Switched on Pop - My My My! Troye Sivan + Queer Pop (w Gina Delvac, Darryl Bullock)

Episode Date: February 8, 2018

Gina Delvac of the Call Your Girlfriend podcast and Darryl W Bullock, author of David Bowie Made Me Gay, join Nate and Charlie to dig into the poetry of Troye Sivan's "My My My!", the history of LGBT pop music, and the songs we love to hate. And also be sure to check out: Darryl Bullock's playlist of LGBT pop, from his book David Bowie Made Me Gay and the brilliant Call Your Girlfriend podcast, produced by Gina.  Featuring: •Troye Sivan - My My My! •Taylor Swift - Style •West Side Story - Cool •Billy Murray - Pretty Baby •Ma Rainey - Prove it on Me •Irving Kaufman - Masculine Women, Feminine Men •Lesley Gore - You Don't Own Me •Jackie Shane - Any Other Way •Lavender Country - Back in the Closet Again •John Grant - Glacier •Alex Clare - Too Close Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you're tired of endless scrolling to figure out where to eat, same. I'm Stephanie Wu, editor-in-chief of Eater. We've just launched the new-ish and way better Eater app. It has all the restaurants we love, gives you personalized picks wherever you are, and serves up smarter search results just for you. You can find my list of the best places for martinis and fries in New York City. And save your favorite spots, share lists, follow editors, and book right in the app. the eater app at eater app.com. It's free for iOS users. Welcome to Switch on Pop. I'm musicologist

Nate Sloan. I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. And joining me in the studio is Gina Delvac, producer of the hit podcast. Call Your Girlfriend. Hey Gina. Hey, Charlie. Hey, Nate. Good to be here. So good to have you back, Gina. And this is going to be a fun show. Because in the first half, we're going to listen to one of the hottest new tracks, Troy Savant's My, My, My, My, My, My, My. My, My, My. So fun. My, My, My, My. And in the second half, I sit down for a conversation with Daryl Bullock, the author of David Bowie, Made Me Gay, to listen to a playlist of LGBT pop music

through the whole century. And then don't go anywhere because after that, we'll be back on with Gina to talk about songs that we love to hate. Now, usually we discuss songs that we love, or once in a while songs that we hate, but this is new terrain, songs that we love to hate. It's made fun. So don't go anywhere. But our first order of business, my, my, my, I really like this song. What do you all think? This song does what I think is an important feature of any future banger, which is that it teaches you how to sing a lot.

by halfway through. So I hadn't heard it when you guys sent this through to me yet because I've been listening to a lot of public radio and not very much of my usual hit music presets. I was like, oh, this is all the major qualities of a future dance floor jam. My, my, my, that's all I'll say. So maybe around the second or third, my, my, my, you were like, all right, I've got this. Exactly. And then the next time the chorus rolled around, you're like, I'm ready to sing along. And I think it's a quality that tells you that this is going to be a big song.

The last one I can think of that I similarly was driving along and was like, oh, yeah, I've learned the song halfway through was, I mean, rest in peace for being terrible, blurred lines, another song, Love to Hate. Oh, yeah, definitely in the Love to Hate category. Yeah, many songs that end up in the Love to Hate category start with this amazing earworm quality that My My My My Has. We'll get there. We'll get to this earwormy chorus.

But first, who is Troy Savon? What do you know about this artist, Charlie and Gina? because it might be more than me, which was absolutely nothing. Zero. Nothing whatsoever. I'm late to the game. I saw him perform on SNL recently and was totally struck by an outstanding performance. All I know is he is a young performer from South Africa.

South Africa, by way of Australia. We may not be familiar with him, but I think some of our younger audience knows this artist very well from his music, from his vlogging. Oh, and the other thing that he's known for is he's a particularly inspiring young queer artist. And that's a big part of his identity as musician and a personality. He is like unabashed about his sexuality. And I think that's made him an icon for a lot of young queer people. Fantastic. This song, My, My, My, is kind of his first big hit.

and I want to go right to the chorus. The place that we've already identified maybe is where a lot of the magic happens. That's so fun. We've got some serious cross-continental head-knodding happening. I love it. Tell me what you think. I might slot this song into a particular pop subgenre,

which would be kind of the falling head over heels in love song. That's a great genre. I agree. Yeah, totally. Right? It's that first flush of, lust or passion and you're kind of working those feelings out on the dance floor really you're right there with that yeah there's some stumbling yes and it's exciting electricity exactly exciting electric

and maybe a little bit unstable in a good way kind of not yourself um off your game unsettled but in a really exciting kind of way if i ever had game i would never have been off it but i never had it so i'm not sure i understand what you're talking about nevertheless can imagine you are smitten with someone you are consumed by them your every waking thought is occupied by this person and i feel like this song works because the chorus captures that feeling of instability uncertainty excitement and the three words that make up the title and the chorus of this song. My, my, my, and then an exclamation point. And just a quick aside, any song with an exclamation point in the title I'm already a fan of. Yeah, yeah, I'm down.

