Tag: Gay Music

Posted on

Gay Music by Phillip Hoyle

I like my music gay! For more than one reason I am planning to spend several months hearing mainly gay music. The first reason for this insistence seems most immediate: my current health crisis that demands from me a sense of upbeat expectation of a recovery from my present difficulties and from the therapies the doctors devise. So I’ll play gay music to speed along the healing process. The second reason for this gay insistence relates to having just retired from fifteen years of giving therapeutic massages, mostly to tempos largo, lento, and adagio. Back then (it’s been over a month and a half) I wanted my massages to promote relaxation and so avoided country and western songs, rap, abstract jazz, metallica, and most rock ‘n roll. I played almost no Nashville, no Broadway. Now seems the time to quicken the pace and lighten the mood. So it’s gay music for me in the coming months.

I’m a habitual shelf reader from my many years of roaming library stacks. I’m a methodical one preferring to read from left to right, following the ascending numbers of the Dewey Decimal System. So I’m going to read the shelves of my small CD collection to select my first round of music playing for the weeks to come. Luckily I no longer have a catheter in place so I can comfortably sit on the floor to view my low-down shelves.

So it begins, shelf one. Mathias organ music. I’ll skip that. Oh Dupré. More organ music but too dour and over serious for this man in recovery. Skip, skip, skip, skip. Hmm. Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto? No, I have always found this particular recording just a bit too screechy. I don’t want to put myself on edge. Skip, skip, skip. “Songs of Atlantic Canada”? Surely this album is out of place among these classical works, but I recall how accessible the arrangements of regional folksongs are. Guess I’ll select this Cape Breton Chorale album and think of my Canadian friend Bill, who gave it to me and has for years been thoughtful and supportive. John Tavener’s “Ikons” presents glorious, creative music but … no, not now. Just not gay enough. “Lend Me Your Ear” by Double ‘O Six. That’s a possible listen with classically trained voices. Very choral though all soloists who do crazy things to Chattanooga Choo Choo, With a Little Help from My Friends, and other pop pieces. Here. “Pieces of Africa” by the Chronos Quartet. I might put that on right now and reread the get-well note from my African son Francis. Oh, an album of Charpentier’s Christmas music. Yes. Even though the composer accidently poisoned himself and his family by serving the wrong kind of mushrooms, his music evokes a delicate gaiety. Well, it’s French Baroque with a light touch. Hum. “Albinoni’s Adagios.” More Baroque, although Italian. I really like these but heard the album way too many times over the last twelve and a half years playing it for one of my long-time clients who listened only to classical music. As I mentioned, too many adagios in my recent past. Oh Dianne Bish’s “Great European Organs.” That sounds like a gay album. I clearly recall Bish’s pant suit—all gold sparkles—from when she concertized the Cassavant at East Heights United Methodist Church, Wichita. If she’d had a candelabrum she’d have seemed a twin to Liberace. How gay that would be?

Brahms. Lovely Brahms, but his “German Requiem”? They can play that for my memorial service that I hope is a long ways off. Hovhaness’ “And God Created Great Whales.” That one always picks me up, especially when the humpback whales make their first appearance. “The Choral and Vocal Arrangements of Moses Hogan.” Some of that album is somber but I’ll surely enjoy his stunning arrangement of Elijah Rock. Yes. And here, for a change of pace, Handel’s “Chandos Anthems.” I know at least a few of the anthems that can serve me for a special meditative gay moment, especially the soprano and tenor duet In the beauty of holiness with its long descending melismas spun out and interwoven by singers and orchestra. It thrills me. Brahms again; his ‘Complete Intermezzos” played by the Russian Luba Edlina. Yes. These always lift me with their lush harmonies and inventive melodies. I’ll float along with Brahms. While at it I guess I’ll hear Bach’s “Inventions and Sinfonias” played by Glenn Gould, for me always an exquisitely gay experience.

