"You Spin Me Round": The Theme Song of 300 Sunday Afternoons in a Leather Bar

In West Hollywood, gay bars always had a theme song that you would hear over and over, at least once an hour, every time you visited.

 I went to Mugi, the Asian bar in Hollywood, almost every Saturday night, sometimes Wednesday or Friday, too.  That means that I heard "One Night in Bangkok" at least 300 times.

I went to the Faultline, the leather bar on Melrose, near Los Angeles City College, almost every Sunday afternoon for their Beer and Soda Bust.  The traditional schedule was Church 10:30 am, brunch at the French Quarter 12:00, Gym 2:00 pm, and the Faultline by 4:00 pm.  We hung out on the patio unless it was raining, and it never rains in Southern California.

Around 6:00 pm we left, and picked up tangerine chicken on the way home to eat while watching The Simpsons, Married...with Children, Parker Lewis Can't Lose, and Sliders (Jerry O'Connell, sigh).

Sometimes I went on Friday or Saturday nights, too.  So I must have heard their song over 1,000 times.

I never heard it anywhere else. I didn't know the title or the group, and I didn't bother asking.

It seemed to be a Gay Pride anthem:

Open up the closet door, watch out, here I come.

Although some of the lyrics seemed to involve a bar pickup:

You, I don't even know your name, baby.

You, I want to get you alone, baby.

With a chorus:
Round, round, round, round, something something baby, round round round round.

Years later, I heard the song again, at the gym of all places, and it brought me back to those many nights and Sunday afternoons surrounded by shirtless and leather-clad men.  When I got home, I did an internet search.


It's "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)", by the British band Dead or Alive, released in December 1984, peaked at #4 on the dance charts in January 1985.

Boy, did I get the lyrics wrong!  The "gay pride anthem":

Not: Open up the closet door, watch out, here I come.

But:  Open up your lovin' arms, watch out here I come.

Not: You, I don't even know your name, baby/ You, I want to get you alone, baby

But: If I, I get to know your name, baby / Then I could trace your private number, baby

So you're planning to stalk him?

No specific gay content, although the lead singer of the bad was the fabulously feminine Peter Burns (bottom left), an androgyne in the mold of Boy George, who married a woman and then a man, but divorced him and declared in homophobic contempt that "gay marriage doesn't work.  It's better to marry a woman."

Other members were Mike Percy, Steve Coy, and Tim Lever.

I'm still trying to figure out why an androgynous dance number was the theme song in a leather bar with no androgyny and no dancing.

It doesn't really matter.  Even though I know the lyrics now, I still can hear in my head the gay pride anthem from 300 Sunday afternoons at the Faultline:

Open up the closet door, watch out, here I come.

See also: One Night in Bangkok

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