Review
Genre and Mood
Bronski Beat’s Ain’t Necessarily So is a cover: an 80s synth-pop single made from a song George and Ira Gershwin wrote for Porgy and Bess in 1935. Its mood is provocative and defiant under a playful surface, a song of doubt delivered with a smile.
Song Summary
In the opera, the song belongs to Sportin’ Life, a drug dealer who casts doubt on stories from the Bible. Bronski Beat, an openly gay trio, released it in November 1984 as the third single from their debut album The Age of Consent, and Pitchfork read the implication plainly: doubt about the Bible’s statements on homosexuality. The arrangement does not shout. Pitchfork heard sophisticated percolation, closer to Sade than to gritty British synth-pop, with a clarinet solo and the Pink Singers, an openly gay male choir from London, around Jimmy Somerville’s voice. This is the single version, about four minutes long, as collected on a 2001 compilation.
Musical Breakdown
Verses
The Gershwins’ lyric goes through the Bible one story at a time, little David and Goliath, Jonah living in a whale, and each one returns to the same refrain of doubt.
Solo
The clarinet takes a solo. Wikipedia’s album page credits it to Arno Hecht of the Uptown Horns in its text and to Richard Coles in its personnel list.
Outro
No source describes how the single version ends or what was cut from the 4:40 album track, so listen for it against the album version.
Concepts in Focus
A cover version can keep every word and still change the meaning. Sung by Sportin’ Life in 1935, the song mocks piety; sung in 1984 by a band whose debut single, Bronski Beat – Small Town Boy, was about a gay boy leaving home, the same doubt points at those who quote the Bible against gay people.
The recording here is a single version, close to a radio edit: the album track runs 4:40, the 1984 seven-inch single about 4:04, and this compilation copy 4:06.
The music video spells out what the song implies. Steve Bronski plays a closeted prison warden with an eye for one of the inmates; Somerville and Larry Steinbachek play borstal inmates, and Somerville wins a Christmas pie-eating competition.
Artistic Context
The Age of Consent came out on London Records on 15 October 1984, produced by Mike Thorne. This track was recorded at The Garden in London and Skyline Studios in New York, and its sleeve parodied The Wizard of Oz, with Dorothy given the head of the devil.
Impact and Reception
The single reached number 16 on the UK singles chart. Hear it as a band choosing an old standard and quietly turning it against its audience’s assumptions.
