EGadd: Gary's Lost the Glitter

Paul Francis Gadd

While it didn't necessarily make the front page (or ANY page) of my local paper, it looks like the end of the line for Paul Francis Gadd. The well-known pedophile was finally arrested in Viet Nam the other day and charged with several counts of having sex with minors...some as young as 10. You and I might find this abhorrent, but there is a thriving sex trade utilizing youngsters in Southeast Asia, where life is very cheap. I remember reading in The Cambodia Daily about an incident in which police in Phnom Penh raided a brothel and found a dozen or so Vietnamese girls, most under 13 who had been sold into prostitution. Of course, to keep them safe, the officials housed these girls in a men's prison while awaiting a deportation hearing...huh? Sometimes, authorities look the other way, but I sense they've been tracking Paul for years. I was alerted to this by Ryun who was a newspaper editor in Phnom Penh, Cambodia for four years a while back. Paul has been banned in Britain, run out of Rangoon and chased (probably) in China. At last he has been run to earth and prosecution seems imminent as does a suitably horrific ending for the former glamor boy of 70s rock. His sentence, if convicted , could be up to 30 years in "Hell Hole" prison or a terminal case of lead poisoning a.k.a. a firing squad. Mitigating evidence seems to be that one of the victim's families asked him for money for the act...hmmm.
Huh? you say...who is this guy? His nom de chanson (aren't I cultured? I know Spanish)is Gary Glitter, and he has become fabulously wealthy for performing Rock and Roll, Part 2 which spent nine weeks on the Billboard charts in 1972 and reached a peak at number seven. He followed that with a totally obscure track named I Didn't Know I Loved You (Till I Saw You Rock and Roll) which slipped quickly into oblivion. Little did we know at the time that it probably should have been titled I Didn't Know I Loved You (Till I Found Out That You Were Underaged). Be that as you may, you all know Gary Glitter...his music has become the stadium anthem all over America.
Rock and Roll, Part 2 has become known to ignoramuses (ignoramii? you are REALLY cultured if you know that one) and high school band students as The Hey Song. I can turn down my hearing aid and hear that song wherever sporting events occur. It's like The Beer Barrel Polka for people who can't remember a lot of lyrics. Noted authority Joel Whitburn does include the accepted title (though in parentheses) but lists the song by its correct title in the 2000 edition of The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits. So, how does it feel to shout "HEY!" at the top of your lungs knowing the song was popularized by such a decent fellow? I for one, will never play or "sing along" to Rock and Roll, Part 2 again. I have standards, after all.