this tradition has been carried over to the current Yankee Stadium
Yankee Stadium
Yankee Stadium was a stadium located in The Bronx in New York City, New York. It was the home ballpark of the New York Yankees from 1923 to 1973 and from 1976 to 2008. The stadium hosted 6,581 Yankees regular season home games during its 85-year history. It was also the former home of the New York...

. In July 2008, Village People performed "Y.M.C.A." with the Yankees grounds crew at the last MLB All-Star Game held at the old Yankee Stadium. Similarly at the Sapporo Dome
Sapporo Dome
The is a stadium located in Toyohira-ku, Sapporo, Japan, and is primarily used for baseball and football. It is the home field of the baseball team Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters and the football club Consadole Sapporo.-History:...

, during Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters baseball games, "Y.M.C.A." is enthusiastically enjoyed by the crowd and ground staff during the fifth inning stretch.

Covers and parodies

  • Cover version sung in Japanese
    Japanese language
    is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

     titled "Young Man", was recorded by a Japanese
    Japanese people
    The are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...

     singer Hideki Saijo
    Hideki Saijo
    is a Japanese singer and television celebrity most famous for singing the Japanese version of the Village People's hit song Y.M.C.A., called Young Man. Although the original version was camp, Saijō's version was intended to seriously inspire "young men"....

     and released in spring 1979. It marked the #1 on the Japanese official singles chart Oricon
    Oricon
    , established in 1999, is the holding company at the head of a Japanese corporate group that supplies statistics and information on music and the music industry in Japan. It started as , which was founded by Sōkō Koike in November 1967 and became known for its music charts. Oricon Inc...

     for 5 weeks, and finally sold more than 800,000 copies and became the most commercially successful cover version of the song. "Young Man" won the 1979 Japan Music Awards for Grand Prix.
  • Adam and the Ants
    Adam and the Ants
    Adam and the Ants were a British rock band active during the late 1970s and early 1980s. The original group, which existed from 1977 to 1980, became notable as a cult band marking the transition from the late-1970s punk rock era to the post-punk and New Wave era...

     performed a live cover version of YMCA in the late 70s and early 80s, renaming it "A.N.T.S", and heavily altering the lyrics - for example, "young man" became "Ant fan". The track was recorded in 1981 to give away free on a Flexidisc with Flexipop Magazine
    Flexipop Magazine
    Flexipop magazine was famous for the re-emergence of the flexible music disc in the UK during the 1980s. Launched in 1980 by ex-Record Mirror journalists Barry Cain and Tim Lott, the magazine featured a flexidisc in each issue. The magazine lasted for two years...

     in the UK. The lyrics were altered slightly from the live version, as the refrain of "Go then, to Adam & the Ants, they will make you cum in your pants" before the chorus was deemed too offensive for the largely young readers of Flexipop. Adam Ant
    Adam Ant
    Adam Ant is an English musician who gained popularity as the lead singer of New Wave/post-punk group Adam and the Ants and later as a solo artist, scoring ten UK top ten hits between 1980 and 1983, including three No.1s...

     reinstated A.N.T.S in his live repertoire in 2011, having not performed the song live since 1980.
  • A famous YouTube
    YouTube
    YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....

     video - Evolution of Dance - features the chorus of this single.
  • KFUM is the Danish equivalent of YMCA. It was a big hit in Denmark
    Denmark
    Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

     in 1980 by the show-group Østjysk Musikforsyning with Danish lyrics by Karlo Staunskjær.
  • In 1997, Pepsi
    Pepsi
    Pepsi is a carbonated soft drink that is produced and manufactured by PepsiCo...

     launched a Super Bowl
    Super Bowl
    The Super Bowl is the championship game of the National Football League , the highest level of professional American football in the United States, culminating a season that begins in the late summer of the previous calendar year. The Super Bowl uses Roman numerals to identify each game, rather...

     ad where five bears danced an alternate version with "P-E-P-S-I" instead of the usual "Y-M-C-A". Mr. Magoo
    Mr. Magoo (film)
    Mr. Magoo is a 1997 live-action comedy film based on the original cartoon of the same name. The film was produced by Walt Disney Pictures, and originally released to movie theaters in 1997. It starred Leslie Nielsen as the title character. It was produced by Ben Myron and was the first English...

     Tv screen Leslie Nielsen
    Leslie Nielsen
    Leslie William Nielsen, OC was a Canadian and naturalized American actor and comedian. Nielsen appeared in more than one hundred films and 1,500 television programs over the span of his career, portraying more than 220 characters...

  • The webcomic
    Webcomic
    Webcomics, online comics, or Internet comics are comics published on a website. While many are published exclusively on the web, others are also published in magazines, newspapers or often in self-published books....

     User Friendly
    User Friendly
    User Friendly is a discontinued daily webcomic about the staff of a small, fictional Internet service provider, Columbia Internet. The strip's humor tends to be centered around technology jokes and geek humour....

     spoofed the song when Dust Puppy and Erwin sang an altered version which included the lyrics "It's fun to violate the DMCA
    Digital Millennium Copyright Act
    The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is a United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization . It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures that control access to...

