Jon Savage on Song: The Children sing for freedom

Even on dodgy DJ International and Trax pressings, early Chicago house still sounds fantastic. Futuristic, brutal, minimal and funky, it evokes moods that range from dreamy uplift (Fingers Inc's Mystery of Love), through drug-deranged, (Sleezy D's I've Lost Control, Phuture's Your Only Friend) to earthy (Maurice Joshua's I Gotta Big Dick) and the downright filthy (Professor Dick's Sensuous Woman Goes Disco).

Like disco during 1973/4, house originated in the latino/black/gay clubs. The most generally cited source is Frankie Knuckle's residency at Chicago's Warehouse between 1977-82. During that period, disco became a dirty word: from being a mainstream obsession – which it was in 1978 after Saturday Night Fever – it had been cast out to the fate that awaits all passé styles, with an added venom that many thought the result of homophobia.

But the impulse and the need that created disco hadn't gone away – it just went underground, into clubs such as the Warehouse (later renamed the Music Box). It then mutated in accordance with the electro music of the day, taking in Eurodisco such as Klein and MBO's Dirty Talk and the whole Kraftwerk/Afrika Bambaataa electronic/hip-hop connection. House was, as Knuckles told me for a 1989 Out of Tuesday documentary, "disco's revenge".

The Warehouse – as well as New York clubs such as Larry Levan's Paradise Garage and David Mancuso's The Loft – was a place where the outcast and the marginal could get together and feel secure. Once that was established, they could take drugs and go crazy to a music specifically designed to send them that way; a music so intense it would have sounded claustrophobic, were it not imbued with sufficient psychedelic space.

In the heat of the dance, all boundaries dissolved. As Ray Caviano, the king of the disco promoters, observed about Paradise Garage, "It was a mixture and a variety of black gay and white gay; it was a coming together in a homogeneous blend in the fullest sense of the word." Knuckles remembered that "in Chicago all of a sudden it was fashionable to either be gay or act gay – a lot of straight people were doing this".

There were different strands in early house. Unsurprisingly, it was the uptempo version with wailing gospel-derived vocals that made the charts – most notably Farley "Jackmaster" Funk's Love Can't Turn Around. At the same time, there were several deeper records with a positive message derived from the civil rights struggle: Db's I Have A Dream, Mr Fingers' Distant Planet, and Joe Smooth's Promised Land.

These tended to be couched in fairly general terms, and explicit gay references are thin on the ground. Dr Derelict's founding house classic, 1984's Under Cover, is a brutally melodic dissection of a weekend freak who "keeps it in the closet", but it wasn't until 1987 - with a record by the Children (Chi slang for gay people) – that the topic close to the original house nation's heart was examined in a thoughtful, albeit circumspect manner.

Produced by Adonis Smith (well-known for No Way Back and Acid Poke), Freedom is a classic manifesto. It begins – as it means to go on – with a loud shout, a wake-up call, before resolving into a classic early acid patch of a simple yet heart-stopping drumbeat, counter-pointed tom-toms, phased handclaps, and a squelchy synth marking out a marching rhythm.

Deep breaths segue into Jamie Christopher's impassioned rap, all the more impressive because it's delivered in a quiet, determined tenor: "This is a song about freedom, good morning people, hello (hello), wake up, look around you, and what do you see?" His voice is psychedelically refracted, doubled, echoed and, on occasion, reduced to a subliminal whisper, but the words are forceful: "I see hatred, no acceptance to those who are different."

Although the word "gay" is not mentioned, it doesn't need to be: "I'm living my life for me, you live yours. Who cuts my hair? I have nothing to prove. I'm this way because I want to be. Can't you accept me for what I am? I never claimed to be a perfect man … don't judge me! Is this the freedom we fought for so long to achieve? I don't think so!"

"Freedom, that's what life's about": House wasn't a dance fad but a way of life. Liberation for one should be liberation for all, and this message of freedom was encoded in the music as it crossed the Atlantic. As it hit Shoom and the Hacienda, the crowd generously responded and the consequent euphoria was strong enough to pull British pop culture into an open, ecstatic mood for a few seasons.

The Children's song meant nothing in the States outside of a few clubs, but it was a big record in the early days of UK house. The Crucial Mix (slightly faster, with an added spacey synth melody) was a regular highlight of the Hacienda's 1987 Nude Nights. It was included on one of the most popular early comps, Jackmaster 1, where it sat somewhat uneasily next to Patrick Adams and the like.

It remains inspirational. Jamie Christopher's rap is poised between anger, hope and despair. "Freedom, let it ring", he intones near the track's end, echoing a phrase from Martin Luther King's famous I Have A Dream speech, delivered at the August 1963 March on Washington. He does so without any expectation that this desired state will be achieved in the immediate future.

Put together with the rush of the production and the music, it is this delicate balancing act – as well as the continued difficulties faced by many gay people – that makes Freedom resonate 20 years later. It's grounded in a harsh reality, yet a determined, hopeful spirit wins out: "We need to come together, I'm sure it can be done, divided as individuals, united as one."