Beating Off Together: 150 Gayest Songs EVER

From:  Boy Culture

Cher 

"Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves"

(1971)

"Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves" was the first single from Cher's 1971 eponymous album Cher. The album was subsequently renamed and re-released as Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves after the success of the single. The song was written by songwriter Bob Stone as a story-song called "Gypsys, Tramps and White Trash". Producer Snuff Garrett advised that the title be changed and Stone then changed it to "Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves".

Released four years after her last top ten hit "You Better Sit Down Kids", this song was very much a comeback single for Cher, not only returning her to the top ten of the charts but also giving her two weeks at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in November 1971. The single also reached #1 in Canada and #4 in the United Kingdom. It became Cher's best-selling single at that point, selling more than 4.5 million copies worldwide.

The song describes the life of a girl, the narrator of the song, who was "born in the wagon of a traveling show". Her mother "used to dance for the money they'd throw", while her father would do "whatever he could; preach a little gospel, sell a couple bottles of Doctor Good". Although the people of the town insulted them with such terms suggested in the title of the song, they paid them well "every night" for their services.

When a young man is picked up in Mobile, the narrator is 16, while he is 21. Her family took care of him for a while and allowed him to travel with them, although her father "would have shot him if he knew what he'd done". Three months later, the narrator describes herself as a "girl in trouble", and her young man has disappeared.

Echoing the beginning of the song, the narrator's own daughter was "born in the wagon of a traveling show", while the narrator now dances "for the money they'd throw" and "Grandpa" — the narrator's own father — supported them in just the same way as before.

The title of this song has also been shown with alternate spellings of "Gypsies" / "Gypsys".

The lyrics of the song are often ridiculed for their claim to have "picked up a boy just south of Mobile", the idea being that "just south of Mobile" is somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico. In fact, there are at least six small communities directly south of Mobile on the west side of the bay, and twice that many on the east side.

The song has been adopted by Celtic F.C., a Scottish football team whose fans are known as "The Gypsy Army", and the song is played before the kickoff of home matches at Broadwood Stadium.

English punk rock band Anti-Nowhere League covered the song on their 2006 album "Pig Iron – The Album".

The song was featured in an episode of the popular British motoring show Top Gear, in which the hosts traveled to Miami to purchase a car for $1000 and go on a road trip. The song played when the hosts were crossing into Alabama as a joke.

In the 2000 TV mini-series The 10th Kingdom, John Larroquette's character sings this song to a group of gypsys after they threaten to kill him if he does not sing.