From Justin Timberlakes Can't Stop the Feeling exclamation point to my, my, my, exclamation point. It's a harbinger of like something funky to come. Okay, my, my, my, let's just focus in on that lyric for a second. Because it's right here that I think we get this sort of excited instability. because the phrase, my, my, my, is placed in this uncertain kind of rhythmic way. And let me show you what I mean by dropping a beat. Okay. Let's get like a nice four on the floor bass drum going here. Okay.

Once we have that beat, we can see how the phrase my, my, my, lines up, or rather doesn't line up with that beat. My, my, my, my. my my my so the first one is on the first beat the down beat but then the next two mys are kind of in between

the following beat right so as a result when we're listening to this it's like exciting and unstable and to give you an idea of how this works exactly maybe it'd be good to think about

how this would have sounded had Troy placed these mys exactly on each successive beat. Okay. My, my, my, my. My, my, my, my. Oh, my, my, my, my.

It's not very excited. As opposed to, oh, my, my, my. It has a very tin soldier feeling. Yeah. In some ways, maybe kind of a small difference, but seems to totally change our perception of this song. And every time that chorus rolls around, I feel like we get caught up in Troy Savon's own experience of excitement and instability.

So, Nate, the other thing that I noticed about this when I was listening to the song is that the main hook happens not on the home chord or the opening of the chord progression. Rather, it happens sort of at the end of the chord progression falling into the recycling of the chord progression. So that continual excitement and energy just keeps spilling over this set of chord progression. which is fairly simple and repeats throughout the entire song. You're gonna have to talk me through that for a moment. So the first chord is this one. It's a G sharp major. And then the second chord, quickly, they do a little B-flap minor

and go to a little F-sharp major. And those chords repeat throughout the entire song, right? Like, oh my, my, my, my, oh my, my, my, he lands the hook of the song at the end of that progression rather than at the very beginning. Instead of going like, oh my, my, my, my. He goes, oh, my, my, my, my.

Oh, interesting. Okay. You get the hook, and then the chords restart. Oftentimes I feel like when I go to deconstruct a song, the first thing I sort of privilege would be harmony and melody. And I was like, all right, the chords are kind of boring. Like, they're not doing a whole lot. They kind of just keep going throughout the entire song. So the song is doing something else to grab my attention.

And I think what it's doing to grab my attention is doing this really, effective looping, where every time the thing loops, it just rehooks my attention. I think another great example would be like Daft Punk. Like Daft Punk create these little four bar loops that just keep going over and over because there's something about it that like falls on itself and trips just before the end of the loop, and then it starts again and you want to keep hearing it. By placing the hook at the end of the progression, it forces you back into the beginning. What if the idea is also that if it's blend, between the transition between these chords.

So it's not necessarily that the loop has a clear beginning and end point, but that it's not like right on the switch, that in the same way that that syncopation is pushing through rhythmically to kind of explain this explosion of emotion. There's also kind of this like sliding and slipping between these modes that is like the burst that's happening. That's what I'm hearing. Wow.

Is that what you're trying to say? Yeah. What better said. Honorary Doctorate of Musicology, Gina Delvac. Let's stick with this chorus for a second, because I think there's other ways that Troy Savon creates instability here. How many voices are there in this chorus? And are you counting the synth that sounds kind of like a voice? Ooh, that is the big question.

Yes, we are. Somewhere between seven and 14. It sounds like a full chorus, even if it's sort of like a being John Malkovich, like a million, Troy's coming in there. Him as his lead. He's doubling his lead. He has harmonies to his lead. And then he has the synth, like, vocal chops.

Yeah. And has this like then, oh boy, boy, boy, thing happen as well. Right. His, like, voice says a bass or something. Yeah. Okay. So 50. That's my guess.

Do you know, Nate? Is this a quiz? As I heard you answering, I'm not sure there is a right answer. But I love this image of the sort of, like, army of Troyes. Let's focus in on two, though. Okay. I'm particularly interested in a juxtaposition between the main voice of Troy Savon and then what I guess we're calling the sort of low processed, moa, moa,

sounds. In this chorus, we have, to me, like, two main voices, again, the high Troy and then the low, like, processed Troy. I'm always trying to, like, make sense of these sounds. Why are they there? What are they communicating? Could it be the other person that he's dancing with? And there's kind of like a conversation happening because they have opposing syncopated rhythms

that they're kind of like a call and response happening. Ooh, I like that. I like that too. Kind of like an interlocking between the two of them. Exactly. That's cool. That's not how I was reading it. Let me offer my reading,

which is that we're hearing two sides of Troy's personality here. And I draw this in part from the lyrics of the chorus, where at first he dies every night with you. And then after the second, oh my, my, my, he is living for your every move. Okay, so now I'm thinking like these kind of binaries, life, death, night, day. Maybe these two voices, the high and the low, are sort of illustrating musically this lyrical idea of the extreme. of this new relationship. Everything is life and death. And in the same way, the music

kind of pushes itself out to the extremes with the high voice and then the low voice, like simultaneously. Oh, so it was like almost a little bit of text painting. Totally. So is the low voice, the death voice? And then the high voice is the life voice? Possibly, yeah.

