"Smalltown Boy" is the debut single by the British synth-pop band Bronski Beat, released in May 1984 by London Recordings.

The lyrics describe a young man who decides to leave home because "the love that you need will never be found" there; the story in the song's music video is that he makes this decision after being gaybashed.

[7] According to the Bronski Beat member Larry Steinbachek, it emerged from an attempt to cover the 1977 Sex Pistols song "Pretty Vacant" using an octave pattern sequenced on a Roland MC-202 synthesiser.

[7] Ian Wade, the author of 1984: The Year Pop Went Queer, interpreted the line "the love that you need will never be found at home" as a rebuke to the "family values" culture that demonised homosexuality at the time.

[12] The original concept was to base the video on a cottaging scene, but this was vetoed by the London Recordings executive Colin Bell.

[12][9] Rose said the video depicted a common experience for gay people and that Bronski Beat wanted to draw attention to homophobia.

[9] Bell said it created opportunities for later videos with gay themes by artists such as Pet Shop Boys and George Michael.

[9] Reviewing the single on release, Spin said it "fashioned a young man's bitter memories of being driven away from home, alienated from his family, and persecuted by his friends, into a sweetly moving pop song".

[9] Writing in the Observer for its 40th anniversary, Paul Flynn wrote: "'Smalltown Boy' documents in empathetic, kitchen-sink detail the feelings of rejecting one archaic value system and moving to the big gay city to find your own... [It has] resisted fossilisation.

[9] Reviewing the Age of Consent reissue for Pitchfork in 2017, Laura Snapes wrote that "'Smalltown Boy' remains a perfect song.

[9] "Smalltown Boy" was sampled by the German band Real McCoy in their 1994 song "Automatic Lover (Call for Love)".