It's A Sin of the Pet Shop Boys (1987): Gay anthem for my generation. How wonderful it was, dancing to music of the Pet Shop Boys, Depeche Mode, Erasure, and Anything Box in Pegasus, the gay disco in downtown Pittsburgh. Ideally on a Thursday night, with my friends Mark and Tom, when it wasn't that busy on the dance floor and they had the Long Island Iced Tea special. My other favourite Pet Shop Boys song was Always on my mind which — at least in my memories — was often played while I was walking down the stairs into this basement disco and it would immediately make me happy and excited about what this night could bring.
Similarly, if you ask me what song comes to mind when I think back of all the Saturday evenings I spent at West Coast (WCPC) in the 90s, one of the two gay discos in San Diego, then it would be another Pet Shop Boys song, namely Go West, even though this wasn't typical of the music they played. West Coast was by far the best gay disco in the world. It was located close to the airport in a street with warehouses and completely deserted in the evening (so easy parking); several floors and a wonderful roof terrace if you wanted to chill or talk. I think my generation was very lucky that we had such upbeat music and dance floors filled with gay men.
I have finally seen the Channel 4 tv series "It's a sin," so I should expand this section. I always need some time before I can start watching AIDS related programs no matter how highly they are recommended by friends, because they can make me quite depressed and activate anger if I am not in the right frame of mind. As is usually the case, I couldn't let go as soon as I started watching, being gripped by it with a — possibly unhealthy — obsession. This one was particularly close to the bone because one of the main characters started college just one year after I did (although unlike Ritchie I did not become sexually active immediately). I liked the honesty. For example, in how they made clear that sticking to safe sex and using condoms doesn't always happen in the heat of the moment when you are both so excited. But it is a bit unfortunate that the series was named after this song. The song used to trigger only cheerful memories, but for quite some time it will now also remind me of a dying Ritchie Tozer. The life of Ritchie is loosely based on that of Dursley McLinden (1965-95), a stunning actor.
Mainstream gay music The first time I saw how music embraced gayness was when I learned about The Smiths during the first half of the 80s. At first, it was just their quite gay album covers. But the lyrics of "This Charming Man" are very obvious and those of "What Difference Does It Make" are recognisable to any struggling 80s gay boy. It may seem like a small thing now, but I found it enormously gratifying that something as beautiful and popular as the music of The Smiths could go together with gay love.
The music, the lyrics, as well as the video of Bronski Beat's "Small Town Boy" hit me hard. It is sad to write it down, but I felt that all three captured the essence of my tragic existence well. It was somewhat comforting, however, that it did so in such a beautiful way. Moreover, it was also a nice feeling that something with a massive pink triangle was sold in a regular store. I was slightly nervous going to buy it, but I did and was proud of it. Next came disco hits such as "It's a sin", already discussed above, and "Have a little respect" by Erasure.
A quintessential gay song is of course "YMCA" by the Village People. Although I must have heard this song in the seventies when it came out, I didn't realise how gay this song is until I had entered the gay world myself. But the number one gay song of all times is without any doubt, Gloria Gaynor's I am what I am, originally from the La Cage aux Folles. Another gay favourite is Gloria Gaynor's I will survive. I suspect it wasn't written for the queer community. Like I am what I am, it has given courage, hope, and an instantaneous need to jump up to go to the dance floor to zillions of gay men in several generations. The main reason I am fond of these three songs is that they are songs favoured by my tribe and I have been right there in the middle of the dance floor with my fellow queers.
Of all the gay songs that made it into the main stream, there is one song that stands out, both in terms of how beautiful I found (and find) the music and how it helped me to begin to feel proud of being gay. And that is "Forbidden Colours" by David Sylvian and Ryuichi Sakamoto, which appears on the soundtrack of "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence".
And then there is "real" gay music, by artists for whom it was important that their music has a very explicit gay message. There is one duo and one singer that have affected my deeply and I am so grateful to them. The duo is Romanovsky and Phillips. I learned about them when Jit and I attended a live performance in Pittsburgh (where Ron Romanovsky is from). We were still living on Centre Avenue so it must have been during the 1988-89 academic year. Their lyrics tell stories about what happened to me and/or what I did to others.