I wasn't going to go that far. I don't want to put too fine a point on it. I just like this idea of extremes, of poles, of how, like, when you're entering a new relationship, you experience the highs and lows so exquisitely intensely. That's beautiful.

I like that interpretation too. Okay, so we got multiple readings on the board. I like that you're hesitantly persuaded by mine. Let's forge forward into this next section. We've listened to the first chorus and now we're moving into the second verse. I have a lot to say about this section. So let's just give it a listen.

this is the second verse oh i know what you like you like you said you know what i like you're like about this verse no i don't know if you like the dirty yeah you said you know what i like what do i like charlie what i like about this verse

no i don't know i don't know if you like the dirty talk or if you like the call in response with the really funky synthesizer happening in the background but knowing you i'm gonna actually say maybe it's the second. Both? Both. It's all of the above. But what I want to focus on in this verse is the language and especially the very beginning

of this verse where we get total silence for a second. And then just these two one syllable words kind of emerging out of the void spark up. This is my favorite moment of the song. And this is what hooked me into it was this moment of. like empty space and then just this little burst of duo syllabic material spark up and then if that was enough it's followed by another little fusillade buzz cut this is like imagistic poetry to me spark up buzz cut this is great lyric writing because we have this pair of phrases that is just like full of sharp consonants right spark up buzz

cut. There's a lot going on in just those four words. There's a great economy of words and yet they evoke great imagery. Yeah. And what is the imagery here? Spark up. What do we, what does that conjure for us? I think there's a literal possibility of lighting a joint or lighting a cigarette outside of the club and the sort of like we take that like breath, that stop of that kind of constantly pushing beat and that syncopation we were talking about in the looping of the course. And then that just moment of silence, taking a breath, like lighting your combustible of choice. There's that. And then there's also this tight kind of hard-edged electricity versus that like free-flowing

euphoria of this new relationship. There's a little bit of that and spark up. Buzz cut I'm not quite so sure about. Maybe just like touching the hair of a cute guy with a short cut. Who knows? Yeah. I'm officially resigning from my seat in the show. The most wonderful, beautiful explanation.

Do you buy it, Nate? Yes, I buy it. In fact, I think it points out what I love so much about this, which is that we probably all have different associations with this lyric. But that's what's great about it is I think like we fill in the blanks. In this case, like the literal blanks in the track with, you know, whatever our associations with these phrases are, spark up buzz cut. And then something a little less ambiguous.

I got my tongue between your teeth. We're like giggling middle schoolers. We could do a whole podcast just about these three lines. It's a brilliant approach to lyric writing because in an incredibly compact amount of musical space, you can communicate a lot. In fact, you communicate maybe more by what you leave out than what you put in.

And in this choice of on is not completely original. And in fact, I think we can maybe trace an influence to another songwriter with the initials T.S. Who Troy credits as being one of his biggest inspirations. Any guesses? Taylor Swift. Nailed it. Yes. Believe it or not, we live in an age where for young up-and-coming artists, Taylor Swift is one of their most sizable influences.

Totally. So I think we can hear a similar technique in Taylor Swift on a song like Style off 1989, where she does the same thing, just these two syllable phrases that communicate whole worlds of meaning. It feels like someone's reading a script to a movie and the soundtrack is playing in the background and then you're filling in all of the images. No, I love that. It's almost like a film montage or like a series of snapshots. Yeah.

Yeah, both songs are really cinematic like that. That's a cool catch, Nate. But Taylor Swift is not the first person to catch onto this. I wonder if we could go back even further and hear this technique present in Westside Story in the hands of Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim. Let's have a listen to Be Cool. See, boy, stay loose. Buzz it. Easy does it.

Turn off the juice boy. It's so. cinematic and a little cheesy. At my face here, there's not some continuum from breeze it, buzz it, easy does it, to spark up buzz cut. It's like a word collage, right? You just put all three songs together. That's wonderful. I love it.

Okay, so by this point in the song, I'm completely hooked. This is going to be on repeat for a good chunk of 2018. I already know. Does he have your tongue in his teeth? but I want to talk about one other aspect of the song that I think is noteworthy and then here if there's anything you're hearing in this song but I think it's cool throughout this entire song about the exciting instability of falling for someone there's not a single reference to gender yeah these are two people making this connection and again it's

left to the listener to slot in kind of whoever you want, you know, you put your paramour on the other side. You put your diamond on the other side of this equation. Whose teeth do you want your tongue between? You kind of get to pick because there's no signifiers in this song that tell you any which way who it's about, which I think is pretty cool. Yeah. Now it's funny because like in the 20s and 30s, pop songs actually kind of strove for this gender ambiguity. The reason there was because they wanted to make as much money as possible and increase the potential audience of these songs by double by simply having them not be gendered one way or another. You can get women buying your songs. You can get men buying your songs.

