Playlist

Playlist – Ed Madden

In the car to Jonesboro, grad student home from Texas going Christmas shopping with

your mom, she asked you if the singer was a woman or a man. You said a big black drag

queen. She asked why you refer to him as her. You kept talking about the song, as if you

could express your own wonder about where you came from—not out at home but out

at school—your fear about what you could lose.

“We Are Family” (Sister Sledge, 1979) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyGY2NfYpeE)

“Take a Chance on Me” (Erasure, ABBA-esque, 1992) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSnLGdpjWf4)

I heard it in my first gay disco in Oxford, summer of coming out. I’d heard it before, of

course, but there it was different. I met David, my first boyfriend of sorts, at the Jolly

Farmer—a gay pub, can’t make that name up. Later David took me to a club that went

gay every Thursday, and every week the last song was this, Sister Sledge, then the lights

came up and we’d leave. I’ve got all my sisters with me. Last call, he called it an anthem.

I’d rehearse the words with friends for three years more before I’d tell my folks. They cut

me off for almost ten years when I told them, but I couldn’t know that then. Later, David

took me to Heaven in London, took me under his wing, and we danced like mad to the

remix of “Even Better Than the Real Thing.”

“The Bluest Eyes in Texas” (Restless Heart, 1988) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXMk88-Cx1w)

It’s the karaoke scene in Boys Don’t Cry (1999): Lana, white trash angel on the mic, the

moment Brandon falls in love. She’s singing a song from a script and he’s acting out one

script after another: the way he packs, the way he swigs a beer, holds his cigarette. In

karaoke, the only songs you can sing are the ones that are already written.