    ."
  • On July 2, 2004, Colin Powell
    Colin Powell
    Colin Luther Powell is an American statesman and a retired four-star general in the United States Army. He was the 65th United States Secretary of State, serving under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005. He was the first African American to serve in that position. During his military...

    , then the U.S. Secretary of State
    Secretary of State
    Secretary of State or State Secretary is a commonly used title for a senior or mid-level post in governments around the world. The role varies between countries, and in some cases there are multiple Secretaries of State in the Government....

    , performed a modified version of "YMCA" for his fellow foreign government officials at the ASEAN
    Association of Southeast Asian Nations
    The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, commonly abbreviated ASEAN rarely ), is a geo-political and economic organization of ten countries located in Southeast Asia, which was formed on 8 August 1967 by Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Since then, membership has...

     security meeting in Jakarta
    Jakarta
    Jakarta is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Officially known as the Special Capital Territory of Jakarta, it is located on the northwest coast of Java, has an area of , and a population of 9,580,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political centre...

    . His lyrics includes the lines:
    President Bush
    George W. Bush
    George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....

    , he said to me: 'Colin, I know you will agree. I need you to run the Department of State. We are between a rock and a hard place.'
  • Some colleges with four-letter abbreviations (ex. UCLA
    University of California, Los Angeles
    The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...

    ) replace "Y-M-C-A" with the abbreviation.
  • George Lam
    George Lam
    George Lam Chi Cheung, also known professionally by his surname Lam, is a Hong Kong-based veteran Cantopop singer and actor of Xinhui area origin. Lam studied at the Diocesan Boys' School in Kowloon, Hong Kong...

     recorded a Cantonese remix, still titled "YMCA". This cover version was first released in 1979 as part of album "Choice" (抉擇). It was also featured on 2001 Music is Live - George Lam & Eason Chan Karaoke
  • In 2011: The Sportsgasms, a sports song parody group out of San Francisco, release Sports Nut (Y.M.C.A Song Parody) which uses double entendres to challenge the stereotype of the typical sports fan.

Use in media

  • The 1980
    1980 in film
    - Events :* May 21 - Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back is released and is the biggest grosser of the year ....

     film Can't Stop the Music
    Can't Stop the Music
    Can't Stop the Music is a 1980 musical comedy film directed by Nancy Walker. It is a pseudo-biography of disco's Village People which bears only a vague resemblance to the actual story of the group's formation...

    , a musical pseudohistory of the Village People, features an elaborate production number to the song in the style of famous choreographer
    Choreography
    Choreography is the art of designing sequences of movements in which motion, form, or both are specified. Choreography may also refer to the design itself, which is sometimes expressed by means of dance notation. The word choreography literally means "dance-writing" from the Greek words "χορεία" ...

     Busby Berkeley
    Busby Berkeley
    Busby Berkeley was a highly influential Hollywood movie director and musical choreographer. Berkeley was famous for his elaborate musical production numbers that often involved complex geometric patterns...

    .
  • The song appeared in the U.S.
    United States
    The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

     home version
    Dance Dance Revolution Extreme (North America)
    Dance Dance Revolution Extreme is a music video game and part of the Dance Dance Revolution series by Konami. It was released by Konami Computer Entertainment Japan on September 21, 2004 and is the ninth DDR release in North America....

    of Dance Dance Revolution Extreme
    Dance Dance Revolution Extreme
    Dance Dance Revolution Extreme is a music video game by Konami and is the eighth release in the main Dance Dance Revolution series. It was released on December 25, 2002 for Japanese arcades and on October 9, 2003 for the Japanese PlayStation 2...

    .
  • In Singstar
    SingStar
    SingStar is a competitive music video game series for PlayStation consoles, developed by London Studio and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. 23 English-language instalments of the series have been released for the PlayStation 2, and six versions for the PlayStation 3 have been released...

    with original music video and voices.
  • A cover version
    Cover version
    In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...

     of the song is featured in the Nintendo DS
    Nintendo DS
    The is a portable game console produced by Nintendo, first released on November 21, 2004. A distinctive feature of the system is the presence of two separate LCD screens, the lower of which is a touchscreen, encompassed within a clamshell design, similar to the Game Boy Advance SP...

     game Elite Beat Agents
    Elite Beat Agents
    Elite Beat Agents is a music video game developed by iNiS and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo DS handheld game console. It was first released in North America, and has since been released in Europe and South Korea . It is the spiritual sequel to Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan, a Japanese rhythm game...

    . While playing the song on Breezin', Cruisin', or Sweatin' mode, the Agents will perform the YMCA dance at the respective lyrics.
  • In jubeat
    Jubeat
    is a series of arcade music video games developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Japan, and is a part of Konami's Bemani line of music video games...

    , a rhythm arcade game, YMCA is a song of intermediate difficulty.
  • The song is a playable track in Band Hero
    Band Hero
    Band Hero is a spinoff video game as part of the Guitar Hero series of music video games, released by Activision on November 3, 2009, for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii and Nintendo DS consoles...

    .

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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