Now here in 2018, I don't think there's necessarily a commercial reason for Troy Savan doing this. I think instead it's probably likely part and parcel of his identity as an out-LGB artist. You know, like this song is kind of open for anyone to enter and interpret as they like. Now, I've said some of the things I love about this song. What else might stand out for you, Gina, Charlie? Anything about my, my, my that captures your interest? Something we haven't talked about is the title. Oh, yeah.

Which has a very almost G-Wiz, old-timey. or almost Broadway style. It's interesting that you brought in West Side Story, right? The exclamation point. That's like, what's that Willa Cather book? Oh, Pioneers, you know, that my, my, my, my has a... You could see it like a... Yeah, I could see it in the marquee lights of like a, you know, vintage photo on Broadway.

My, my, my, my, starring Troy Simone. Oh, yeah, totally. Hello, Dolly, exclamation point. Right. The title itself is almost old-timey, but then it's so easy. to sing along to, it gives you so much to grab onto. And the sort of nonsense making of that expression, right, of there isn't much to, like any of these exclamations, but certainly my is almost a verbalization of loss for words

as compared to saying something specific, which again kind of contributes to this overflow of emotion. And kind of like you're hinting at Nate, there's no noun attached to my. So it's not my boo, my boyfriend or girlfriend, my lover, my friend, that both in the category of relationship, in addition to non-specify gender of the object of affection, there's just a lot of also sweetness to that ambiguity that my, my, as compared to holy fuck, bleep away if you need. It captures the overflow of enthusiasm and yet is so sweet. And it's like a song that I could also hear, aside from the tongue and the teeth, right? But you could be 10 or 11 and have that my, my, my feeling about someone for the first time. And so it kind of bridges the more overt sexuality in the section you were just talking about, Nate,

with the universal feeling of admiration or enthusiasm. Whoa, Gina Dee, yes. Yes, a thousand times. Yes. So there's like also kind of an innocence in this song, even though it is pretty, sexy. Yeah. And maybe that is that first flush of something. It's also not clear that Troy and the object of his affection are connecting, right? So there is something too of the perspective love or lust in the song that I think contributes to the innocence because it's the beginning of those feelings

and not necessarily where they go and what happens once you put yourself out there. Beautiful. It reminds me also of this thing we've talked about in the show before. from Bruce Springsteen through Jack Antonoff, where you want to write blues in the verse and gospel in the chorus. Ooh. You tell, like, the real details in the verse, and then make it universal and big so everybody can sing along in the chorus. This song perfectly does that by having this innocence

with the more explicit handoff between verse and chorus. Yeah, for sure. Wow. Okay, that was fun. I like this song even more now. And, you know, it may seem like Troy Savon is part of perhaps a new wave of out and proud queer artists, but in fact, these artists have been part of the firmament of pop for at least a century, if not more. And this kind of alternate canon, if you will, is something that

the author Darrell Bullock talks about in his book, David Bowie made me gay. So stay tuned, because when we come back, Darrell and I are going to go through some of the greatest hit of LGBT pop of the last century. And after that, we'll be back with Gina to talk about songs that we love to hate. Maria, you have a podcast now and you need to start acting like it. What's the first step as a podcaster? Well, you have to ask lots of questions. I'm Maria Sharpova, and I'm hosting a new podcast called Pretty Tough.

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actors, entrepreneurs, and other individuals who have inspired me so much in my own journey. Pretty tough is your front row seat to the women who have demonstrated the power in being unapologetic in their pursuits. I hope you'll join us. New episodes drop Wednesdays on YouTube or in your favorite. podcast app. Immigration may be Donald Trump's signature issue. President Trump is now targeting predominantly

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It's Switched on Pop and I'm musicologist Nate Sloan here on the line with author Darrell W. Bullock, his book, David Bowie Made Me Gay, 100 Years of LGBT Music is now on the bookshelves. He's also the author of the biography of the great operatic singer Florence Foster Jenkins. Darrell, thank you so much for joining us. Oh, it's an absolute pleasure. So I'd love to ask you a little bit about this wonderful book, David Bowie made me gay, and then have you take us through some of the greatest hits of this century of LGBT music that you celebrate in the book. Before we do, though, let's just address this fascinating title you've given us here.

David Bowie made me gay. Maybe you can explain and take us through exactly that process. When I started writing the book, I kind of saw it as a history of LGBT recording artists. So I wanted to kind of write something about how LGBT recording artists got us to the point where we, as the LGBT community is today and its influence on us as we are now. While I was writing it, it was a bit dry. It wasn't quite the book I wanted it to be. And I didn't really have the focus I wanted it to have.

