Songs about gayness

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I know there have been threads about suggestions for music that would fit well in sort of a gay disco setting. However, in this case, I am looking for songs whose lyrics do actually deal with gayness (or bisexuality) in one form or other.

Citing some examples here:

David Bowie: John I'm Only Dancing
Rod Stewart: The Killing Of Georgie
Tom Robinson Band: Glad To Be Gay
Village People: YMCA
Village People: Go West
Village People: In The Navy
Bronski Beat: Smalltown Boy
Bronski Beat: Why
The Communards: For a Friend
Ken Laszlo: Hey Hey Guy
Erasure: Hideaway
George Michael: Jesus To a Child
George Michael: Outside

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 20:59 (twenty years ago)

Shockheaded Peters - "I, Bloodbrother Be (£4,000 Love Letter)"

― jed_ (jed), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 21:05 (twenty years ago)

that Scissor Sisters one

― Sven Basted (blueski), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 21:05 (twenty years ago)

OMG Franz Ferdinand danced w a boy OMG

― Lethal Dizzle (djdee2005), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 21:07 (twenty years ago)

Rufus Wainwright - Gay Messiah
Futon - Gay Boy
Magnetic Fields - I Thought You Were My Boyfriend
Bloodhound Gang - I Wish I Was Queer (So I Could Get Chicks)
Gay Pimp - Socer Practice
Scissor Sisters - Filthy/Gorgeous
Lou Reed - Make Up
Electric Six - Gay Bar

― The Brainwasher (Twilight), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 21:15 (twenty years ago)

Scissor Sisters - Electrobix
Jill Sobule - I Kissed a Girl
Sonic Youth - Andrgynous Mind
Xiu Xiu - Fabulous Muscles

― The Brainwasher (Twilight), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 21:22 (twenty years ago)

kitchens of distinction to thread!

in fact, kitchens of distinction to the popular consciousness would be nice. damn i loved that band.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 21:31 (twenty years ago)

The Rubettes - Under one roof

For a record that was meant to get them kicked off their label, it's surprisingly good.

― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 21:35 (twenty years ago)

Morrissey-Lucky Lisp (take your pick, really)
The Smiths-The Boy with the Thorn in His Side (see above)
Tracy + the Plastics- Queerion
Le Tigre-Viz, Dyke March 2001
Adriano Canzian-Macho Boy
This Beat Is Lesbotronic-This Beat Is Lesbotronic
Klaus Nomi-Three Wishes
Tom Robinson Band-Glad to Be Gay
Malaria/CoS-Kaltes Klares Wasser (Maybe. You looking for songs about queerness, too? Look into Antony, Chris Korda, etc.)

― Jesse, Tuesday, 5 April 2005 21:36 (twenty years ago)

It's weirdly tangled and difficult to work this one out, as, for obvious contingent historical reasons, the closet meant that a lot of the greatest gay and/or bisexual songwriters and performers just switched the gendered pronouns or plugged their emotions into straight contexts (Cole Porter, Bessie Smith)

I mean figuring out which Smitths songs are actually about gay contexts and which are crypto-gay and which are straight gives me a headache (I'm sure that Smiths conference will be aflame with such critical heavy breathin')- and Belle and Sebastian have inherited and exploited/mobilized the same productive indeterminacy donchaknow . .

The ones that come immediately to mind are these:

The Meatmen "Tooling for Anus"
The Angry Samoans "Homo-Sexual"
Nervous Gender "Confession"
Gina X "No G. D. M." (tangential narrator, but . . . )
Van Morrison "Madame George"
Gravy Train!!!! "You Made Me Gay"

Shakespeare's sonnets to thread . . .

― Drew Daniel (Drew Daniel), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 21:40 (twenty years ago)

"Jet Boy/Jet Girl" by the Damned

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 21:51 (twenty years ago)

"I Kissed a Girl" by Jill Sobule

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 21:57 (twenty years ago)

Shakespeare's sonnets to thread . . .

Can never leave the dissertation out of this, can you, Drew?