Okay, shelf two. Pop music. Hmm. Here we go. Imogene Heap’s “Speak for Yourself” will do good things for me with her always musical and creative command of synthesizers, her invention and variety. Yes. Of course Cyndy Lauper’s “The Body Acoustic” will be on my playlist. I probably will indulge in it daily, like She Bop and Girls Just Want to Have Fun. I like so many more of these pop CDs but played most of them too many times in massage. I’ll give them and me a rest! Now this one looks good, Keith Jarrett Trio’s “Up for It.” Yes. Jazz. I’m so pleased I’m doing this. And another jazz album but this one Jacques Loussier’s “Play Bach,” his jazz trio’s renditions of JS Bach pieces, an album from 1960 that I first heard in high school. I especially am ready to hear them improvise the Gigue from Partita No. 1 in B flat major, BWV 825. I’m feeling better already. Then another kind of gay music: “Whirl” from the Fred Hersch Trio. This album will surely move to gaity, both by the music and by the knowledge that all three men are gay! Oh and the three volumes of “Verve Remixed” with their most inventive remixing of jazz standards, many from my favorite singers, with hard-hitting dance beats. Certainly I’ll spin those albums for their tremendous energy. Now this should be fun, “The Original Cast Recording of Forever Plaid,” another CD from my Canadian connection of a musical we saw together, pure nostalgic fun. Sure. And how could I not select Dinah Washington’s “Finest Hour.” Any day she is okay for me. . Oh I’ll have to skip these Miles Davis pieces. Too blue for the occasion. Guess I’ll skip the whole blues section for now with probably one exception; here it is, Cyndy Lauper’s “Memphis Blues.” She thrills me with her tremendous range of feelings and styles. Jai Uttal’s “Monkey” gets in, also his “Mondo Rama” with its high school kids. I am lifted by his traditional Indian raga, jazz, and rock fusion.

I’m tired from all these decisions. So … that gives me a good playlist that ought to last for a while. I hope they’ll lift my mood, help make me clever and gay, of course. So … I’ll just skip all the R. Carlos Nakai and other Native American flute players. I heard them too many times with my client who for over ten years wanted to hear only these pieces during her massages. “No strings,” she’d say. “They make me tense up.” Besides, if I were going to play Native American pieces, I’d want war dances. That’s not very gay sounding of me although Stonewall showed that gays in pumps and frocks can go to war. I think right now I’m just angry at disease and failures in my own body. I’ll pass on the flutes and war drums.

I’ve got plenty of music to soothe me with gaiety. I’ll even listen to some of these albums with my gay partner. Suppose that will double their effect? I hope so.

© Denver, 2014 


About the Author 

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com

Posted on

Gay Music by Gillian

What the hell is that? I don’t even know what it means! A so-called “gay movie” or “gay book” is identified as such because of it’s GLBT content; it’s characters and/or subject matter. But the vast majority of music, even most music with words, is androgynous, unisex. A couple of weeks ago our topic was, “All My Exes Live in Texas.” In my short piece I also referred to that beautiful song, “Could I Have This Dance For the Rest of My Life?” Different as those two pieces are, they can both be taken to be heterosexual or homosexual, depending on the preference of the listener, as is the case with most songs. I am wiling to bet that many of us in this room listened to those old love songs of the forties and fifties and, when performed by a singer of our own sex, turned them into songs of love directed at us. Certainly there are, these days, a few songs that are unmistakably GLBT; amusing lyrics performed by drag groups, Lady Gaga singing about coming out, more recently even a collection of songs about gay marriage, but the total of all this specifically GLBT-themed music together would not add up to a single drop in the ocean of music in it’s entirety.

Is “Gay Music,” then, that which is written and/or performed by someone of the GLBT family?

If so we could talk about Tchaikovsky and Elton John and a vast number of others in between.

But what sense would that make? We don’t call a book a “gay book,” because it’s author happens to be gay; usually we don’t even know, although that kind of information is much more readily available these days. If J.K. Rowling unexpectedly revealed that she was a lesbian, would the Harry Potter tales suddenly become lesbian books and movies? K.D Lang is openly lesbian, but I would not call her songs “lesbian music.” Many movie producers and actors are GLBT but that doesn’t make their movies “queer.” No-one refers to “A Farewell to Arms,” as a gay movie just because Rock Hudson starred in it.