And then Bowie died. I was really shocked at how that affected me. how viscerally it hit me because I'd never really considered myself to be a huge Bowie fan but it affected me in such a deep and emotional way and it was seeing how other people

were affected by his death and especially the pop stars if you like that I grew up with, the boy George's and people like Paul Rutherford and Holly Johnson from Frankie Gilles to Hollywood and that generation of people the people of my age group how they were affected by

and how he was as important to my generation as the Beatles were to the generation before me. There's a particular Bowie performance that resonated with you when you saw it on television, and that was a performance of the song Starman in, let's say, the early 70s? Can you describe what happened in that performance and the impression it made on you? It happened on a TV show in Britain called Top of the Pops. In 1972, when that happened, there were only three television channels in Britain. So pretty much everybody of a certain age was sat down watching that TV program.

10 million plus people watched David Bowie perform Starman. They watched him put his arm around Mick Ronson's shoulder, and they watched him look straight down the camera at them and kind of give them the wink. You know, for me, it's kind of Bowie inviting us in and saying, you're allowed to be different. You're allowed to be freaks. You're allowed to be other. It's a very, very, very, very empowering moments.

This moment is maybe somewhat metaphorical for the book as a whole, which is all about finding these little moments in pop history that could have been the larger narrative of LGBT artists in pop music, but instead they've been occluded and marginalized and as you write, straightwashed over the century. With that in mind, I would love to go through some of the incredible selections that you've called. In doing so, we can kind of re-inscribe an alternative canon of pop music, one that really acknowledges the contributions of these LGBT artists. That would be great. I would love to begin with one of the many songs that you've introduced to me that I'm now obsessed with. This one is called Pretty Baby, and it's recorded by Billy Murray, the singer, in 1916. Our listeners might not immediately recognize anything necessarily particularly queer about the song. But you show that it actually belongs in this queer history.

Why is that? It was written by a guy called Tony Jackson. Now, sadly, Tony didn't leave us any recordings. If he did record anything, they're lost to history. He was a prolific songwriter, but he was also openly gay. And the song we're going to play was originally written by Tony for his boyfriend, who was a white, gay hustler. Huh.

And the original lyrics were very much about his boyfriend's, can we say, endowment? Yeah, I think that can fly on our podcast, sure. And the reason we know that is because he was a mentor to Jelly Roll Morton, who is one of the founders of what we now think of as jazz. Sure, yeah. And Morton recorded a series of interviews for the Library of Congress. And he actually sat down in front of a piano and played a little bit of Tony's original version of Pretty Baby, including some of the original lyrics.

So that's kind of how we know this song happened. It's such a great reminder of the histories behind these songs that we might not know. Pretty Baby, and its sort of cleaned up mainstreamed version was a hit for Billy Murray in 1916, and it continued to be a hit.

Dean Martin recorded a big successful version of it all the way in 1952. So this song had a big presence in popular music, but hardly anyone, at least I didn't know of its origin. And it really changes the way you think about this number, I think. One of the great things about research is it kind of gives you the opportunity maybe to bring these things back to people and put them up again for public consumption. Absolutely. And another song that would be a good example of that is a song recorded in the 1920s.

And this one is by Gertrude Ma Rainey. It's called Prove It on Me Blues. The lyrics and her delivery on this song sound so contemporary in a way. Absolutely. And you know what's really interesting about this? It was released on Columbia, which is a major label. And they advertised it in the music press with a picture of Marini or a drawing of Marini, chatting up to women on a street corner while she's being watched by a policeman.

No kidding. We've kind of been kidded into. this idea that there was no LGBT music prior to the end of the 60s and the beginning of the 70s. But surprisingly, and especially before the Second World War, there were a significant number of artists that were out, that were open, and that were reveling in their sexuality in a way like Mar Rainey does in this record. Yeah, no, to hear lines like, went out last night with a crowd of my friends, they must have been women because I don't like no men. You're right. It's as trenchant as it was 80 years ago.

An awful lot of the women involved in blues were bisexual. Right. openly bisexual. Bessie Smith, yeah. Alberta Hunter and Lucille Bogan, a lot of these people that we kind of rediscovered recently were very much kind of open about, you know, what was going on in their lives. And there was this excitement of embracing your sexuality and celebrating it. Ma Rainey mentions cross-dressing brief. in Prove It on Me. There's another song from the 20s that also deals extensively with the idea of cross-dressing, and that's Irvin Kaufman singing Masculine Women, Feminine Men.

Masculine women, feminine men, which is a rooster, which is a hen. It's hard to tell them apart today and say, Sister is busy learning to shave. Brother just loves his permanent wave. It's time to tell him apart today. There's this period kind of between 1920, 1933, and it's very much involved with the whole idea of prohibition and underground bars and these kind of mafia mob run places,

where you had artists like Jean Malin and Gladys Bentley and other LGBT artists very openly performing in these clubs. And the more outrageous you were, the more likely you were to kind of bring in an audience. A lot of songs were being recorded around that time so I'm reflecting on this move, the Panty Cray's, But also that whole kind of jazz flapper thing that was going on. This idea of freedom post the First World War where people were just really celebrating again. The chance to be young, the chance to be free.