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 22:01 (twenty years ago)

Well, they have been set to music. I just can't help but bring up that the most canonical love poetry in the English language is written by an older man to a younger man and hinges on the idea that the younger dude is so good looking that he should procreate despite his lack of interest in doing so. It's such a "nobody wins" situation, it's just so perfectly perverse . . . .

more songs about gayness please.

I always thought that Eno's "Here He Comes" was really homoerotic, but not "about" gayness per se

― Drew Daniel (Drew Daniel), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 22:18 (twenty years ago)

"Naked Men" by the Furry Men of the North!

― Douglas (Douglas), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 22:23 (twenty years ago)

Peter Shelley - Homo Sapien

― a banana (alanbanana), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 22:25 (twenty years ago)

― a banana (alanbanana), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 22:26 (twenty years ago)

"Can You Forgive Her" and "The Night I Fell in Love" are maybe the two PSB songs that are most overtly "about gayness".

― Paul in Santa Cruz (Paul in Santa Cruz), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 22:35 (twenty years ago)

A few more:

Boy George: No Clause 28
Prince: If I Was Your Girlfriend

In the case of Pet Shop Boys, "Boy Strange" and "New York City Boys" as well.

Plus, on the other side, there are of course numerous songs by Eminem, Shabba Ranks, Shaggy etc.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 22:36 (twenty years ago)

LITTLE RICHARD - ENTIRE DISCOGRAPHY

― Masked Gazza, Tuesday, 5 April 2005 22:37 (twenty years ago)

50 Cent & Game 'How We Do (Each Other)'

― Sven Basted (blueski), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 22:38 (twenty years ago)

POP MUSIC since c.year dot

― Masked Gazza, Tuesday, 5 April 2005 22:39 (twenty years ago)

"Gimme Gimme Gimme"--Erasure. One of the gayest songs ever.
"I Have the Moon"--Magnetic Fields. You know, I can't believe these two weren't mentioned earlier.

― some of my best friends are straight, Tuesday, 5 April 2005 22:39 (twenty years ago)

"Lumberjack Song" too, I guess ;)

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 22:40 (twenty years ago)

But Geir, there are plenty of straight male trannies actually- the Lumberjack Song is about being a transvestite not about being a homosexual.

I've always thought that "G. H. M." by The World of Pooh was a gay song, but I can't work out the lyrics.

The lyrics to The Leather Nun's "Fist Fuckers Associated" however, come through loud and clear.

― Drew Daniel (Drew Daniel), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 22:43 (twenty years ago)

Pet Shop Boys - "Try It (I'm In Love With A Married Man)"

― daavid (daavid), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 22:47 (twenty years ago)

Janet Jackson - Free Zone
Madonna - In This Life
Madonna - Deeper & Deeper (implied, okay, but it's still obv there)

um, INDIGO GIRLS to thread? i dont know what they actually sing about

― Vic in LA, Tuesday, 5 April 2005 22:47 (twenty years ago)

Magnetic Fields - "When My Boy Walks Down The Street" or "I Thought You Were My Boyfriend"

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 22:48 (twenty years ago)

Pet Shop Boys - "It's a Sin"
Pet Shop Boys - "It Must Be Obvious"
Pet Shop Boys - "The Boy who Coulnd't Keep His Clothes On"
Pet Shop Boys - "In Denial"
Pet Shop Boys - "Metamorphosis"

and probably many more...

― Seb (Seb), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 22:57 (twenty years ago)

Pet Shop Boys have always been very subtle, and a lot of their lyrics may have been hinting about sexuality in a subtle way.

Even though it had the gayest music video ever, I don't think there was any gay element in the lyrics of "Being Boring" though.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 22:59 (twenty years ago)

"Deeper and Deeper" is about being gay???