Maybe because, at least until recently, we of the GLBT community had little we could call our own, we would like to claim significance to “gay music,” but personally I find it a bit of a reach.

But wait! As I typed that last sentence, with one eye on the Winter Olympics on TV, I caught a few bars of our very own National Anthem. Perhaps I’m just missing it. When we strive to hit the high notes of the “land of the free,” could we be celebrating our freedom? Well, yes, we could, but I’m afraid I’m much too cynical to accept that phrase at face value. But, now I’m trawling through National Anthems, perhaps I really have stumbled onto something. After all, how many times in the first twenty years of my life did I sing out, in the British National Anthem,

“God save our gracious Queen

Long live our noble Queen

God Save the Queen!”

February, 2014

About the Author

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have now been with my wonderful partner Betsy for 25 years.

Posted on

Tchaikovsky: Gay Music from Despair by Will Stanton

The Romantic music of Tchaikovsky is some of the most deeply emotional music ever written. Like millions of listeners spanning more than a century since his death, I have held a deep appreciation for his musical genius. More so, and ever since I was a child, I have deeply sensed the true meaning lying within his final composition, his “Pathétique” symphony. Whether or not my musical sense or Tchaikovsky’s ability to communicate is responsible for my insight, that sense now has been proven to be accurate, which I’ll explain further along.

Tchaikovsky’s music ranges from apparent joy and love to the darkest abyss of despair. Now that additional information has come to light, we at last understand that the full extent of Tchaikovsky’s musical creativity most likely never would have found expression had it not been for the fact that he was homosexual, an orientation that, at that time and place, caused him life-long torment and depression.

Pytor Ilyich Tchaikovsky, composer

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, born in Votkinsk, Russia, experienced a childhood of misery. Although his father was minor aristocracy and a civil servant, the family was poor and eventually became destitute. Already an extremely sensitive and introspective child, his mother’s unhappiness affected Tchaikovsky, especially after they moved to Moscow when he was eight. She died when he was only fourteen, a contributing factor to his depression.

He first enrolled in, what was called, the Imperial School of Jurisprudence, an all-boys school that prepared them for civil service, engineering, and the military. Here, he was exposed to much sexual experimentation among the boys, and he soon realized that this was his own preference. At that time in Russia, and especially in the capital of Moscow, clandestine homosexual acts did occur, but the terrible sin was being caught.

Tchaikovsky changed the direction of his career upon attending a performance of Mozart’s opera “Don Giovanni,” an experience that greatly impressed him and resulted in his enrolling in the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. Upon graduation, he returned to Moscow to join its conservatory. In such an environment, he found his career flourishing but, at the same time, having to live in a city that biographers have described as “violently homophobic.” Consequently, he suffered frequent bouts of self-doubt and depression, fearing exposure. He revealed to his younger brother Anatoly that his homosexual tendencies, caused “an unbridgeable gulf between the majority of people and myself. They impart to my character…a sense of alienation, fear of others, timidity, excessive shyness, mistrustfulness, which make me more and more unsociable.” Increasingly, these feelings found expression in his music.

Despite his fears of exposure, Tchaikovsky could not suppress his desires. He became deeply in love with fifteen-year-old Eduard Zak. Eduard, however, suffered his own despair and committed suicide at nineteen. Sometime later, Tchaikovsky wrote in his diary, “How amazingly clearly I remember him: the sound of his voice, his movements, but especially the extraordinarily wonderful expression on his face at times. I cannot conceive that he is no more. The death of this boy, the fact that he no longer exists, is beyond my understanding. It seems to me that I have never loved anyone so strongly as him.”

Stories of love, and doomed love, found expression in his music. Musicologists feel that Eduard was the inspiration for his composition “Romeo and Juliet,” based upon the tragedy by Shakespeare and written at the time Tchaikovsky was in love with Eduard.

