Gay Song Four – Rolling Stones
Gay Song Four – Rolling Stones
Note: for this series of postings, the term 'Gay Song' refers to music written to/for/by or about Gay men or women. A second category also deals with music identified as Gay because it speaks to the heart of the Gay Experience.
So to make this easier, I will call them Gay in the 1st Degree (to/for/by/about), or Gay in the 2nd Degree (like Judy Garland singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow).
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"I'm a lonesome schoolboy, and I just came into town" is how Mick Jagger's Gay Song in the 1st Degree begins. What follows is an x-rated, explicit night of cruising in London. Funny lines follow about going to Leicester Square, and then later "leaning on Nelson's Column" while coming on to a young cop.
C*cks*cker Blues appeared in 1970 and was a surprising hit for the Rolling Stones, but that's probably due to the fact that the song is very good. We tend to forget, or are told to ignore, how the end of the hippy age ushered in a new respect for Bisexuality as a cultural element. No place more so than in rock-n-roll were men seeking out love and sex with other guys seen as so cool and desirable.
Mick Jagger's fey mannerisms and effete speaking voice was the perfect camp image of a superstar who 'swung both ways.' His one-time lover, David Bowie, was cast in the same performance mould.
Keith Stern, in his wonderful book, Queers in History,[1] has the following information about Jagger:
"Though his many affairs and marriages with women have attracted more of his (and our) attention, Jagger's longing for same-sex love was not limited to his art. He reportedly conducted affairs with David Bowie, Helmut Berger, and Rudolph Nureyev."
So, what do you think?
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[1] 2009 Dallas, p.238
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