(Disclaimer: Obviously, I mean to take nothing away from genuine Songs About Lesbians, which are beautiful and frankly, not nearly as ubiquitous as they should be. Nor do I want to disparage the good work of anyone covering a pop song and not changing the pronouns, creating a de facto gay version. Heroes, every one of them. I guess what I’m saying is that the worship circle for Angel Haze’s version of Same Love is Tuesday at 8, I’ll bring the guacamole.)
I spent the first four summers of my employable life as a lifeguard in a Chicago suburb, a job I highly recommend to anyone with an interest in maintaining a low level of anxiety for hours at a time. Being that I was too shy to flirt with patrons and too absolutely terrified to daydream, I spent most of my time listening intently to the family-safe top 40 radio we played. Hours of it, day after day, for four long summers. I’ve heard more Coldplay than you’ve heard Coldplay jokes. What I’m getting at here is a discovery you may not have had the opportunity to make: Taylor Swift is secretly writing lesbian vignettes for us all.
But wait, Taylor Swift’s not a lesbian. (Related viewing: Taylor performing Closer with Tegan and Sara.) Sure, but that’s not the point! There are no legitimacy requirements for Songs That Should Be About Lesbians. Finding queerness where there is none is an important gay teen ritual. There are some artists for whom this game does not work: Jason DeRulo, Kelly Clarkson, Maroon 5. Trust me, I have tried them all. If you’re looking for lesbians in your soft pop selection, Taylor Swift is the way to go.
You Belong With Me: This one is almost too easy, so we’ll start here. Our moody band geek narrator wears a lot of t-shirts and sneakers, and that’s how we know we’re supposed to identify with her. Take the first verse:
You’re on the phone with your girlfriend, she’s upset
She’s going off about something that you said
Cause you don’t get her humor like I do.
What’s that? Those aren’t quite the lyrics? Of course they are. Because this is a song about unrequited love across the hierarchy matrix of high school, featuring the beautiful-but-oblivious male best friend who’s dating that cheerleader you want to kiss.
She wears short skirts, I wear t-shirts
She’s cheer captain and I’m on the bleachers
Dreaming ’bout the day when she wakes up and finds
That what she’s looking for has been here the whole time
If that last line doesn’t resonate with you, then you’ve clearly never had a crush on a straight girl. And may you never.
Mine: “Mine” is so cute that it’s hard to talk about. It also conveniently does not contain a single male pronoun. Instead, our narrator meets a college student-slash-waitress who teaches her that Nora Ephron and all of those Tumblr quotes were right about love all along, and the whole thing plays out like every fanfiction you’ve ever read.
Do you remember we were sitting there by the water?
You put your arm around me for the first time.
You made a rebel of a careless man’s careful daughter.
You are the best thing that’s ever been mine
Aren’t we all a careless man’s careful daughter? And aren’t we all interpreting “made a rebel” the same way? (Ed. note–it’s–it’s being a lesbian, right? That’s how we’re interpreting it?) In my version of this song, the waitress has a Sara Quin haircut and wears a lot of tank tops that show off her tattoo of an image from a beloved children’s book.
Flash forward and we’re taking on the world together
And there’s a drawer of my things at your place
I can only hope that “taking on the world together” means “making it gayer” and “wearing power blazers.” I’m pretty sure that it does.
We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together: Has there ever been a better song about giving up on an ex-girlfriend? No, there has not. This one’s particularly rallying, too.
Ooh we called it off again last night
But ooh this time I’m telling you, I’m telling you.
This song is drinking a whole bottle of white wine, listening to Ani DiFranco, and finally ordering those motorcycle boots you can’t afford.
You go talk to your friends, talk to my friends, talk to me
But we are never ever ever getting back together
There’s even a special mention of the lesbian/bi grapevine, which I promise you is present even in my small Iowa town. You can talk all you want, our narrator is saying, but it doesn’t matter because she’s definitely going to get that short haircut.
Fifteen: “Fifteen” is about high school, but more importantly it’s about growing up and falling into your first relationship and slowly realizing which people are going to matter most. And at its core, “Fifteen” is–with a little help from your selective hearing–about the power of female friendship.
