Title: Do you boys wanna get in touch with your FEM SIDES? Source:
EWE TOOB URL Source:http://www.youtube.com/ Published:Jun 18, 2012 Author:HOUNDDAWG Q. Schwartz Post Date:2012-06-19 00:37:45 by HOUNDDAWG Keywords:None Views:518 Comments:25
Poster Comment:
I'm feeling my "Roots" tonight (My real name is Kunte Kinte "Toby the HOUNDDAWG" Goldblatt-Schwartz) so I thought I'd share some fascinating Manhattan parlor trivia with you good people.
This song may have been less slightly disturbing as originally written for a man. But when rewritten and released by CHARLENE in 1977 and again in 1982 (!) it was, A) a fluffy melodic song, B) by a talented vocalist, C) with lyrics that still make me wanna ralph thirty six years later.
It's one thing for a man to talk about going around the world. (literally and well, the other way too) But, swapping the gender and singing the line, "I've been undressed by kings and I've seen some things that a woman ain't s'posed to see".... is unsettling enough, at least to me.
BUT, there's no way in Hell I'd have ever been talked into singing, "I've been undressed by queens and I've seen some things that a (thweet boy?) ain't th'posed to theee".
Not even for a queen's ransom, you understand.
I'm betting that no straight male vocalist or even closeted butch would agree to sing the male version of the tune, resulting in the controversial song that decades later was featured in PRISCILLA, QUEEN OF THE DESERT a film that was rivaled only by Patrick Swazey's Trannies-on-the-road film, To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar
Both films are proof that real pros will take any role if their egos and bank accounts are fattened enough. Which is why Frank Sinatra would never have allowed himself to be ranked among real pro actors. Remember John Travolta as Edna Turnblad? It's all coming together now, huh?
A real pro will live the role, even going so far as "learning to like the taste of..." never mind.) And, it's no different for singers. Charlene had to know that at the very least her song would be a screaming hit among the The Stonewall Rioters just as my former teenaged band mate Pamala Stanley knew when she recorded her hit, COMING OUT OF HIDING.
Pamala is now the first call grand opening queen of bejeweled gay nightclubs, cabarets and cruise ship circuits. And to think that when we were young pros she was the little Pollyanna who heeded the warning to "beware the seducer" and stay way from me because I allowed an older "patroness of the arts" to shower me with expensive gifts, and other things.... The chivalrous band leader even put us on opposite sides of the front line "as a precaution."
PAM ON THE LEFT AND GUESS HOO ON THE RIGHT
So, as a crusty shell of the pro I once was I'm thinking, "What could be worse?" If back then my only career options were either singing "IT" or playing lead guitar and singing with The New York Dolls,"Well, if androgyneeng is all I sing, I'd rather drive a truck." (apologies to "Pat" and the Rick Nelson Estate)
The confirmation that I'm not alone in my interpretation of the song's murky orientation is the following saturation, a conflagration that some believe could threaten America's founding institations. (sorry)
Input from my little one: Ohhhhh, that was such a LAME song......I hate it. lol
Well said.
And I have to wonder, who was the flaming asshole who re-released the song five years after the initial release where it climbed to 3# on the charts? (it was #97 the first time)