More than 50 years after it was first recorded, one of the early songs of Britain’s gay liberation movement is being brought back to life.
Artist Ian Giles has reunited the original musicians behind ‘A Gay Song’, recorded in 1972, to re-record the song more than five decades later. The reunion forms the centre of Everyone Involved, an immersive film and installation opening at Queer Britain Museum in London this October.
A Gay Song was written by Alan Wakeman and Michael Klein and recorded just five years after the partial decriminalisation of sex between men in England and Wales in 1967. Celebrating gay identity as part of life’s natural diversity, the song reflected the early gay liberation movement’s emerging philosophy and rallying cry, “Gay is Good.”
Giles’ new film explores what happens when a piece of queer history is not simply preserved but brought back into the present.
Ian Giles told QX, “When I first encountered ‘A Gay Song’, I was struck by how direct and joyful it was. It was made at a moment when gay people were beginning to organise publicly and challenge the idea that being gay was something to be ashamed of. More than 50 years later, bringing the original musicians back together gave us a chance to hear that history in their voices again — and to think about what has changed and what hasn’t.”
The original song was recorded in Soho in a studio used to make foreign-language teaching tools. It formed part of an album, Everyone Involved, made by the band and featuring songs addressing environmental and human-rights issues. One thousand copies of the album were distributed for free, with some copies subsequently buried in a time capsule in Brazil.
For Giles, the project became an act of intergenerational exchange: a contemporary artist working with people directly involved in Britain’s early gay liberation movement, using music, testimony, and film to keep their experiences in circulation.
At Queer Britain, Everyone Involved becomes an immersive environment combining a four-channel film installation with textiles and sound. The exhibition invites visitors to encounter queer history not as something fixed in the past, but as a living conversation between generations.
Everyone Involved by Ian Giles runs from 23 October – 21 November 2026 at 2 Granary Square, London N1C 4BH, United Kingdom.
Museum Late opening on Thursday 19 November, 6pm until 8pm.