The chance to not have to think about the horrors of war for a time. It was surprising to me to listen to this song. While the lyrics are somewhat facetious, they're not as dismissive or cruel as I might have anticipated a song about cross-dressing from the 1920s as being. It's rather kind of bemused and accepting. It's a different tone that I would have expected. I think what songs like masculine women and feminine men do is they kind of shan a lot of the fact that there were other lifestyles and they weren't hidden. Even if a song does denigrate, at least it's mentioning it. It's talking about it.

It's clearly part of the conversation, if you like. We fast forward now to the 1960s and another great discovery for me. This is Leslie Gore singing. singing, you don't own me. You don't own me. Not just one of your many toys. You don't own me. Don't say I can't go with other boys.

Leslie Gore, very mainstream artist, but lesbian, and quite happy to accept the fact that she was lesbian, and not to really see any issue in it. I think of Leslie Gore, and I think teenage anthems, like, It's My Party, and I'll Cry If I Want to, or Sunshine Lollipops and Rainbows Everywhere. Yeah. She was only 18, I think, when she recorded this song, You Don't Own Me, but it has a very different attitude than those other pop songs she was known for.

Although it's not an overt anthem, if you like, it has absolutely been adopted by many within the gay community as a way of kind of expressing themselves. I remember 20, 30 years ago, seeing a drag act. perform the song. I'd say guys in the audience crying because they get it. It's a very empowering song. Yeah, I completely agree. And we can move forward to another 60s artist. This is Jackie Shane.

And let's listen to a little bit of their song, Any Other Way. Here you come again. And you say that you're my friend. But I don't know why she wants to know how I feel. Such a powerful recording. Another one I've never heard before. Jackie was a trans artist, kind of before we knew what trans artists were. For the first part of her performing life, she performed in a way that we probably now

accept as a gay man. Born male, accepted her sexuality, but hadn't appreciated it was such a thing as, you know, transitioning. So a lot of her career performed as a gay man. And then later started to realize that there were other options. and is now and has lived the vast majority of her life as a woman. When you listen to a song like in any other way, and there's the line, tell her I'm happy, tell her I'm gay, tell her I wouldn't have it any other way. Yeah, it's freighted with meaning that it wouldn't be in another singer's voice.

I urge every single person to go out and discover Jackie Shea because their voice is just amazing. We don't think about lesbian and gay soul singers in the 60s. They were there, you know, bisexual soul singers, trans soul singers. They were there and they are great. Yes. It's a reminder that we may think of these periods as less permissive, but in a way, maybe we're trying to tell a story that isn't exactly true. You're absolutely right. I remember interviewing Patrick Haggerty from Lavender Country.

And one of the things he said to me is that absolutely stuck in my mind, and that's that, you know, musicians make poor bigots. I'm so glad you mentioned Lavender Country because this is another act that was unknown to me, and I'm now obsessed with. And if we were just talking about soul music as being somewhat hypermastienized, country would seem to be a genre that's even further rigidly steeped in traditional sexual and gendernomes. And yet this band Lavender Country in the early 1970s was recording songs like this one back in the closet again. And I can't recommend this whole album enough. It's just full of these gorgeous, witty, tragic country songs about sexuality. Lavender country, kind of like Jackie Shane that we talked about previously,

would have been forgotten for years and years and years if you hadn't been rediscovered by a record company that wanted to reissue his material. In America, country music is the most popular form of music in the country. 20 years before Katie Lang came out, you know, this guy was making music. Right. And since then, there's so many other artists, are feeling more comfortable with their sexuality and feeling kind of empowered enough by these other people to start to be honest and open. And actually to realize that, you know, it doesn't mean the end of your career.

Yeah. And you've given us many other examples of this. I'm just selecting sort of my idiosyncratic favorites. But you also talk about Alex Dobkin, Valentino, Tom Robinson, boy George, the disposable heroes of hypocrisy. I mean, this is a wonderful playlist because it really stretches into so many different time periods and so many different genres. So we'll provide a link for our listeners to check out this playlist as well as a link to your book. But there's one more for now that I want to discuss with you. That's a song, a more contemporary song by John Grant.

This is called Glacier. Let's hear a little bit. Wow. It's another artist that I hadn't really listened. to before and this is a powerful song. Tell us why John Grant is included in this new canon. Funny enough, Nate,

I didn't really discover him until I started writing the book and then I was lucky enough to go and see him play live in a very intimate gig and it just blew me away, the brutal honesty of his words. Grant's lived one heck of a life.

He's former drug user, a former alcoholic, is HIV positive. He's been through the And he's come out the other end and it's making these unbelievably beautiful and deeply, deeply moving records. He's got a new album coming out later this year. And I'd be queuing outside the door and I waited for a copy. It's just I can't wait to hear what he does next. I agree.

And it makes such a great bookend for our conversation because it puts this whole history of LGBT pop music that you've been describing as a continuum. and even if the songs themselves aren't necessarily immediately obvious as any kind of queer anthems, by dint of their singers, by dint of the history of the song, the writers, we can still see them as occupying a place in this narrative that we just haven't been choosing to tell, that we've been, as you say, straightwashing all these years. So I appreciate so much this playlist and this story as, a corrective to that. Well, that's great. Thank you very much.

