By The Landlord
“You may forget but
let me tell you
this: someone in
some future time
will think of us ...” – Sappho
"The love that dare not speak its name" – Oscar Wilde
“It's miles worse for you than that; I'm in love with your gamekeeper.” – E.M. Forster, Maurice
“There have been hermaphrodites around forever, Cal. Forever. Plato said that the original human being was a hermaphrodite. Did you know that? The original person was two halves, one male, one female. Then these got separated. That's why everybody's always searching for their other half. Except for us. We've got both halves already.” ― Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex
"If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door." – Harvey Milk
“Understand that sexuality is as wide as the sea. Understand that your morality is not law. Understand that we are you.” – Derek Jarman
“If you don't love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else?” – RuPaul
“In itself, homosexuality is as limiting as heterosexuality: the ideal should be to be capable of loving a woman or a man; either, a human being, without feeling fear, restraint, or obligation.” – Simone de Beauvoir
"I became one of the stately homos of England." – Quentin Crisp, The Naked Civil Servant
Johnny simply wasn't like the other boys.
Not at all entranced by guns or Tonka toys.
His life was set to take a different course.
Pretty and frilly - well he was born a seahorse.
So in many ways John was a model son,
He carried young in full gestation, mostly staying mum.
And Thomas the famous goose played fast and loose
In that 'gay swan love triangle'. Yes, he made a 'swoose'.
Thomas the bisexual goose and family
Nature is full of roles that exchange the norm,
Gender is fluid, especially for the worm
(that turns). Fish flip about, and sex swaps invert failure,
Hermaphrodites, all kinds of plants, happily mix genitalia.
Jurassic Park made life with a lone T-Rex,
People with mixed parts are known as intersex,
Gender rules are built to bend. Solutions?
History pools all these sexy evolutions.
And so let's move and groove all of this to song,
Oft fuelled by confusion of right and of wrong,
Stories of identity, suppressed guilt, anxiety
Coming out in all camps and walks of society.
So how might we define LGTBQ?
Where does it fit for 'I', 'we', 'it', 'them', or 'you'?
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer,
As the spectrum broadens, more terms may yet appear,
Not forgetting also the added catch all '+plus'
For all the many new shades and changes of this 'us'
We'll avoid derogatory of course, of those we've had enough
Though older gay friends are fond of saying: Yes! I'm a pouf!
Pop songs and being gay are cocksure, bosom pals.
Flamboyant, expressive – gay bars more fun for gals,
And there's something creative about sexual ambiguity,
Fertile for music's blossoming big family tree
Bowie’s famous Starman moment
David Bowie - that look and Starman suit on TOTP TV
His frankness fired a pistol to come out as LGB or T,
His gay side was mostly image fluidity,
Straight, but opened the gate for free ambiguity.
But heroes and heroines came long before his fame,
Oscar Wilde's "love that dare not speak its name",
Sappho's poems made her a genius lyric lesbian
Revealing deeper cultures of the Greek or Roman.
Before San Fran pioneers, or UK laws in '67,
Being gay was dangerous, far from hot club Heaven,
Tchaikovsky, Porter, Britten, even Coward all had to hide,
Joe Orton's park and toilet trips were very far from Pride,
And many died, heroes of the street, and of their ilk
In their stride, stood up for rights – let's drink to Harvey Milk.
Others survived, worked heroically (Turing), took beatings but retained their wits,
Campaigned like Peter Tatchell, or quipped like Quentin Crisp.
Alan Turing. Finally a brilliant queen on the £50 note
Then there are others whose careers steered them the opposite,
Commercial concerns, insecurities, kept them in the closet,
Rock Hudson, Cary Grant – so much trauma behind drama,
Liberace sued for obvious things implied beyond the candelabra.
Campness and cross-dressing doesn't always mean gay,
Ceramic's Grayson Perry loves a frock, but doesn't turn that way,
And there's that campest wrestler, Welsh miner Adrian Street,
He tickled others in the ring, but only as a wrestling feat.
Adrian Street - a different side of the Welsh miner
Music has gay icons, but here it's all about the song,
How struggles with identity, against what had felt wrong
Might be a potent place to start, perhaps dealing with family,
All the way to anthems, all joyous and celebratory.
Not just who writes about it, or who is trans, straight or gay
But what they truly say might hit home in some way,
Almond to Anohni? Springfield, Richard, Y-Love, Furman, or Sophie?
Especially if suppression comes in faith, race, or nationality,
SOPHIE: tragically lost modern pioneer
Many songs and stars are adopted as gay icons,
Donna Summer's biggest hit survives among such items
But too much of that could be overplayed as cliche,
Remember the original? The People of YMCA!
As innuendo pioneers of all the dirty blues
It's fun to look right back at the singers who'd confuse,
With nuance, subtlety, as well as the downright filthy,
Lucille Bogan, Bessie Smith and big Gertrude 'Ma' Rainey.
Ma Rainey
Of course there are gay icons who've jumped upon the wagon,
Kylie, Cher, Gaga, Madonna ("penis in my head") – all hit that social tag on,
But let's not flood the lists with too many mainstream artists,
Gender is more complex as it tenderly untwists.
Past, present, struggles, strife, private, public, the whole experience,
Music with stories, exploring curiosity, and embracing difference,
Let's welcome this week's guest - PopOff! And hey! Happy Birthday!
Enjoy your local big parade, with all things celebrating gay.
Please post all songs in comments for our usual Monday deadline
That's 11pm in UK, before we embark on title pun-time,
Then playlists will be published on Wednesday right on cue,
No doubt a splendid range of LGBTQ.
Fly the flag
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