Tchaikovsky himself had a doomed marriage, an attempt to appear and to feel “normal.” He wrote to his brother Modest that he would marry absolutely anyone, which he did at age thirty-seven. He attempted to propose to his new wife having simply a platonic relationship, which apparently she did not understand. This experiment failed and contributed further to his depression. They separated within a few months but never officially divorced because the legally required infidelity never had occurred.

One woman became his unseen patron, Nadezhda von Meck, widow of a wealthy railroad tycoon. Although they never met face to face, they frequently wrote to each other. This abruptly came to an end at age fifty when von Meck’s relatives, jealous of the money given to Tchaikovsky, blackmailed her with the threat of public exposure of Tchaikovsky’s homosexuality unless she ceased supporting him, which she did rather than risk that exposure. He was not told of this blackmail and became dismayed and embittered by the sudden severing of their relationship.

The most emotional and despondent music composed by Tchaikovsky was his final work, the Symphony No. 6 referred to as the “Pathétique.” The first movement begins with a solemn and even ominous introduction by bassoons. It then leads into one of the most beautiful yet heart-rending melodic themes, very much like a soulful remembrance of love.

The fourth and final movement is unusual in that it is the opposite of the expected exuberant ending. Instead, it begins with total resignation, climbs to a peak of angst and despair, and then, in a dramatically long and ever-descending passage, plummets into a deep, final abyss, much like a jumbo-jet falling from the sky, plunging into the sea, and sinking to the bottom. Recent research since the fall of the Soviet Union reveals why.

In Tchaikovsky’s fifty-third year, the final year of his life, he had an affair with Alexandre Vladimirovich Stenbok-Fermor, the eighteen-year-old son of Count Alexei Alexandrovich Stenbok-Fermor. The great sin of exposure came to pass. The count discovered the liaison and wrote an angry letter denouncing Tchaikovsky to Czar Alexander III, his close friend. The count’s lawyer, rather than delivering the letter immediately to the Czar, instead, contacted his powerful legal and political colleagues, all alumni from the Imperial School of Jurisprudence. They convened a “Court of Honor” and summoned Tchaikovsky to appear before them. He was told that they were prepared to deliver the damning letter to the Czar, thereby destroying his reputation and exposing him to censure and shame. They then informed him that the only way for him to avoid scandal and disgrace was to commit suicide.

Tchaikovsky was confronted with this shock and ultimatum while he was composing the “Pathétique.” It now appears that he completed the symphony as a farewell to life. His death by arsenic poisoning was slow and painful. To prevent the public from learning the facts behind Tchaikovsky’s death, the word went out that he died from cholera.

Anyone who truly cares for other people must be empathetic for Tchaikovsky and regret his having lead such a tortured life. His brother Modest speculated that composing music was “an attempt to drive out the somber demons that had so long plagued him.” We might wish that the man never have suffered so greatly. Yet, without a life of suffering, we might never have had given to us such extraordinary music. I’ll go further; it is safe to say that this “symphony of defeat,” and especially the suicidal fourth movement, never would have been written as it was. As for myself, who have appreciated the beauty and power of the “Pathétique” for so long, it is a sad consolation to have my sense, from the very first hearing, of what Tchaikovsky was saying confirmed. I heard his voice; I felt his despair.

Click on the link below to watch the final
movement of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony Number 6, the “Pathétique”: Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, V. Gergiev, conductor, 13:20 minutes.  

The “Pathétique” 


January, 2014

About the Author

I have had a life-long fascination with people and their life stories. I also realize that, although my own life has not brought me particular fame or fortune, I too have had some noteworthy experiences and, at times, unusual ones. Since I joined this Story Time group, I have derived pleasure and satisfaction participating in the group. I do put some thought and effort into my stories, and I hope that you find them interesting.

Posted on

Gay Music by Ray S.

