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SINGING QUEER: ARCHIVING AND CONSTRUCTING A LINEAGE THROUGH SONG by Katharine A. Cherry-Reid B.A., The University of Guelph, 1997 B.Ed., The University of British Columbia, 2000 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES (Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) December 2015 © Katharine A. Cherry-Reid, 2015 Abstract Using an arts-based approach, this research examines how songs written by queer and lesbian musicians can account for and archive queer lived existence while constructing a musical genealogy for listeners and artists alike. By examining my own experience of listening to and attending performances of certain queer and lesbian identified musicians, and then composing and performing my own songs in public spaces, I make a case for the corporeal mobility of songs, and a process I have termed “queer musical lineaging.” Much of the research around music to date has centred on how it impacts and influences brain activity, and how it brings together subcultures and publics. The significance of this project lies in the research around musical processes and practices (listening, composing, performing) as corporeal acts that connect bodies to one another, and build kinships. This research draws mainly upon primary sources of autoethnographic, written accounts in the form of journal entries, stories, poems and song lyrics, and conducts an interpretive analysis of six “queer” songs, five composed by the author of this thesis, and one composed in collaboration with a trans* youth. This project will contribute to research on arts-based practices as archival work, as well as the impact that songs have on people’s lives by broadening our understanding of music’s corporeal effects and genealogical role in lived experience. ii Preface This thesis is the original intellectual property of the author, Katharine A. Cherry-Reid. The fieldwork reported in Chapter 5 was covered by UBC Ethics Certificate number H15-00388. Permission to use all of the lyrics from Ferron’s repertoire that are included in this thesis was provided by Ferron, in writing, on November 8, 2015. iii Table of Contents Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... ii Preface ........................................................................................................................................... iii Table of Contents ......................................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................................... vii Dedication ..................................................................................................................................... ix Chapter 1: “At My Feet She Laid a Bone Down”: Laying the Groundwork .......................... 1 Opening Words ....................................................................................................................................... 1 My Queerness Has No Lineage .............................................................................................................. 2 Addressing Some Gaps ......................................................................................................................... 12 Significance of this Study ..................................................................................................................... 14 Growing Up in an Un-Queer Place ..................................................................................................... 15 School Climates ..................................................................................................................................... 16 Folk Music, Women’s Music ................................................................................................................ 22 The Importance of Indigo Girls, Ani Difranco, and Ferron ............................................................. 28 Chapter 2: “We’ve Got to See Beyond the Horizon”: Theories of Words and Music ......... 38 Growing and Nurturing a Queer Family Tree ................................................................................... 38 Music in the Blood: Coming Home ..................................................................................................... 42 A Musical Archive: Queering Genealogy with Songwriting and Singing ....................................... 48 “Musicing”: A Bodily Process ............................................................................................................. 54 A Question of Orientation: Songwriting, Singing, and Queer Genealogies .................................... 59 iv Vancouver Dyke March and Festival .................................................................................................. 62 Somewhere in the Air Over the Rocky Mountains ............................................................................ 72 Chapter 3: “I Picked It Up and Held it Close”: Methodologies of Words and Music ......... 76 Setting the Stage: A Different Kind of Family Tree and a Mixed Methodology ............................ 80 Booking the Venue: Why Arts-Based Research? ............................................................................... 83 Writing a “Set List”: Using Autoethnographic Methods .................................................................. 88 “Technical Problems” With the Show: Limitations of Arts-Based Research and Autoethnography .......................................................................................................................... 94 Methods .................................................................................................................................................. 98 Researcher positionality ................................................................................................................... 98 “Where,” “what,” and “how”: Settings, design, and collection of data .................................... 100 No queers (or others) were harmed in the researching of this project: Ethics, consent, and confidentiality .......................................................................................................................... 101 Data Analysis: Interpreting the Songs and the Songwriting Conversations ................................. 103 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................... 104 Chapter 4: “I Was Never Meant to Live in the Terrified Shadows”: Beginning to Live a Life in Song ................................................................................................................................ 106 Getting Lost: Ex-Junkie Boyfriend ................................................................................................... 114 Accounting for Myself: Co-op Girlz .................................................................................................. 124 Finding My Way on Stage: The Only Dyke at the Open Mic ......................................................... 132 Chapter 5: “Running with the Herd”: Singing with Queer and Trans* Bodies ................. 143 Orienting Towards Other Queer Bodies: Rise Up ........................................................................... 143 Building an Archive of Queer Relations: Captain Cupcake and the Cambie Hotel .................... 154 Bringing it all Together: Chosen Family, Found Family and the Writing of “fYreflies” ............ 161 v Chapter 6: “How I Would Make it Home”: Concluding Thoughts ..................................... 176 Revisiting My Questions, My Thinking, the Process, the Songs ..................................................... 178 “She’ll Come Back and Lay Down My Bones” ................................................................................ 190 Coming Home: Crying Holy .............................................................................................................. 195 References .................................................................................................................................. 200 vi Acknowledgements As with any project that is taken on, there is always a multitude of people to acknowledge and to thank for their support, ideas and encouragement—these things never come to fruition by the hands of one person. As such, I would first like to thank my co-supervisors, Claudia Ruitenberg and Carl Leggo. Claudia, your incisive and meticulous feedback was stimulating and generative to my thinking and writing process throughout this project. That you honed in on one short statement I made in my initial proposal, which eventually turned into this thesis, will always astound me. Carl, your positive encouragement, along with the heartfelt conversations and stories we shared about the creative process and our lives were enlivening and inspiring. Your work as a poet-scholar stood out to me from the moment I read it. Both of you, Claudia and Carl, were generous with your time and scholarly input—thank you so much. To Kedrick James for being my external examiner and for taking a chance on me as an instructor; to Sneja Gunew who introduced me to Lee Maracle and post-colonial feminism; to Mary

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