QUEER THOUGHTS on COUNTRY MUSIC and K.D. LANG ~ 259 to Do with My Lesbianism and My Previous Distaste for Country Music
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256 ~ PHILIP BRETT 1 must have soured when the latter descried the Seven Sonnets ofMichelangelo as "baroque and pompous show-pieces, pastiches that hold little inter~st" in Modern M~;ic 21 (1943): 48-49; writing to Elizabeth Mayer on 13 May 1944, Britten comments, I k~ow.how 11 fickle the musical public is, & how superficial their judgements (although I was bit grieved by Colin's attack on the Michelangelo Sonnets);" see Mitchell and Reed, Letters/ram. a Life, vol. 2, 1201-1202. If the music associated with McPhee nevertheless rem.am.ed m Britten's composing consciousness, as Mitchell, Cooke, and others a:g~e convmcmgly, why are these same commentators so fastidious about the characte~istics ~f the ~erso~ QUEER THOUGHTS ON behind the music, especially the homoeroticism that was so strongly mtertwmed with his love ofBali? COUNTRY MUSIC AND k.d. lang 28. Wilfred Mellers, "The Truth of the Dream," in Palmer, The Britten Companion, 191. 29. "The Queen's Throat: (Homo)sexuality and the Art of Singing" in Diana Fuss, ed., Inside/Out: Lesbian Theories, Gay Theories (New York: Routledge, 1991), 217-23. Martha Mockus 30. Piper, "Writing for Britten," 11. 31. Henry James, The Art of the Novel: Critical Prefaces by Henry James, ed. Richard P. Blackmur (New York: Scribner's, 1934), 176. The argument here is indeb:ed t? George Haggerty's discussion of the tale in Gothic Fiction/Gothic Form (Umversity Parle Pennsylvania State University Press, 1988). 32. Nor when we turn to the opera is Clifford Hindley' s "third story"-of a blameless Quint (1 HAVE NEVER BEEN A FAN OF COUNTRY MUSIC. I find I am vaguely aware offering Miles the fulfillment of his "true nature," .the Gove~ness. the vic.tim of the del~ of who's sion that such relationships are all evil, and such evil as there is bemg pro~ecte~ onto Miss 1 who in country, but I have never experienced a great desire to Jessel-a fully acceptable alternative. My "Britten's Bad Boys: Male Rel~t10ns m The. Turn listen to country tunes or cultivate a taste for any particular country musi of the Screw," in repercussions 1, no. 2 (Fall 1992): 5-25, addresses this and other issues cians. I was not attracted to the nasal and twangy sounds of country music, raised by Hindley's "Why Does Miles Die?" nor was I interested in its strict presentations of gender and sexuality; I just 33. Mitchell and Reed, Letters from a Life, vol. 2, 1016. could not be bothered to give country music a fair shake. Carpenter, Benjamin Britten, 341-55. 34. The criminologist D. J. West distin~uishes.betwe~n Then there was k.d. lang. Since I did not follow country music in the first the pedophile and "ephebophile," a categ~ry into w~~se broad outlme ~ritten fits place, I did not become remarkably well, see Homosexuality Re-examined (4th edit10n. of Homosexuality [1960]), aware oflang until the release of her 1989 album (London: Duckworth, 1977), 211-15. Absolute Torch and Twang. Some of my lesbian and gay friends raved about 35. For the process of transformation in this opera, see my "'Fiery Vi~ions' (and Revisions): her, but I only halfheartedly paid attention. I was also suspicious of the les Peter Grimes in Progress," in Brett, ed., Benjamin Britten: Peter Grimes, 47-87. bian hero-worship of lang that often appeared in the queer press. Why were 36. Joseph A. Boone, "Mappings of Male Desire in Durrell' s Ale:andria, Quartet," Sou~h so many dykes drooling over a country music singer? It just did not make Atlantic Quarterly 88 (1989): 102. Marjorie Garber proposes for Boones salutary substi sense to me, nor did it appeal to me. I did not care if she created a powerful tution" of the homosexual male dancer that Said overlooks or represses, the further lesbian aura onstage or sported a cute substitition of an irreducible transvestic spectacle, suggesting that "transvestism ... that is butch style; I was not interested in her the taboo against which Occidental eyes are veiled" in Vested Interests (New York: music. However, when I finally listened to her tune "Pullin' Back the Reins;' Routledge, 1991),341-42. I was amazed and deeply moved by her voice. I had to have more. I was 37. Mitchell and Reed, Letters from a Life, vol. 2, 1015. fascinated not only by the power, range, and depth of her voice, but by the 38. Carpenter, Benjamin Britten, 355, quoting a letter from Percy Elland, editor of The wonderful mixture of passion and mischief in her singing; and I thoroughly Evening Standard, to his proprietor, Lord Beaverbrook. enjoyed the tight and playful sound of her band, the reclines. Country 39. For a full account, including Plomer's