If I could sing “My Favorite Valentine” to my GLBT lover would that qualify as Gay Music? Last week my friend inquired as to how I was progressing with the very esoteric subject of this week’s story time. In response I allowed as how I was relying on procrastination, presently.
What I was really thinking to myself was what qualifies as Gay Music? Who might have been the provocateur that thought this subject up? It’s been really interesting to hear what all our muses fabricate.

I am reminded of the repetitious beat of gay porn film background music, if you’re not familiar with this genre, think the beat goes on and on. Then there is the highly syncopated rhythm of the music used by drag queens, attributed commonly to the old burlesque theatre–Let Me Entertain You.” Does lip-syncing qualify as gay music. Guess it depends on the performer’s abilities.

Along those lines, we can’t overlook the music preempted by the Gay World of Judy and Barbara. Some of their works almost amount to gay national anthems.

Then their are the naughty “wink, wink” creations of song writers such as Noel Coward, Cole Porter and let’s see who wrote, “Let’s Do It” and the titles of Tin Pan Ally that lend themselves so aptly to parody, like “I’m Just Wild About Harry.”

When it comes to the classics, the LGBT scene was very much alive but not so much musically as was the lifestyle of some of the composers. And of course most of the creative time on the QT.

Belonging to another generation and not into the bar scene. I understand that the popular idioms that pass for music employ a real extensive list of raunchy lyrics–how many could qualify as gay is questionable, but as the old adage goes “beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder.”

So, strike up the band and start dancing with of without a shirt on and with or without a partner. After all it’s a liberated but crowded dance floor and who knows what the gay music will produce. For instance, “Do you come here often?” “Can I have your number?” “Sure, bring him along.” “What did you say your name is?” “God, you’re so hot,” and on into the night of gay music.

Denver, February 10, 2014

About the Author

Posted on

Gay Music by Pat Gourley

Well where to start with this one? I am gay and I do listen to music but I don’t think that imparts any element of queerness to the music I listen to or that any of that music is making me into any bigger queen than I am already. Other than many Furthur CD’s from the past year’s shows that I listen too sort of endlessly in my car I am a frequent user of Pandora.

My current favorite artists on Pandora are anyone Motown connected, Warren Zevon, Van Morrison, and Bob Dylan, despite his recent obnoxious commercial during the Super Bowl for Chrysler. Dylan has always admonished his listeners not to ascribe any beliefs or agenda he may or may not have in regards to his music so I take this as license to attach whatever meaning I want to his tunes and I do.

Jerry Garcia was once asked why the Dead did so many covers of other people’s music, often Dylan songs, and his response was “because we are lazy.” I also am basically pretty lazy and Dylan’s music has always provided me over the years with a cheap high to get my politically correct righteousness up and running.

I have said on many occasions that I am missing the gay gene that one needs to appreciate Opera for example or even much of classical music though I do listen to a modest amount of classical music on Pandora. Listening to Opera however requires coercion and medication to happen, my apologies to all the Opera fans around this table.

I have been influenced greatly over the years though by several Opera lovers. This includes Harry Hay who is described in part by Will Roscoe in the introduction to Radically Gay as “an opera queen who has mastered Marxist dialectics…” More than his apparent love for opera I was aware of Harry’s research and genuine fondness for European Folk Music and his numerous attempts over the years to get me to try and introduce the singing of folk rounds into our Denver Radical Fairie activities. He was certainly aware of my fondness for the Grateful Dead but I think he assumed this was just a phase I would eventually outgrow. Or perhaps he had at some point heard my extreme inability to carry a tune of any sort and he thought best to leave well enough alone in this regard.

An interesting queer historical tidbit I will share is that Roscoe, in Radically Gay again, attributes Hay’s research into folk music as a direct contributor to the development of his ‘gay folks are a cultural minority thesis’ that helped launch the Mattachine society. Hay believed that a folk song could convey information beyond just the lyrics. The songs could also serve as vehicles for communicating about repression when the cultures and people involved were under someone’s heel.