Thanks for joining us. Darrell, we'll post a link to this playlist online, link to your book as well. Once again, that is David Bowie, Made Me Gay, 100 Years of LGBT Music. Darrell Bullock, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. You're welcome. Gina, a few days ago, we were texting about songs that really drive us mad. And we thought it would be fun to do a totally original segment we haven't done before in the show.

about songs we love, hate, because we too often fall into a ride of talking about the things that we love. What about the songs that we really just drive us mad? And so you have a song that you wanted to share with us that was just pulling all the wrong strings, but you couldn't get out of your head. What is that song? It's too close by Alex Claire, which came out in 2011, but got popular in 2012, particularly in the UK and Germany, but I think it made it to number seven on the Billboard 100 here in the U.S. And initially did not do that well until it was licensed for a Microsoft Windows Internet Explorer commercial, which propelled it to a success it hadn't previously seen, nothing like

some corporate, you know, spending money to get your song out there, I suppose. This track was produced by Diplo and Switch, and so it has a lot of the characteristic bangor qualities that you might imagine from those two folks, which I wasn't as familiar with, but he produced Beyonce's Run the World with a couple of other folks and among many tracks for both MIA and Santee Gold. So similar background when you think of that 0708 origin of when Diplo was breaking out. And this song, too close, if you're listening to this show

and you don't know what I'm talking about, you have absolutely heard this song. It came up because I was in the car driving around with my friend and the song came on the radio and I hadn't heard it for a while. And I was both simultaneously so annoyed by it and singing along to every word trying to remember, what is the song again?

How do I know it? Where do I know it from? It's one of those songs that's like, it feels like it strikes at some recesses of your memory where it's like, who's that artist and why do I know this? And where is this coming from in my brain? I think a lot of us have had that experience.

And yet I remembered mere months ago before New Year's Eve putting it on my drunk dancing playlist. So it has that kind of staying power. You know, not to mention that it's still getting played on the radio six years later. Is it fair to say not as much head nodding, like just a little head nodding on this one, but not as much on my, my, my, my. Definitely not as consistent a head nod as on my, my, my, so why do we love hate this song? Why do you love hate this song? So I think the verse and pre-chorus sound like a lot of songs that were happening in that time, right? Like a nice, strong, melodic vocal and then it's kind of fun we're rolling along with it but when that drop comes it feels

very unexpected and all of a sudden i think there's something about the chillness that transitions really fast into that very sort of like thick bass heavy sexy chorus that's like oh something else is going on here so this is why we might love it right this is all in the love yeah okay and i think the you know that chorus is so easy to sing along to right this is a song that no matter how much you hear me say today I might hate it. I'm going to be like hollering along alone in my car on the freeway, just like screaming my lungs out with this one. So it has that capacity that it like marks a great pop chorus. You know what Sloan also came out in 2012 that did the exact same thing? What? Trouble by Taylor Swift. Yes. Yeah. Also sort of blurring lines between like kind of

country-esque verse and then harsh dubstep chorus. Mm-hmm. Yes. So 2012 sort of blurring these lines of genre. Yes. This was the sound. Yes. Is it a diagnosable issue to compare every song to Taylor Swift? Because if so, Carly and I might need medical attention.

I was about to say, I feel like you guys are laying breadcrumbs for Swifties about your loyalties. I know. Okay, so hate. Hate, something you said to me is everyone loves that wobble bass. And it's true that in the context of a drunk dancing playlist, a solid. like dubstep wobble base can be an important component if you're as old as me. The literal wobble. Yes.

Well, not quite that old mate. Come on. The wobble base is about as predictable as this guy's incipient whiskey dick. You know, Mr. I feel like I'm too close to love you. It's sort of like, okay, bro. We know that this is just a dance floor romance. I mean, maybe this shows a lot about where my imagination lies in pop music. sort of like, what is the emotive state that you can conjure when you're sort of in the throes

of a Dionysian moment. The other hate about this is if you actually dig into the lyrics of the chorus. Oh, it's bad. I feel like I'm too close to love you. Yeah. It has at least three meanings to me. I mean, what does it mean to you guys? I've definitely heard it from every obnoxious dude who's tried to get out of relationship and like gossip with me and I'm like, I'm not interested. Yeah. I don't think I have a good meeting other than it means you're probably kind of a jerk. Right. That's the main thing I think of. I have a similar interpretation.

To me, it's like I'm just too close to love you is like I have a really shallow reason for not wanting to be with you. So I'm going to tell you something kind of bland and vaguely like sympathetic in order to not have to tell you the real reason. It's not you. It's me category of breakup reasons. A little bit. And it sounds like something that's made to make the speaker feel. better and in fact is sort of this veiled dis, right? That if that were actually true, that's not how this situation would be going.