I am walking with my lover
The night is cool and clear
And everything he says to me
Is what I want to hear
Waiting for the light to change
We both want to embrace
But silently, we both agree
That this is not the place
From "Lost Emotions"
We were best friends
Doing things kids do
And no matter what you'd like to think
We were lovers too
I'm so tired of talking to your answering machine
Are you really away, or are you just being mean? ...
When I hear it ring, I'm on needles and pins
'Til I hear a click, and the message begins
I know it by heart, and I wait for the tone
Feeling rejected, feeling alone
Why did you give me your number
If you didn't want to talk to me for real?
He told me that he loved me
But who was he really talking to?
Was it my body smooth and warm?
Sheltering him from some emotional storm
He wasn't talking to me
The last two may not seem that gay. One could argue that "He wasn't talking to me" is only gay because it is sung by a man. But I picked these last three songs because they capture the fleeting nature of relationships for so many men of my generation and the first one because of the need to hide it if we are in a relationship (and the smart reader may understand there is a link). The songs of Romanovsky and Phillips touch on many other gay issues and do so with touching melodies, striking lyrics, and at times with hilarious gay humour. Try "Homophobia", "Outfield Blues", "Closet Case", and "What Kind of Self-Respecting faggot am I".
Whereas Romanovsky and Phillips have touched me and made me laugh, Michael Callen has blown me away with his incredibly beautiful music. The song "They are falling all around me" captures like no other what happened during the AIDS crisis and it was so lovely that we had amazing artists to comfort us. And as a human being he has impressed the hell out of me as an AIDS activist. It is because of people like him that people like me were taught about safe sex. And what is so impressive is that he did so already when it wasn't popular to do so. Anyway, back to the musician. I saw him perform during the 1993 March on Washington (the year in which he died.) He has two sublime solo albums, "Purple Heart" and "Legacy". But he also did a lot with a gay a cappella band called "The Flirtations" (they can be seen in the movie "Philadelphia"at the party of Andy and Miguel). Michael is probably most famous for "Love Don't Need A Reason", co-written with Peter Allen and Marsha Malamet.
If your heart always did
What a normal heart should do
If you always play a part
Instead of being who you really are
Then you might just miss
The one who's standing there
So instead of passing by
Show him that you care
Instead asking why
Why me? And why you?
Why not we two?
'Cause love don't need a reason
Love don't always rhyme
And love is all we have for now
What we don't have is time
Michael has sung songs with explicit queer lyrics such as "Redefine the Family," "How to Have Sex," and "Living in Wartime." But what worked really well for me were songs such as "Where the Boys Are" made special because they used familiar texts but now made queer because they were song by a man. In the icons above you find links to "They are falling all around me" and "Home," both incredibly beautiful ballads.
And then there are songs that I think of as being incredibly gay, but I understand that this could very well be just my own personal feeling. It could be the lyrics, the romantic melody, the intense sadness, and/or a combination of any of these with a personal experience. The Killing Moon" by Echo and the Bunnymen is supposed to be about the eternal battle between fate and the human will, but I have always thought of it as very gay. Perhaps because I imagine that the beautiful Ian McCulloch is telling me about the lover who is waiting for me when he sings the words "Through the thick and thin; He will wait until; You give yourself to him"
There are two classical pieces that "sound" very gay to me, but that may just be because what happened just after I heard each of them for the first time. After Smetena's "Ma Vlast" in Pittsburgh in 1988, I finally got to know the guy (Tom C.) with whom I had exchanged glances for weeks if not months in the student dining Hall of Carnegie Mellon University. I finally had the guts to introduce myself to the very handsome all-American guy during the intermission (with "you look familiar") and after the concert he was waiting for me and asked to join him for dessert in a nearby Italian restaurant. It was the start of a very beautiful friendship, platonic but with weekly tennis games followed by long romantic dinners for two. Once I offered a massage and that he brushed off by saying he would have accepted if I was a blond girl. But then I've never ever seen him interested in any girl. But the lack of physical contact didn't matter. He was so attentive and always checking up on me. I was simply happy to be in his company. And at night, I would fall a sleep dreaming he was lying next to me. When Jit and I needed a new place, Tom helped us getting a flat in his apartment building. Jit also interacted with Tom and he was fully aware of my infatuation. Interestingly, he just thought it was humorous. Perhaps he knew I didn't stand a chance. It wasn't that he couldn't get jealous which I learned when I developed a massive crush on Ray during my last summer in Pittsburgh. But then Jit's biggest frustration seemed to be that Ray's skin was darker than his (Ray is filipino and Jit Indian). I knew that Jit always tried to stay out of the sun, but I had never realised that he was so conscious of his skin tone and that he apparently didn't want to get too dark because of what I would think about it. Tom and I stayed in touch for a while after we graduated and I even visited him (sleeping in a separate room), but at some point we lost touch.