Pat Gourley & Will Roscoe
Photo by Alan M. in October 2009

Harry’s favorite example of this was a folk tune used in 1622 by Dutch freedom fighters to help recruit and organize disparate villagers who did not speak the same language. The name of this tune was “Bergen op Zoom.” The Dutch resistance in World War II used the same song also. Harry brought this folk tune to the fledgling Mattachine [Society] in 1950 and the group adapted it in their membership initiation ceremony. I have not had much luck in finding an English translation but have brought a copy in Dutch I believe and perhaps someone here can help. For those who might have more interest in this connection Hay made between folk music and queer identity I would refer you to Radically Gay (Will Roscoe, editor: 1996) specifically the chapter titled “Music…man’s oldest science of organization”.

Harry never gave up though on the potential power of music, folk in particular, as a form of dialectics in action. A way to facilitate communication between Fairies that could lead to further exploration and discovery as to our true natures. In fact he was sending me copies of Rounds for gay men to use when getting together socially well into the 1990’s as I recall. I will refrain from launching into the many discussions I had over the years with Harry and his partner John that addressed the dialectic method of discourse as a means of eventually reaching consensus. Harry was always about consensus and shunned the rule of the majority. He thought queer folk and fairies in particular were potentially very adept at consensus and that one way to set the stage for such communication was to gayly sing Rounds, something I think he felt was an intrinsic form of gay music.

© February 2014



About the Author

I was born in La Porte Indiana in 1949, raised on a farm and schooled by Holy Cross nuns. The bulk of my adult life, some 40 plus years, was spent in Denver, Colorado as a nurse, gardener and gay/AIDS activist. I have currently returned to Denver after an extended sabbatical in San Francisco, California.

Posted on

Gay Music by Nicholas

I don’t know what gay music is. In a narrow sense, gay and lesbian music is that music composed or performed by gay or lesbian musicians presumably for gay or lesbian people. There’s quite a lot of that. In a wider sense, gay music is what makes me feel gay, i.e., in the old sense of happy and inspired. There’s quite a lot of that music too. Then there is the music by which I became gay identified or queer (i.e., disco and such) and there’s plenty of that.

If gay music is that music by gay song writers, composers and performers then that can include Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey and many others singing the lesbian blues about how they do not need a man and want to find a good woman. In contemporary times, this category includes k.d.lang, Melissa Etheridge, Joe Jackson and others singing their love songs to their own kind. Then there are the Kinsey Sicks and Romanovsky & Phillips, et al. singing their musical parodies. And the musical Fairy Tale of Zanna Don’t, the gay musical that made it to Broadway (or somewhere near).

I have to mention the many choruses of men and women, sometimes together, sometimes separate, who perform a wide range of choral musical styles in nearly every large city in the country for the benefit of lesbian and gay communities.

Does gay music include composers Benjamin Britten, Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein (more or less openly gay), Chopin and Tchaikovsky (probably gay), and John Cage and John Corigliano (totally out and gay)? And everytime Michael Tilson Thomas steps onto the podium to conduct—whether he’s wearing his leather or not—does that make it gay music?

And there’s Liberace. Nobody knows what to do about Liberace.

There’s also music that brings out my gay identity, or memories of that, from those wild disco days. Abba (definitely not gay) was great to dance to. Sylvester (very definitely gay and no relation to our own Mr. Silvester) practically invented disco music. And Madonna—everybody knows what to do with Madonna.

There is also other music that sometimes makes me gay for no apparent reason like Beethoven (rumored to have had an inordinate interest in a nephew) and his 7th Symphony or his Emperor Concerto for piano. And the whole world of opera, though relentlessly heterosexual, just drips drama and costumes fit for any queen.

So, it seems there’s gay music all over the place, in all genres and in every era. From Bessie to Beethoven, from zany to somber, we love to listen, play, sing, dance and are probably responsible for much of the funding for whatever orchestras and opera companies are surviving in the U.S.
Gay music—there’s just no end to it.

February, 2014

About the Author

Nicholas grew up in Cleveland, then grew up in San Francisco, and is now growing up in Denver. He retired from work with non-profits in 2009 and now bicycles, gardens, cooks, does yoga, writes stories, and loves to go out for coffee.