So there's certainly the withholding the potential pickup artist style or else just emotionally blocked person who's trying to let someone down easily but probably failing with this line. And certainly combined with this baseline suggests I would like to fuck you, but I'm not interested in loving you. which I think is characteristic of a lot of pop songs that are in both the feeling of the song and this idea of being kind of perhaps in your 20s or in a single time where you're ambivalent or confused or pulled in a lot of directions, right? You have kind of the sound of the pre-chorus that's a little more calm, a little more normative, and then these like thick moments of emotions where things get swirling and confusing. So that's possible.

I mean, the other two clear ones to me is, you know how love and especially in hip-hop is frequently used in like a clean version of a song to cover over a four-letter word that I've already used a lot in our recording session today, right? And so maybe in fact it's that this guy is in the throes of an emotion where continuing the sexual relationship is just so confusing because he's getting too deep. And that kind of resonates with the emotionally blocked person of needing to pull away because, in fact, I'm not. I do feel things that I don't want to feel. And so in fact, the I'm too close to love you is a sort of emotionally clean version of this song

when in fact he's really saying, I'm too close to F with you. And while the not FCC friendly version of this song would be much more honest to say, I feel too close to F with you, because love isn't really the subject of this. Wow, that's a beautiful breakdown of why these lyrics are reprehensible. You've just been inducted into the Switched on Pop Guild because you have passed one of the tests, which is to think harder about a song than anyone has ever thought about it before. And I feel like we just reached that point with Alex Claire, so well done. I will knight you in present.

Thank you. I'm so honored. What kind of gift can we bestow? a quill pen with a pad of sheet music. We need something. A tuning fork? A tuning fork. A tuning fork.

You're a golden tuning fork. Oh. Easy, Charles. I don't know if our podcast advertising budget can afford a golden tuning fork. Yeah, I'll take brass. Yeah, brass sounds fine. Not until you get that mail chimp.

We've got to get those email monkeys. Boost those CPMs, yeah. I, in listening to the song, found a handbooking full of lyrics that just drove me absolutely nuts. And I wanted to see if I'm wrong on any of these. So it was actually a sequence of every single line. I was like, no. Oh my, you just said, oh my gosh, you can't say that. So I'm just going to read each line. And would you mind sharing like thumbs up, thumbs down? Is it on the love side or is on the hate side? Okay. I don't want to hurt you, but I need to breathe. Down. Way down. At the end of it all, you're still my best friend.

Contextually very down. On its own. Like tweet length fine in the context of these lyrics definitely hate But there's something inside me that I need to release Still down. Yeah. Which way is right? Which way is wrong? Like because it's a good moment in the song.

The like kind of scrambly. I never know if I'm using the text painting concept right, but I think there's a little bit of that happening in that moment. So I'll give it some credit for that. He knows what's right and wrong. Not only does he know what's right and wrong, but also him singing that and just like issues of, consent, it just felt like this is the wrong way to put it. Maybe I'm reading too far.

Maybe it's also there's a right for him and not necessarily for the object of his former affection. And that's not necessarily, I don't know. You just have to stake out what's right for you. It feels like I'm just too close to love you. Clear down. Clear down. And then finally, I've got to be true to myself. Actually like for that. Oh, really? I mean, I think that in the context of what's going on, it's kind of bullshit, but it's the most honest lyric in all of this, which is when you break up with someone, they may be unhappy.

And you don't necessarily get to control their reaction, but it's okay to pursue your self-interest. That's clearly what he's doing anyway. So at least he's being straight up about it. It's a only honest moment. I'm personally, I'm just going to say a little bit more on the hate side than the love side.

But definitely that beat, I could definitely hear windows down not listening to the lyrics. infectious. Yes. Or too drunk to know what the lyrics are saying anymore. Yeah. Gino, thank you for bringing the song to us.

Thank you. Thanks, Charlie. Thanks, Nate. I really love to hate the segment. This is fun. I love this because I think that's something you'd say kind of offhand. Oh, yeah, I love to hate that song. But I feel like now I actually understand what that means.

Like, this is yet another pop category of the song that you can't help but caught up. And even as your, it's like the two sides of your brain are almost. like fighting or something. Oh yeah. Exactly. You don't know which way is right and which way is wrong, Nate. Charlie, do you have any songs that you love to hate? I have so many, but we're going to have to revisit them on another version of the segment. Because we're out of time. Suspense. This episode is which on pop was produced by Professor Nate Sloan. And edited by the great Bill Lance. We had a wonderful guest, Gina Delvac. She is the producer of the Amazing podcast, Call Your Girlfriend.

You can find it at Call Your Girlfriend.com and social media at Call YRGF. Awesome. And a huge thanks to Darrell Bullock, author of David Bowie Made Me Gay, available everywhere. Everywhere, everywhere?

Everywhere you look. Like under my bed? There it is. Oh, wow. Our design is done by Luke Harris, and we are a proud member of the Panoply Network. You can find more episodes at Switchedonpop.com. as well as Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

We'll be back with another episode in two weeks. And until then, thanks for listening. Thanks for listening.