The seek for freedom has at all times throbbed from below, imposing itself on a transcendent area within the history of music. We already know that freedom has been an idea as manipulated because it has been decontextualized, and has hardly lost a part of its most important meanings along the way in which.
But the will to overcome it has been a fundamental objective of many battles, as sexual minorities have exhibited within the face of oppression, marginalization or discrimination of every kind. That struggle has not had a colorless or gray sound. Reasonably it has had behind it a feverish music band, which has given consistency and fervor to the songs of the rainbow.
In keeping with their very own personal experiences, every one has given an interpretation to the songs which have accompanied them along that journey.
It hasn’t been easy, but ultimately, from intimacy or from the marches with the raised multicolored flags, they’ve managed to unite in songs which have turn out to be hymns of a cause that isn’t only gay, lesbian or intersex. These songs also belong to those that know that, although a theme cannot completely cure us, it does have a curative influence on the history and spirit of their generations.
The LGBTIQ movement all over the world celebrates Gay Pride Day in June, and this journalist proposes five themes drenched in light, dawn and resistance, which can surely sound again just like the hymns that they’re, in any corner of the planet.
The list should perhaps start with Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive,” but I feel, from Freddy Mercury’s and Queen’s own story, it’s higher to interrupt that “rule” at hand over the keys to the universe to one among the best vocalists who has given birth to rock and roll.
Freddy had already openly declared his homosexuality when he released the video for the song “I Need to Break Free” in 1984. The video broke all audience records and caused multiple to lift their hands to their heads. 4 chest-haired men, dressed as women, was a primary shock. After these women did housekeeping, Freddy clamored for freedom.
The theme, for obvious reasons, was taken as an emblem by the LGBT movement of the time, constituting a shot to the top of essentially the most conservative sectors of society, which had already been transforming because of the unstoppable influence of the hippie, punk, glam movement and other features of the counterculture, which over time became the back scenes of mainstream discourses.
We thank Queen for a rosary of hymns that today make up the soundtrack of the history of music and our history. We’re also thankful for the Freddy’s boldness in dynamiting the canons and opening the door for others to also look within the mirror and select the trail of liberation.
The opposite door opens for Gloria Gaynor. The singer made a great debut with “Never can say goodbye.” Along with her first album it seemed that she could quickly reach the “ticket to paradise.” Luck, nonetheless, was slipping through her fingers together with her subsequent productions. Until someday. Producers Perren and Ferakis had been fired from the famous Motown label and commenced at Polydor. They offered Gaynor, who was recovering from an accident on stage and the death of her mother, the potential for enhancing her profession with the discharge of a song that may adapt to her vocal coordinates.
Perren and Ferakis had composed “I Will Survive,” however the record company’s executives didn’t trust the previous with the theme. Studio 54, nonetheless, didn’t escape the scent of success and commenced broadcasting it in the center of New York until it became an emblem within the Latino, Afro-American communities’ and LGBTI movement’s festivals.
The song ended up being assumed as a song of freedom. The trail of its success went on to a Grammy Award in 1980 and to the highest rung on the inauguration of the splendor of disco music.
A 12 months earlier, on a New York night, dawn became one of the best incentive for bohemians; for the underground creatures that got here out in groups from the subway arteries; for the prostitutes, whose necklines were an invite on the corners; for transvestites; for drag queens. Diana Ross precisely sang to the latter in her hymn “I’m Coming Out,” composed by Nile Rodgers. Within the lyrics, Diana urges to get out of the thick web of torments to be yourself and escape from that dying god of social conventions. And for greater strength, she sings the theme with the carefree style and joy that corresponds to the true nature of freedom. Or not?
I already know individuals are asking when Madonna goes to indicate up on this incomplete list. Well, here is her majesty together with her song “Vogue.” You remember her, right? Otherwise, hearken to it again after which proceed reading about this beautiful creature that, like nobody else, has known thoroughly how you can go from one side to the opposite of the sexual range, or a minimum of pretend that delusional journey, which at 61 years of age she has left untouched.
For a lot of “Vogue” is the right hymn to sexual diversity. With Madonna it’s not about your gender, but slightly that you simply assume what identifies you and revel in the pleasures of life to the utmost. Hymn songs have also been written in our language (Spanish) for the LGBTI community. I’m unsure whether today it’s heard with the identical intensity of its beginnings, but “A quién le importa” (Who cares) became, within the voice of Spanish singer Alaska, one other of the songs taken as a reference by sexual minorities. Not less than for a part of them.
The song, composed by Carlos Berlandga, has been repeatedly performed in all of the gay pride marches and parades, especially those in Spain and Latin America. With a pop envelope par excellence, the theme is a song against intolerance and in favor of private affirmation. In 2017 it was released because the official theme of the WorldPride in Madrid and three years later it would surely sound again with as a hymn, either within the solitude of a room or on a small march, especially now that some countries are relaxing the measures of confinement. In any case, these five songs might be heard again as a reminder and celebration of the broader meaning of rainbow freedom.
michel-hernandez
