There were many memorable moments during the 1988 Nelson Mandella 70th birthday concert at London’s Wembley Stadium. The cast was stellar, rivaling Live Aid in both the quality and scope of musicians present. As a spectacle and as a musical experience it didn’t disappoint either. Yet, my abiding memory of the gig isn’t one of the many awesome musical collaborations; Peter Gabriel, Simple Minds & Youssou N’Dour doing “Biko” or even The Fat Boys with Chubby Checker doing the wickedest ever version of “The Twist” evah! Nope, although these moments lingered briefly in the memory then, it took a quick wiki look-up to remind me of them.[pullquote]this traditional song, nay, anthem that is occasionally drunkenly but always sincerely sung towards hot young women, especially if they’re blessed in the chest, to the famous Welsh tune of Men Of Harlech.** The song is known in our house as GYTOFTL or to give it its full name ‘Get your tits out for the lads’ and it goes like this…[/pullquote]
My abiding memory is laddish and deliciously British and it was the first thing I thought of when framing this article and I didn’t need a slurp on the wiki-juice to remember it vividly. I’m sure this moment went unnoticed by the 600 million watching from outside the UK. However, every British lad of my age certainly saw it, heard it, probably joined in and definitely spoke of it with pride at the pub later. Amongst lads of a certain age in the UK there’s this traditional song, nay, anthem that is occasionally drunkenly but always sincerely sung towards hot young women, especially if they’re blessed in the chest, to the famous Welsh tune of Men Of Harlech.** The song is known in our house as GYTOFTL or to give it its full name ‘Get your tits out for the lads’ and it goes like this…
Get your tits out,
Get your tits out,
Get your tits out for the lads,
Get your tits out for the lads.
In 1988 Whitney Houston was just about the hottest chick in the world, she was also one of the biggest selling recording artists and at the height of her musical powers. Following her introduction by Corbin Bernsen and Jennifer Beals she took to the stage encouraged by a group of lads who’d made their way to the front of the stage to serenade her with a song of their own, you guessed it, ‘GYTOFTL’. It was immediately clear that Houston had noticed, she even tossed her head to the side and said to them ‘what?’ and turned around clearly amused, what a good sport. In those days she was a real trooper and carrying on regardless she delivered a blistering set including a duet with her mum Cissy. At the end of each song the lads struck up the anthem again and again. Alas, they did not get their wish and Whitney did not get ’em out for them that day.
However there have been plenty of instances when famous pop stars have indeed got ’em out and if any of you actually read all this and didn’t just jump to the titty pics, here are my personal top ten.
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**This tune has often been appropriated over the years by football fans and has expressed a variety of profound sentiments such as the provocatively rhetorical ‘Who the fucking hell are you?’ to the taunting away fans classic ‘You’re supposed to be at home’ and the menacingly judgmental, ‘You’re not fit to referee’.
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