Participant of Skopje Pride 2025 holding a sign reading “Love is too beautiful to be hidden.” Photo by Vančo Džambaski, CC BY-NC.
As Yugoslavia’s mainstream society grew increasingly patriarchal during the 1980s, some of the country's rock bands would routinely perform songs that spoke about same-sex love. Bosnian rock star Sejo Sexon, leader of the legendary Sarajevo band Zabranjeno pušenje, recently reminded music lovers of this, explaining that the group's 1989 hit song “Javi mi” (“Let me know”) was about love between two men.
In an interview with music journalist Boro Kontić, published in the book “Pamtim to kao da je bilo danas” (“I remember it as if it were today”), Sexon explained:
To je obrada. U originalu je ‘Turn on me.’ Album ‘New sensations,’ Loua Reeda. To je ljubavna pesma dva muškarca. Ono što je u New Yorku normalno tih godina. Ili u Parizu, Londonu, Berlinu… Ali kod nas oko LGBT još uvijek ima taj moment konspiracije, tajnovitosti, straha da se ne otkriju. Naši se gejevi ne smiju javno pokazati. Za razliku od Loua Reeda koji to otvoreno opisuje. Njegova pjesma je ista kao muško-ženska pjesma, samo što je muško-muška. Tamo je brate, i jedno i drugo, normalno. Zato su ljubavne pjesme jednako lijepe kao i one o ženama. Naša ima conspiracy. Skrivenost…
This is a cover. The original is ‘Turn on me,’ from the 1984 album ‘New Sensations’ by Lou Reed. It's a love song about two men. Something that was normal in New York at the time. Or in Paris, London, Berlin… But here, being LGBT still bears that element of conspiracy, secrecy, fear of being found out. Our gay people are not allowed to show themselves. Unlike Lou Reed, who describes it openly. His song is just like a male-female love song, only it's between two men. Over there, both are normal, bro. That's why such love songs are just as beautiful as those about women. However, our song has the element of conspiracy. Of hiding…
The book “Pamtim to kao da je bilo danas” (“I remember it as if it were today”) by Boro Kontić and Sejo Sexon, and magazine Rock 82. Photo by Global Voices, used with permission.
The text of the Bosnian version is similar to Lou Reed's lyrics, in the form of a message between two estranged men; however, it includes the notion that the second man is living in a mock marriage, camouflaging his sexuality under suspicion by the neighbors:
A žena kad te pita, ‘Pa dobro, šta mi fali?Zašto nikad ne radimo one stvari?’Kad ode da se isplače sama, kad vrata zalupiZnaj, ja te još uvijek volim, mene vazda možeš nazvatiJavi mi, javi mi, ja ću čekati
And when your wife asks you, ‘Well, what’s wrong with me?
Why aren't we ever making love?’
When she goes away to cry her eyes out alone, when she slams the door
Know that I still love you, you can always call me
Let me know, let me know, I’ll be waiting
‘Proof of the power of love’
Sexon noted that – for over 30 years – nobody seems to have noticed that the song is about two men, which he calls “proof of the power of love.” Since the emotional element is universal, such nuances have been missed by many in their audiences.
Although the Yugoslav Communist Party's authoritarian system was less repressive than the totalitarianism of the Soviet Bloc on the other side of the Iron Curtain, for most of its existence the state formally criminalized homosexual relations. During the 1970s and '80s, however, there was a growing movement towards greater freedoms – including LGBTQ rights – most prominently in Slovenia.
While still shunned in the mainstream, homosexuality was not a taboo topic in the music sphere. LGBTQ+-themed foreign music videos like “Smalltown Boy” by Bronsky Beat regularly featured in music shows on public TV. Mentions of the alleged homosexuality or bisexuality of foreign celebrities like Freddie Mercury or David Bowie were also common in the music press. Sometimes, such articles had a dose of irony. On December 1, 1982, for instance, the No. 80 edition of the weekly music magazine Rock 82, published in Belgrade, reported:
Elton Džon ima velike probleme oko distribucije svoj videa, ‘Elton's Song’ jer priča je o školskom dečku koji…hmm…simpatiše svog starijeg druga.
