Same-Sex Genders In Love Songs

[chickfila]

Posted: 6/15/11 at 1:25pm

I see that Michael Feinstein is releasing an album that includes the song, As Long As SHE Needs Me. He has sung this before under the same title. What are your thoughts on gay performers singing love songs that are not same-sex-centric? At this point, Feinstein's sexuality is no secret. He did a concert with Cheyenne Jackson where they dueted on We Kiss In The Shadows which was extremely poignant. Why not, at this stage in his career, sing As Long As HE Needs Me?

Posted: 6/15/11 at 1:50pm

I don't think we're supposed to take songs literally. Michael Feinstein isn't trapped in an abusive. self-destructive relationship with anyone just because he chose to sing a song about it any more than Vicki Lawrence shot her sister-in-law.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 6/15/11 at 1:51pm

All songs are about context. Maybe on this album, the context of the song is about his mother or some other female figure.

Or maybe he doesn't feel that he has to fit in the box that some people try to put him in. It's like Barbra Streisand and her Christmas album. Does she have to sing just Jewish songs?

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 6/15/11 at 1:52pm

Michael Feinstein is an abusive relationship with Vicki Lawrence?

[madbrian]

Posted: 6/15/11 at 1:55pm

Aren't we all?

[SonofRobbieJ]

Posted: 6/15/11 at 2:03pm

Vicki Lawrence once donkey punched me. It was hot.

Not sure what to think about this. I think the song is so identifiably a song about a man, that it just seems silly to change the pronoun...especially if the singer is openly gay. But I certainly don't think gay singers should only sing songs about or for members of the same gender. It's so limiting.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 6/15/11 at 2:04pm

"Vicki Lawrence shot her sister-in-law"

Now I understand why she was the host of Win, Lose or Draw. I thought that show involved paper and markers.

Posted: 6/15/11 at 2:15pm

I can't stop thinking about "the Night The Lights Went Out in Georgia" this week because I just read an article that said it was written for Liza and offered to Cher before Vicki Lawrence did it.

[madbrian]

Posted: 6/15/11 at 2:21pm

But you don't REALLY know The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia unless you've seen the 1981 movie it inspired, starring the one and only Kristy McNichol.

Posted: 6/15/11 at 2:26pm

In the movie I couldn't shake the feeling Kristy was also hooking up with the slutty sister-in-law. Or she REALLY wanted to be.

[Jay Lerner-Z]

Posted: 6/15/11 at 2:27pm

I feel that performers should sing the songs as written, be they gay or straight. It bothers me when singers reverse references to gender, whether it's American Idol or whatever - it seems so stupid, and the song is about a character anyway, in my eyes, not whomever happens to be singing it.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 6/15/11 at 2:29pm

It had to be said.
Night the Lights Went Out In Georgia

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 6/15/11 at 3:32pm

Ha!

It's terrifying when she closes that door at the beginning.

I never knew that, Joe, but it DOES sound like one of Cher's story songs, like "Dark Lady."

[Gothampc]

Posted: 6/15/11 at 3:53pm

I think Vickie's husband would have had a better chance if he had marketed the song to the country music singers. Cher already had songs that were close in style to "Georgia" and Liza is not really right for the song. One of those country one hit wonders like Jeannie C. Riley, Skeeter Davis, Jeannie Sealy, Jeannie Pruett could have gotten some mileage out of it singing it at county fairs.