― Mr. Snrub (Mr. Snrub), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 23:00 (twenty years ago)

Anal Cunt - "I Just Met the Gayest Guy on Earth" (opening lyric: "He listens to the fucking Smiths")

― Mr. Snrub (Mr. Snrub), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 23:01 (twenty years ago)

which reminds me... The Smiths - "Hand in Glove"

― Mr. Snrub (Mr. Snrub), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 23:02 (twenty years ago)

Listening to the Peter Jay & the Blue Men song "Friendship" (produced/Svengali-ed by Joe Meek) and thinking about its weird strategic gender vagueness in relation to his biography it seems kinda gay to me now . . .

Oh. "Ode to Billy Joe", obviously.

I think Pentangle's setting of the English folk ballad "Willy O'Winsbury" is incredibly homoerotic- check out the lyrics in which a guy is so attractive that a male king says to him "if I were a woman I would be in love with you"- plus it's a great song to boot.

― Drew Daniel (Drew Daniel), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 23:02 (twenty years ago)

I'd also include Bowie's "Queen Bitch." A lot of his other songs have a gay/bi subtext.

― ffirehorse (firehorse), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 23:17 (twenty years ago)

Even though it had the gayest music video ever, I don't think there was any gay element in the lyrics of "Being Boring" though.

'Being Boring' features a male-female 'sex' scene in the bath. 'Go West' is probably their gayest video, plus maybe the Dusty collab.

― Sven Basted (blueski), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 23:20 (twenty years ago)

Hidden Cameras, right

― Zed Szetlian (Finn MacCool), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 00:50 (twenty years ago)

Although the lyrics to "Being Boring" never explicity mention homosexuality, a line like "all the people I was kissing/some are here, some are missing" would lack a lot of resonance if it was about male-female contact.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 01:03 (twenty years ago)

does antony and the johnson's "for today i am a boy" count?

a lot of that ani difranco stuff.

― jonathan - stl (jonathan - stl), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 01:35 (twenty years ago)

Edie Sedgwick "Sigourney Weaver"

When the Company's ready to get it on
then Burke is ready to get it on
but Ripley's not ready to get it on
'til Vasquez gets those black dyke boots on...

Within a world where creatures come out at night,
there's a world where girls and girls cum at night.
For every dom + her acid blood
there's at least one fem in the neighborhood.
In a world where creatures destroy marines,
a girl and a girl can celebrate machines.
In a world where creatures are colony-takers,
a girl and a girl can shake their moneymakers.

― Matthew C Perpetua (inca), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 01:45 (twenty years ago)

Pansy Division and Phranc to thread!

― Yngwie AlmsteenMay (sgertz), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 03:36 (twenty years ago)

Carl Bean - I was born this way
Sloppy Seconds - I don't want to be a homosexual
The Queers - I want to be a homosexual
lots of folk music where the singers don't change the genders; Anne Briggs version of "She moves through the fair" is the first that comes to mind
everything by Gayrilla Biscuits
Team Dresch, The Butchies, Tribe 8, The Gossip, et al.
Louis Armstrong - A woman is a sometime thing (sort of)
similar to Little Richard and Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Relax, Tampa Red - Mama don't allow no easy riders
there is a lot of early blues that I can't find the titles at the moment
a shit load of booty bass where guys are extolling the virtues of very non-gendered ass
2 Live Crew - HBC (Head, Booty, Cock) 'What you like fellas?'
has anyone mentioned TaTu yet?
a couple of DMX songs probably fit as well

― munchkin, Wednesday, 6 April 2005 07:56 (twenty years ago)

"Rikki Don't Lose That Number" (maybe)
Funkadelic, "Jimmy's Got A Little Bit Of Bitch In Him" (again, maybe)

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 09:18 (twenty years ago)

Prince - "Uptown"
Josie Cotton - "Johnny, Are You Queer"
Tony Basil - "Mickey"
Bruce Springsteen - "Backstreets"

― John Fredland (jfredland), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 11:09 (twenty years ago)

Jim Stafford - "My Girl Bill" (until the "surprise" ending)

― John Fredland (jfredland), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 11:13 (twenty years ago)

wire (and minor threat) - 12XU

― mike sperry (ghost nuts), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 11:42 (twenty years ago)

Surely just about any song by Turbonegro from Ass Cobra onwards, no?