note and Britten's letter, see Peter F. Alexander, music-in the hands of lang-could be fun after all. I realized I had taken William Plamer: A Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 299-306. I am myself a bit too seriously, and I had taken country music indebted to Mervyn Cooke for this reference. too seriously. I was not necessarily inclined to listen to other country artists, but I was certainly Sara Suleri, The Rhetoric ofEnglish India (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 40. excited about 147. spending more time with lang's music. So I did. And the pleasure I experience with lang's music has a great deal 258 ~ MARTHA MOCKUS QUEER THOUGHTS ON COUNTRY MUSIC AND K.D. LANG ~ 259 to do with my lesbianism and my previous distaste for country music. Thus, allowance whatsoever. Guys are guys, gals are gals, and anything queer is motivated by both suspicion and affection, I will engage some of her tunes entirely exscripted. Even if many country tunes valorize cccheatin"' or other within a context that includes lesbian identity and sexuality (mine and hers), forms of illicit sex, the scenario is always heterosexual. Furthermore, the the aesthetics oflesbian camp and the butch-femme dynamic, the reception ideologies of patriotism and the nuclear family merge in the world of coun of lang in the country music industry, and the fairly recent appropriation of try music and intensify its homophobic practice. Of course, I speak as one country music by lesbian and gay bar culture. who has been resistant to personal participation in country music, but the discourse of country music as I read it remains decidedly' antiqueer. This homophobic discourse has been thrown into total confusion by the steering clear of "the queer" fairly recent appropriation of country and western music in the lesbian and gay bar scenes. Cultural critic B. Ruby Rich argues that lesbian androgyny was expressed quite comfortably in country and western bars: I still receive a lot of resistance about the way I look. Particularly from the traditional country quarters. Still, I think it's loosened up a bit. In the '70s, when lesbianism took androgyny as both principle and style, Unfortunately, human beings evolve slowly. (k.d. lang, 1990) 1 the country-and-western bar was one of the only welcoming sites outside of the womyn's community. It was there, to those honky-tonk joints, that In the final chapter of Country Music, U.S.A., Bill Malone describes the vari women could always go in flannel shirts and jeans and no makeup, raise ous trends that developed in country music in the 1970s and early 1980s. 2 no eyebrows, even dance with a girlfriend alongside all the straight country 5 He begins his discussion by noting that debates about country music-what gals doing the same. it is, to whom, and why-have played a significant role within country music Since the mid-1980s, gay and lesbian bars in major American cities have scenes since the 1970s, and the various sides of these debates are played out featured cccountry music nights" complete with line dances, square dances, in the music, marketing strategies, and political alliances of the country and two-stepping. Although this was never unusual in cities such as Denver, artists themselves. He states: Austin, and Houston, the trend reached new heights particularly in Chicago, Musicians, industry leaders, and fans have been confused about what the Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and the Twin Cities. The Rawhide II music is or where it should go. The country music industry has discovered in San Francisco and the Town House in St. Paul are completely country and that its best interests lie in the distribution of a package with clouded iden western gay bars (and the Town House claims a clientele of half gay men and tity, possessing no regional traits. The industry has striven to present a halflesbians). For many lesbians and gay men, hanging out and dancing to music that is all things to all people: middle-of-the-road and "American," country music was and is a preferable alternative to the disco scene (either but also southern, working-class, and occasionally youth-oriented and classic 1970s disco or its various 1980s derivatives). As DJ and general even rebellious in tone.3 manager of the Townhouse, Steven Anderson puts it: According to Malone, many country musicians in the 1970s and early 1980s Like the disco phenomenon, country music rekindled an interest in danc worked to revive "traditional" country music-and thereby protect it from ing-albeit to a different beat and a different style. The Texas two-step. the poison of pop music-while others successfully developed "progressive" Yes, it was the style of dance that seemed particularly appealing.