Victor Willis, the Village People's founding vocalist and the baritone inside Y.M.C.A., died this week at seventy-four, days before the song's most inevitable booking: the soundtrack of America's 250th birthday party. [1]

The paper covered the death as an ownership case nobody can settle, and the holiday supplies the closing argument neither side wanted. A disco record written for New York's club culture now functions as state-adjacent liturgy, performed at federal celebrations its authors never imagined.

X spent the week relitigating that journey as appropriation or assimilation depending on the poster. The obituaries stayed gentler, centering Willis's improbable second act winning back control of his own publishing.

Both miss what Saturday proves. Songs outlive arguments. The letters get spelled by crowds who never knew there was a dispute. That is either the culture working or failing, and the answer depends entirely on which verse you hear.

The biographical detail worth keeping is that Willis spent his later years winning back publishing control through the courts, a rare instance of a performer reversing the industry's standard catalog arithmetic. [1] The man whose voice anchored the party spent decades litigating to own it. Whatever plays over tonight's fireworks, the royalty now routes somewhere he decided. That is a more concrete legacy than any anthem, and it is the part of the story the fireworks will never mention.

-- MAYA CALLOWAY, New York