1980. Music: Dire Straits. Les Boys
“Les boys do cabaret
Les boys are glad to be gay”
And so opens the song ‘Les Boys’ by Dire Straits (or, as I once accidentally mis-spelled them, Dire Straights.)
There has been much debate since this track was released on their 1980 album ‘Making Movies’ as to whether or not this was a homophobic song or merely an observation of gay life in Berlin. I’m still undecided on the issue. I don’t think it helps that it’s such a dreary song in the first place; nonetheless, I can’t help getting a little defensive about a bunch of straight men passing comment on gay men.
On the other hand, I do see the irony in some of the lines, such as the following reference to SS caps and S&M.
“Les boys got leather straps
Les boys got SS caps
But they got no gun now
Get dressed up, get a little risque
Got to do a little s&m these days
It’s all in fun now”
Overall, I think it’s an unremarkable song in the first place – but then I’ve never really been a fan of Dire Straits/Straights anyway.
https://youtu.be/0t8EdsDu-LY
So you really think it’s homophobic, huh? Well I’ve been a Dire Straits that’s STRAITS fan all my life AND I’m homosexual and I never thought it to be anything but a pisstake. I believe that they’re making fun of homophobics NOT homosexuals! In reference to the line Les Boys got SS caps may I point out that Mark Knopfler is half-Jewish on his Father’s side and his Father had to flee Hungry because of anti-Semitism. So I think he has a fair idea of prejudice and would be totally anti-homophobic! But! I suppose you think “Money For Nothing” is also homophobic too? Hm, well, each to their own. Peace!
Apparently Based On A Real Story -describing going out for a meal after a concert. No idea if the show they saw included the gear mentioned.
Awful homophobic for a band called ‘die straights’
As a lifelong fan of Mark Knopfler’s music, I do think we have to take Mark’s general songwriting style into consideration when evaluating “Les Boys”. Mark’s lyrical style was heavily influenced by his years of studying journalism and working as a journalist. Most of his songs were written in a fly-on-the-wall observational style (see “Wild West End” or “Sultans of Swing” for early examples), but there are also notable instances of him writing in 1st person as a character (see “Private Dance”, which he wrote but decided last minute it would be better served by Tina Turner singing it).
His style is also often tongue-in-cheek. He likes to make witty observations about the subjects he’s portraying, but they’re rarely if ever mean-spirited. A great example of his sense of humor can be found in the song “Industrial Disease”, which contains this verse:
“I go down to Speaker’s Corner, I’m thunderstruck /
They got free speech tourists, police in trucks /
Two men say they’re Jesus, one of them must be wrong”
‘Two men say they’re Jesus, one of them must be wrong’ – is he making fun of religion or Jesus there? Of course not. He’s making a witty observation about the fact that on any given Sunday you could go down to Hyde Park in London and hear not just one but TWO men declaring to be the second coming of Christ. Is he judging them or saying they’re crazy? No, he’s just saying “I was in Hyde Park, I saw this happen, it struck me as being incredibly funny.”
So I really think that if you consider “Les Boys” in the greater context of Knopfler’s writing, it becomes pretty clear that he was simply making observations about the 1980s German gay scene (sub-scene, really) in his usual tongue-in-cheek style. His usual sense of humor is most obvious in lines like “Les boys got leather straps / Les boys got SS caps / But they got no gun now”. He’s not making fun of them, he’s just amused by the ironic juxtaposition of their outfits.
In the song he never passes judgment on the lead characters – in fact, I’d say he goes out of his way to empathize with the “les boys” who take pride in their sexuality, perform with utmost earnestness (even when they make mistakes) – only to be misunderstood by the random tourists and businessmen in the audience. “Some tourist take a photograph / Les boys don’t get one laugh / He says they’re useless” – in that verse it’s the tourists that are the jerks, and it’s the guys performing on stage who are misunderstood. The rest of the indifferent audience is made up of businessmen who show up in their fancy cars with high-class escorts. So the only judgment Mark seems to be passing here is on the audience members who either don’t appreciate the cabaret performance or don’t seem to understand they’re at a gay (or gay-friendly) club.
Some critics of the song have theorized that the reason “Les Boys” wasn’t included on the original release of “Making Movies” was because of concerns its lyrics would be perceived as homophobic. But that theory makes no sense. In 1980 the last thing a record label exec would’ve been worried about was offending the LGBTQ community. No, I’d argue that the reason for leaving the song off the album was likely quite the opposite – the record label was probably worried that the song was *too approving* of homosexuality by refusing to pass judgment on homosexuality. After all, this was still an era when the only gay characters that were allowed to be featured in books, music or film were the ones who were vilified or eventually turned up dead. So I think the fact that Knopfler, a straight man, wrote a song about gay characters who are proud of their sexuality but misunderstood by the world around them was actually pretty damn progressive for 1980.