Not to be confused with Davies’s song Lola, which proved that boys would sometimes be girls (and vice versa). To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. I’ve looked hard and I suppose you could interpret its lyric as being metaphorical that way (“Well there ain’t no route you could choose to lose the two of us / Ain’t nobody know when you’re acting right or wrong / No one knows if a roadway’s leading nowhere / Gonna keep on driving home on the road I’m on”) but I’ve got to say that’s never occurred to me at any point since its release in 1977. All of which goes to show that boys will be boys – as Robinson would remind us with his next hit, Glad To Be Gay. The song was performed by the Tom Robinson Band, which included Tom Robinson as lead vocalist and bass player, Danny Kustow as the guitarist, Mark Ambler on keyboards, and Dolphin Taylor as drummer.

singing solutions to entertainment venues, bars, pubs and anywhere else people want to sing together! All my new songs had to be written with a dead simple chord sequence so the various players could learn the entire set in half an hour during the soundcheck. The Lyrics express a desire for authentic connection and the importance of Loving someone just as they are. It was released as a single in 1977 by British punk rock/ new wave group the Tom Robinson Band, and reached No. The song has subsequently appeared on numerous compilation albums, including Rising Free (1980), The Collection (1987), Last Tango, Midnight at the Fringe (1988), Winter of '89 (1992), Home from Home (1999) [8] and Tom Robinson Band The Anthology 1977–1979.

But front man Tom’s fiery left-wing politics, his status as a gay man who proclaimed his sexuality in song, and his campaigning work to help found Rock Against Racism made him a welcome fellow addition to the circuit. This song is written as the perspective of the boys in the street, as a whole, and what path they are going to choose as they get older and grow into men. The B-side is a cover of Bob Dylan's " I Shall Be Released" which Robinson performed many times, including as part of the supergroup "The Secret Police" at The Secret Policeman's Ball in 1979. After Sam Ryder’s Space Man turned the page on two decades of Eurovision misery for the UK in 2022, this year’s representative Mae Muller is bidding to go one better this time around with her electropop gem I Wrote A Song. Robinson came up with the tune 'trying to work out the chords to Climax Blues Band's " Couldn't Get It Right"' which he could not really remember.

However, after touring the band became much tighter, and guitarist Danny Kustow expanded his riffs, which persuaded EMI to release the record. It was the way everyone played it on the record, and especially Danny Kustow’s guitar work, that finally persuaded EMI they had a future hit on their hands. By the time our van hit the last stretch of M1 into London the motorway sun really was coming up with the morning light. There was no Tom Robinson Band at the time - just the name and a series of pub gigs I’d blagged for the coming weeks.The seen, and unseen collective suffering is imbedded in the boys’ mind, consciously or subconsciously, and is haunting them. The song was the first single released by the Tom Robinson Band, who had formed in January 1977 and was signed to EMI in August 1977.

Tom Robinson "2-4-6-8 Motorway" at Glastonbury 2016 | "2-4-6-8 Motorway" 40th ANNIVERSARY TOUR takes place October 2017, performing Power In The Darkness album in full. He lives in East London indulging his passions of writing, reading, cinema, music, football, cricket, and vegetable gardening. The verse came from Robinson's memories of driving back to London through the night after gigs with Café Society: "By the time our van hit the last stretch of M1 into London the motorway sun really was coming up with the morning light. Although it seems like a straightforward song about the freedom of the open road in a long tradition of rock’n’roll songs, it has since been claimed that 2-4-6-8 Motorway has a gay subtext. Issac Hayes is the voice of reason, maybe God, the angel on his shoulder, or the voice of his forefathers from beyond the grave who can see the big picture and are pleading with the boys not to continue the violence and pattern of killing their brothers, but to rise above.

The frontman for one of Canada's most well-known punk rock bands talks about his Eddie Vedder encounter, Billy Talent's new album, and the importance of rock and roll. It was only after six months of playing everywhere from prisons to pubs to public schools that the band became ‘gig-fit’, ie tough enough and tight enough to put the song over with real conviction, so it would connect with listeners on first hearing. Racism towards African Americans in America would not exist if everyone sat down and listened to this song and understood the history behind the words. Tom Robinson talked to M about the secrets of 2-4-6-8 Motorway - the debut single by Tom Robinson Band (TRB) in 1977. The tie into the gay liberation movement comes to those enlightened with a familiarity of the popular gay lib chant “2,4,6,8, Gay is twice as good as straight… 3,5,7,9, Lesbians are mighty fine”.