Elton John has big problems regarding the distribution of his new music video ‘Elton's song’ because it's about a schoolboy who is…hmm…showing sympathies for an elder male friend.
‘Free male love’
In their book, Sexon and Kontić explained that while “Javi mi” may have been the first Bosnian ode to homosexual love, it was not the first Yugoslav rock song about it. That honour appears to to go the 1979 song “Neki dječaci” (“Some boys”) by the Croatian band Prljavo Kazalište. A feature of the band's punk phase, the song describes the relationship between two young men, one of them being an occasionally spurned lover. It was famous for the chorus, “Ja sam za slobodnu mušku ljubav” (“I'm all for free male love”):
Znam da me praviš ljubomornim
Jer koliko si mi puta
Na klupi u parku znao reći
(Refren)
Ja sam za slobodnu mušku ljubav
I know you're trying to make me jealous
'cause how many times have
you told me on the benches in the park
(Chorus)
I'm all for free male love…
Soon after that, in 1980, the Serbian band Idoli produced what is possibly the most famous Yugoslav song alluding to homosexuality, “Retko te viđam sa devojkama” (“I rarely see you with girls”). The lyrics take the form of dialogue between two friends, alluding to the need to hide one’s sexual orientation:
Retko te viđam sa devojkama
A viđam te svaki dan
Retko te viđam sa devojkama
Ipak nikad nisi samOko tebe su dečaci
Fini su, al’ ipak znaj
Glasine se brzo šire
A kad puknu tu je kraj
I rarely see you with girls
But I see you every day
I rarely see you with girls
Still, you are never aloneBoys are always around you
They're nice; however, you should know
Rumors spread very quickly
And once they break, it's the end
Women not forgotten
Some songs also addressed the love between women. The song “Ana,” released in 1984 by the Slovenian band Videosex, mentions the social restraints and legal provisions that once criminalized homosexual relations in Yugoslavia, legislation that was gradually lifted from the 1970s onward:
Ana, ti dobro znaš
To što mi radiš je zabranjeno kod nas
Ti dobro znaš
To što mi radiš je zabranjeno za nasPrvi put, ženska toaleta
Stvarno nisam to htjela
Kamena je tajna dobila slobodu
Ana, you're well aware
What you do to me is forbidden here
You're well aware that
What you do to me is forbidden for usThe first time, in the ladies’ restroom
I really didn't want that
A secret made of stone was set free
Another song about lesbian love, released in 1983, is “Moja prijateljica” (“My female friend”) by the Croatian band Xenia:
Ona je tako lijepa, moja prijateljica…
Ja sam tako ponosna, ona je tako lijepa…Muškarci bi da je diraju
Muškarci bi da je skrivaju od mene, od mene
Muškarci bi da sa njom sanjaju
Muškarci bi da sa njom spavaju, bez mene, bez mene
She is so pretty, my friend…
I am so proud, she is so pretty…Men would like to touch her
Men would like to hide her from me, from me
Men would like to dream with her
Men would like to sleep with her, without me, without me
The pendulum swings
Despite progressive bands in 1980s Yugoslavia singing songs about homosexual love, the next decade saw a sort of reversal. As the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia broke up, the music industries of newly independent ex-Yugoslav countries turned to turbo-folk and other genres of commercial production that were compatible with rising nationalism and populism, promoting social conservatism through the 1990s.
Songs of that period often promoted homophobia under the guise of humor. The chorus of the 1994 regional hit “Mala, mala” (“Small, small”) by the Serbian band Familija, includes the line “Small group of faggots was bothering us for too long.”
The 1994 song “Pedro” by Risto Bombata i Kučeška Tenija, a Macedonian band, ridiculed homosexuals with lyrics that bordered on vulgarity, complete with a video clip featuring one of the most popular comedy actors of the time. The Spanish name in the title alludes to a derogatory term for “faggot” – “peder” – with the chorus concluding that Pedro should “run away from us.”
Various internet sources have since opined that many other well known songs from Yugoslavia had LGBTQ+ themes – making song lists based on inferences, individual perceptions, and interpretations. Many of these include songs about friends of the same gender that do not explicitly refer to sexuality, and do not have the benefit of their writers later revealing what they were really about, like Sejo Sexon did.