After Tchaikovsky's "Violin concerto" in Rochester in 1992, I explored the local gay scene and I met Mark, this incredibly sweet kid whose first question to me was whether it was a problem that he smoked. And although we only spent that weekend together, we stayed in touch through letters and phone calls for quite a while. In fact, I still remember how he happened to call me on the day that my mother had died and how comforting he was.
The lyrics of "Flink Zijn" [be brave] by the gay Dutch singer Robert Long describe the day of somebody whose lover is moving out while he is still in love. I am probably not the only one who thinks of this song as gay even though the lyrics are gender neutral. The lyrics indicate that being left behind by a lover "has happened too often to still cry" ('T Is misschien net iets te vaak gebeurd om nog te huilen). There are, of course, straight people with many breakups, but it is more typical for gay men in my generation. And what is even more telling comes at the end. The song tells us that this night he won't be lonely yet because he will go into town where there are more just like him. Robert Long has been quite controversial with songs like "Jezus Redt" and was open about being gay. But for some reason, he never showed up on my radar, and I got to know "Flink Zijn" through a cover long after it first came out.
And then there is the "Theme of the Elephant Man." This song gave comfort to fellow Apollo member Frans Stein during the last year of his life (1988), living with AIDS. It has become my memorial anthem. Instead of praying to a shrine to think of the dead, I put this song on repeat, get drunk, and let the tears flow.
SOMETHING INSIDE SO STRONG
Do you face discrimination, inequity, injustice, bigotry, intolerance, or prejudice, just because you are (considered) different? Then this is a song for you.
"Something Inside So Strong" was written by Labi Siffre in 1984, inspired by a documentary on Apartheid. But he mentioned later, that the song was also influenced by his experience as a gay man. The first time I heard this song, it was sung by Son of a Tutu in Heaven (the famous London gay nightclub). This Youtube version is from a performance by the same artist in the Royal Vauxhaul Tavern, another famous gay venue in London.
The higher you build your barriers
The taller I become
The further you take my rights away
The faster I will run
You can deny me
You can decide to turn your face away
No matter, cos there's
Something inside so strong
I know that I can make it
Tho' you're doing me wrong, so wrong
You thought that my pride was gone
Oh no, something inside so strong
Oh oh oh oh oh something inside so strong
The more you refuse to hear my voice
The louder I will sing
You hide behind walls of Jericho
Your lies will come tumbling
Deny my place in time
You squander wealth that's mine
My light will shine so brightly
It will blind you
Cos there's
Something inside so strong
I know that I can make it
Tho' you're doing me wrong, so wrong
You thought that my pride was gone
Oh no, something inside so strong
Oh oh oh oh oh something inside so strong
Brothers and sisters
When they insist we're just not good enough
When we know better
Just look 'em in the eyes and say
We're gonna do it anyway 2x
Something inside so strong
And I know that I can make it
Tho' you're doing me wrong, so wrong
You thought that my pride was gone
Oh no, something inside so strong
Oh oh oh oh oh something inside so strong
Brothers and sisters
When they insist we're just not enough
When we know better
Just look 'em in the eyes and say
We're gonna do it anyway 4x
Because there's something inside so strong
And I know that I can make it
Tho' you're doing me, so wrong
Oh no, something inside so strong
Oh oh oh oh oh something inside so strong