― myopic_void (myopic_void), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 13:33 (twenty years ago)

Suede - Wonderful Sometimes (Technically about being bi)

― Bryan Moore (Bryan Moore), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 16:26 (twenty years ago)

Prince - "When U Were Mine" if you take the line "when he was there, sleeping inbetween the two of us" literally, which you might as well do.

― Mike O. (Mike Ouderkirk), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 16:32 (twenty years ago)

Or Suede's "The Drowners" and "My Insatiable One"

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 16:32 (twenty years ago)

"Switch" - Femme 2 Femme
"Ain't Nobody Straight In L.A." - The Miracles

and every Melissa Ethridge song -- even pre-coming out, she never sang about wanting the boy or be my man or anything lie that. It was you" or she don't love you like I do or don't leve me for her and so on

― Randy Reiss (undeadsinatra), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 16:50 (twenty years ago)

there's this band called THE FROGS who made a record called It's Only Right and Natural once. any of y'all ever heard it?

― j fail (cenotaph), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 17:00 (twenty years ago)

i always thought 12XU was addressed to a female?

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 17:06 (twenty years ago)

Special Category: American Music Club's "It's Your Birthday Baby", about a straight man in love with a post-op trans gendered person and unable to deal with it.

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 18:18 (twenty years ago)

We've all forgotten about "Lola". Well, not anymore though.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 18:26 (twenty years ago)

Negro Problem - "Ken"
posits Barbie as an unwanted beard imposed on Ken by the hetero-hegemony

― tremendoid (tremendoid), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 18:40 (twenty years ago)

i always thought 12XU was addressed to a female?

-- grimly fiendish (simonmai...), April 6th, 2005.

its called 'ambiguity'-its a convention employed by songwriters from time to time.

― latebloomer: strawman knockdowner (latebloomer), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 19:13 (twenty years ago)

though personally i always interpreted that song as gay or homoerotic.

― latebloomer: strawman knockdowner (latebloomer), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 19:22 (twenty years ago)

Belle and Sebastian - Seeing Other People

― tremendoid (tremendoid), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 19:36 (twenty years ago)

x-post: either way, no need to be quite so snippy about it.

anyway: this is from a 1978 interview with wire which you can find here.

12XU
BG: It's about sexual exertion in any direction, really. If you see your boyfriend kissing a man. If you see your girlfriend kissing a man. It could be a woman or a man. That was my line.
GL: Of nearly all the numbers on the album this is the most open ended because it could be anything and there are so few words. My line was, 'I saw you in a mag'. I think 12XU was fine in the sense that it was '12FuckYou' because it was a censored line. There was no intention of singing, '12FuckYou!'
CN: It was a joke about censoring. Lots of people were putting out records with 'Fuck' on them and immediately getting banned.

so yeh, it's ambiguous. but it's so ambiguous that i hardly think it fulfils geir's criterion of "songs whose lyrics do actually deal with gayness". still, bruce gilbert mentions boyfriends first, so ... read into that what you will.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 19:45 (twenty years ago)

EVERYTHING by:
Tom Robinson Band
Phranc
Chris Williamson
Tret Fure
Holly Near in the 80s

surprisingly little by:
Sleater-Kinney (I think "One More Hour" is all)
Ani Difranco ("Shameless")

also, fer cryin out loud, "Walk On The Wild Side"

― John Schapiro (Vornado), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 19:55 (twenty years ago)

Did k.d.lang ever write a song about being gay?

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 19:56 (twenty years ago)

Chumbawamba: "Homophobia"

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 20:35 (twenty years ago)

(It's about a gay man who got mugged to death in London.)

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 20:36 (twenty years ago)

Depeche Mode - "Boys say go!"
Depeche Mode - "What's your name?"
Tina Charles - "I Love To Love"
Man To Man meet Man Parrish - "Male Stripper"
Aerosmith - "Dude Looks Like a Lady"

― Seb (Seb), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 22:23 (twenty years ago)

Does The White Stripe's "You're Pretty Good Looking (For A Girl)" count?

