To better understand this song, which was originally released in 1979, realize that most of the UK had only decriminalized sex between members of the same gender in 1967, 12 years earlier. Scotland would do it later in 1980, and Northern Ireland wouldn't until 1982.
My interpretation, and it's of course only an interpretation, is that he's describing a future dystopia where homosexual behavior has become an even greater criminal offense. In this future, the situation for gay people hasn't continued improve, it's become far worse.
The person described in the first verse is recalling a lover, who was taken away by mysterious agents in grey overcoats. "There is no one to replace [him]." In the next verse we get more details of what happened when he was taken away. A grey overcoated agent stopped him for a random pol[ice] check and questioned him. "Do you ever think of women?" As a means of finding out whether he's one of the "boys who love only boys" who they don't want to spoil "the perfect picture of a boy/girl age."
As they question him, they break him down emotionally, to the point where he's a "torn old queen, living somewhere between dead and dying."
After his lover is taken away, the narrator is convinced that "there are no more." That is, no more homosexuals. He thinks he's the last one left and that he could be revealed by the fact that he looks out of the corner of his eye, rightly suspicious and frightened. He ponders how times have changed from when people like him were better tolerated, but he still can't even imagine living any other way.
As a result of all of this horror, the narrator gives up on humans and begins praying to alien beings. He's like Bertolt Brecht's Pirate Jenny, fantasizing about an avenging outside force that will appear and wipe out the society that has treated him so badly.
To better understand this song, which was originally released in 1979, realize that most of the UK had only decriminalized sex between members of the same gender in 1967, 12 years earlier. Scotland would do it later in 1980, and Northern Ireland wouldn't until 1982.
My interpretation, and it's of course only an interpretation, is that he's describing a future dystopia where homosexual behavior has become an even greater criminal offense. In this future, the situation for gay people hasn't continued improve, it's become far worse.
The person described in the first verse is recalling a lover, who was taken away by mysterious agents in grey overcoats. "There is no one to replace [him]." In the next verse we get more details of what happened when he was taken away. A grey overcoated agent stopped him for a random pol[ice] check and questioned him. "Do you ever think of women?" As a means of finding out whether he's one of the "boys who love only boys" who they don't want to spoil "the perfect picture of a boy/girl age."
As they question him, they break him down emotionally, to the point where he's a "torn old queen, living somewhere between dead and dying."
After his lover is taken away, the narrator is convinced that "there are no more." That is, no more homosexuals. He thinks he's the last one left and that he could be revealed by the fact that he looks out of the corner of his eye, rightly suspicious and frightened. He ponders how times have changed from when people like him were better tolerated, but he still can't even imagine living any other way.
As a result of all of this horror, the narrator gives up on humans and begins praying to alien beings. He's like Bertolt Brecht's Pirate Jenny, fantasizing about an avenging outside force that will appear and wipe out the society that has treated him so badly.