Yeah you got a bloody point there!!

I came here to say the same thing. IO was just watching an interview with Ian Dury who said he knew it wouldn't get played on the radio when he wrote it, but that wasn't going to stop him recording it and releasing it. I remember all the fuss at the time and it came from non-handicapped people. What a journey

Did the same to Jonny rotten about Savill

Same here man, I can't help but to tear up. Autistic and proud!

So very true, well said

Agreed, he was speaking for the voiceless back then and is still doing so now. An important song.

Ian's subversive intent was shunned through fear and disgust. In yer face!

I vehemently disagree! The state stealing His Song, while still treating The People like Shite! I think The Gentleman I met would've sued! A Blockhead!

He would of brilliant bloke well before his time ;)

I had the same experience. They didn't say it to me outright - I was too self-aware as it was that something was "wrong" with me, so they didn't have to. But I too am proud to say... I'M SPASTICUS AUTISTICUS!!

I'M SPASTICUS AUTISTICUS!

@@tatemitchell1479 A few years ago, I went to the UK and visited the places where Ian Dury made a name for himself. It was an emotional journey.

Makes this non disabled person uncomfortable with not having a disability, thats the power this song and performance has

It didn’t for me I think we should be proud of who we are not apologise for it

@@jack0609 Absolutely. At the 2024 Paralympics there will be a paedophile pride parade, because as you say, we should be proud of who we are and not apologise for it.

@@fishwatch8677 you can’t cure anything like autism but you can cure paedophelia with a little thing called chemical castration

good

Two mongs don't make a right

Still does. Blubbering like a baby and laughing at the same time.

@@sjukfan I tear up every time I watch this.

Yep old Stevie is sitting drooling on Epstein's island in the sky

He would have been part of the performance if he was alive at the time.

same, mate. same.

Ian was a wise man. He knew he was right all along. He didn't need to be vilified by others.

Good on them for playing it though.

They banned it for years but the way we look at handicapped people has changed a lot. Yes. Sometimes still awkward having no idea what to when, say, someone in a wheelchair falls and struggles to get up. But hey. We got a lot further and we understand the idea now not all handicapped are sad, poor, unhappy, needy idiots.

@Zombiecraft I think I can guarantee he was; inside.

mredwards3000 didn't ian dury think year of the disabled was patronising and therefore wrote this song?

There was an interview a little while back confirming it. He said something to the effect of "Giving the disabled one year to be pitied and 'helped'-just this one year" Not his exact quote, but yeah, he saw it as an empty gesture, which it was.

Trouble is Dury offended a lot of disabled with the song. Something that's conveniently overlooked in this so called more enlightened age.

@@intentions666 no, he offended a lot of non-disabled who saw disabled people through a patronising, infantilizing lens.

@@robokill387 Yes. The main person who showed offence was the guy who ran The Spastics Society charity, who wasn’t, as far as I know, disabled himself. He later admitted that after a while he realised the reality of the song and changed his view of it. It also really upset the media who, back then just as they are now, we’re keen to show how morally superior they were by defending people who never asked for them for defence and who never asked for someone to be outraged on their behalf. I don’t know if many disabled people were offended at the time. Ian Dury was, himself, disabled and I’ve heard him say that a lot of disabled people got what it was about. That being said, my wife, who was only born only a year before the song came out and didn’t know it, was really upset when I played it to her and doesn’t like to hear it. She’s partially deaf and has learning and speech difficulties and she was regularly called ‘spastic’ by kids at school. For her the word ‘spastic’ is, I suppose, the equivalent of the ‘n’ word to black people and it conjures up bad memories for her. But then her school years were spent after the medically correct word ‘spastic’ had been hijacked and used almost exclusively as an insult. This is true of the time the song came out too, but it was still also used in a medical context at that time too. Ian said this of the song: “Spasticus was written in the Year Of The Disabled. I was going to start a band called Spastic And The Autistics, because the word ‘spastic’ was a swear word. There was that girl group Bananarama who used to talk about ‘Spazz Dancing’. Their ignorance is their own affair. I wanted to do something for the Year Of The Disabled, so I wrote Spasticus knowing it would be unacceptable to the BBC. They banned it as they did ‘Wake Up And Make Love With Me’ and ‘Sex And Drugs And Rock n’ Roll’. They actually don’t ban it. They just don’t play it. Apparently you could only play it after dark with written permission. I did about 140 interviews related to the song that year. It was a war cry for my brothers and sisters who are disabled. Only a spastic could fully understand that. It’s not describing a condition, it’s just being spirited.

I am with you on the contrary part. He did write it as a protest song original against "World Disabled Persons Day" or whatever the hell they called it. I am not sure how he would react to this.

I'm sure he would've said What a liberty! I wasn't invited, and they cover my song and put a f*cking techno beat on it! 😅🤣

You are wrong. What would have made him cry is that thanks to antivaxer morons Polio has not been wiped out. Until those morons got involved Polio was going in the same direction as smallpox. If he was alive now I am betting he would release a song to shame those pillocks.

F*ck em! the joke is on them now! 🥳🥳🥳

Yes he was part of the opening ceremony.

People don't understand irony mate. It was meant to be a celebration of how people who have "different abilities" (the new politically correct term?) stand up to ignorance. Love the fact that hawking, who's a fan btw, was there with them! I thought I'd missed out on their last gig, but then this happened and I was even more gutted!

***** Sorry, but I'm pretty sure you got my comment exactly backwards. I don't know what your rant at me was about ...

***** Oh right, that's fair enough.

Boyle didn't do the Paralympics... Jenny Sealey and Bradley Hemmings were the artistic directors for this show & the Graeae Theatre Company produced the Spasticus Austisticus performance portion. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Summer_Paralympics_opening_ceremony

Yes.

Able bodied people are not offended by it. Those offended at the time were actually disabled people.

@@stevennicholas4160 Those who were offended by it at the time WAS able bodied people.

@@stevennicholas4160 no, it was able bodied people getting offended on behalf of disabled people mostly.

Ilse Langley I get where you're coming from, but a disabled person(like myself) could never hope to run as fast someone able bodied, even if they trained every day from birth(with time off for surgery and recuperation). Same goes for women competing against men. What I think would be really fantastic, would be to hold the Paralympics and Olympic Games together, with disabled categories included, in the same way as events for men and women and people of different body sizes in boxing and weightlifting for example. It would make these games far more exciting and relevant to humanity Of course humanity may not yet be evolved enough to embrace the reality of runners with prosthetic limbs being(a lot)faster than the so called "able bodied" world record holders.

no!