― D. Anderson, Wednesday, 6 April 2005 22:46 (twenty years ago)

pete shelley homosapien PEOPLES.

― di, Wednesday, 6 April 2005 22:52 (twenty years ago)

Timbuk 3, "Legalize Our Love"

― Joseph McCombs (Joseph McCombs), Thursday, 7 April 2005 02:03 (twenty years ago)

Now It's Overhead's debut album

Psychedelic Furs - "Love My Way" (or so someone claimed)

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 7 April 2005 12:35 (twenty years ago)

Like Little Richard's, ALL of k.d. lang's work is about being gay, including (and especially) her pre-out country stuff. But her lyrics tend to be coy and ambiguous. "Miss Chatelaine" on Ingenue comes awfully close (when I heard it for the first time I thought "When did she decide to come out?" -- the answer being about six months later). Her album titles tell the story: Angel With A Lariat, Shadowlands, Ingenue, Drag . . .

― John Schapiro (Vornado), Thursday, 7 April 2005 14:16 (twenty years ago)

I think the one about the big-boned gal from Alberta was fairly explicit, no?

― Joseph McCombs (Joseph McCombs), Thursday, 7 April 2005 14:38 (twenty years ago)

Pete Townsend "Rough Boys"
Book of Love "Boy"

― Drew Daniel (Drew Daniel), Thursday, 7 April 2005 15:41 (twenty years ago)

hidden cameras: complete discography

― scout (scout), Thursday, 7 April 2005 15:49 (twenty years ago)

I think the one about the big-boned gal from Alberta was fairly explicit, no?
-- Joseph McCombs (jmccomb...), April 7th, 2005.

No. What about it is explicit? It's about a woman rocking out, but it doesn't say with whom. Fits perfectly with all the other closeted country stuff she did.

― John Schapiro (Vornado), Thursday, 7 April 2005 15:52 (twenty years ago)

Also, the AMAZING "Castro Boy" by Danny Boy and the Serious Party Gods.

― Jesse, Thursday, 7 April 2005 18:37 (twenty years ago)

Depeche Mode - "Boys say go!"
Depeche Mode - "What's your name?"

A bit weird they did these, as none of their members are gay. However, back in 1981, their main songwriter was a bisexual male, so...

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Thursday, 7 April 2005 19:09 (twenty years ago)

Jobriath (I'm A Man, or most anything else)
Junior/Senior (chicks & dicks)
Gentleman Reg (Untouchable, most other songs)
Cheese on Bread (Where the Fuck Are They?)

Also, I always thought Linkin' Park was pretty gay.

― DanC, Thursday, 7 April 2005 19:50 (twenty years ago)

Bowie — "Boys Keep Swinging"

And I dispute the notion that Prince's "If I Was Your Girlfriend" is about "gayness."

― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Thursday, 7 April 2005 20:20 (twenty years ago)

kd langs drag is the queerest and most complicated in its unravelling of sexual idenity, desire, gender, reading popular culture, etc etc...

its a really gorgeous standards album too.

― anthony, Friday, 8 April 2005 06:03 (twenty years ago)

A bit weird they did these, as none of their members are gay. However, back in 1981, their main songwriter was a bisexual male, so...

Vince Clarke?

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 8 April 2005 06:07 (twenty years ago)

Alice Cooper - Mary Ann ("I thought you were my man...")

― Dadrock, Meshach and Abednego (Dada), Friday, 8 April 2005 08:26 (twenty years ago)

one month passes...

Non-Prophets - That Ain't Right
"I attend candlelight vigils for Matthew Shepard..."

― sibsi (sibsi), Friday, 13 May 2005 10:11 (twenty years ago)

i always thought 12XU was addressed to a female?

On a album called 'Pink Flag'?

― Bob Six (bobbysix), Saturday, 14 May 2005 07:17 (twenty years ago)

oh, come on ...

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Saturday, 14 May 2005 10:41 (twenty years ago)

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