You sit in class next to a redhead named Abigail
And soon enough you’re best friends
Laughing at the other girls who think they’re so cool
We’ll be outta here as soon as we can
Abigail! Abigail has red hair and probably lets the narrator call her Abby and they’re going to know each other for the rest of their lives. When Abigail loses her virginity to a boy “who changed his mind” they curl up and cry together, and it’s all going to be okay.
I’ve found time can heal most anything
And you just might find who you’re supposed to be
I didn’t know who I was supposed to be at fifteen. Being a teenager means not knowing who you are, but who you want (or don’t want) to be. It means realizing somewhere in the back of your confused reptilian brain when you meet someone who fits next to you, and not quite understanding why you can feel every inch of your skin blush when she leans over in calculus to make a joke about tangents, or why you’ll take her phone calls even when Gilmore Girls is on.
So “Fifteen” is not about lesbians, at least not yet. But it’s a love story nonetheless.
Stay Stay Stay: “Stay Stay Stay” was not technically a single, but it features beautiful gender-neutral lyrics and an annoyingly catchy chorus. It’s also absent of almost any setting details, so you can fill them in with whatever you want. Are they two dancers at a queer burlesque in Paris? The art teacher and the English teacher at a junior high? A youth pastor at an LGBT church in California and a surfer who handmakes recycled jewelry? This song is your lesbian oyster.
I’m pretty sure we almost broke up last night
I threw my phone across the room at you
I was expecting some dramatic turn-away,
But you stayed
In this case, the narrator and her girlfriend share a third-floor walk-up in Andersonville, where one of them works as a barista and the other is having only a modicum of success as a freelance writer. On Wednesdays they go to Ann Sather and order a single dinner with a cinnamon roll as both sides, so they can each have one.
This morning I said we should talk about it
‘Cause I read you should never leave a fight unresolved
That’s when you came in wearing a football helmet
And said “okay, let’s talk.”
Why a football helmet? Maybe it’s a roleplay thing. Maybe she played for her high school’s football team. It’s up to you! That’s the beauty of Songs That Should Be About Lesbians.
[Image via Wikimedia Commons]
Tags: don’t throw your phone at your partner that’s really lousy, lesbians, making songs lesbian by argument, taylor swift, this is the only post we will ever run about taylor swift probably
I cannot express how much I love that Femmeslash Friday is slowly infiltrating the rest of the Friday posts.
Also Sara Bareilles! Most (all?) of her proper romantic songs don’t have gender-specific pronouns in them, and she even has one called ‘Uncharted’.
I’m already out
Of foolproof ideas so don’t ask me how
To get started
It’s all uncharted.
YES. Sara Bareilles should be next in what should CLEARLY be a series. Gonna Get Over You helped me get over the person I came out for:
“And I’m not the girl that I intend to be,
I dare you darling, just you wait and see
But this time not for you but just for me,
And I say”
Ooh, how’m I gonna get over you?
I’ll be alright, just not tonight
…”
Omg yes, Sara Bareilles! I always listen to her music when I think about the girl I fell in love with, she’s the queen of unrequited love songs…
Taylor performing Closer with Tegan and Sara
!!!!!
Observations from clicking through the YouTube links:
1) Why is Taylor wearing high-waisted space shorts in the Tegan and Sara video?
2) Teenagers who post copyright-protected material online with the disclaimer “no copyright infringement intended” are adorable bright-eyed kittens.
“On Wednesdays they go to Ann Sather and order a single dinner with a cinnamon roll as both sides, so they can each have one” is the purest expression of love I have ever encountered.
… Now I want to go get Ann Sather cinnamon rolls. Like, right now. Especially since the Andersonville one is closing at the end of the month. But I’m downtown at work and it’s all the way up there and gosh darn it.
In a related story, I did in fact write a paper in college about how Hilary Duff’s “Come Clean” is actually about a gay man calling it off with his beard. Check the lyrics – it’s uncanny.
I wanted to write a paper in college about how “Sugar, We’re Goin Down” is about a man in love with a man but never found an opportunity to.
… Holy crap, you’re right.
I actually legitimately thought “You belong with me” was about lesbians for several weeks after I first heard it. I never listened to the radio, so the way I first heard it was people running around at my progressive summer camp singing the “She wears high heels, I wear sneakers” part. I was totally convinced that the speaker was expressing her love for the high heels/short skirts wearing girl. I was kind of disappointed when I first heard the whole thing at a dance and realized that it was not, in fact, a heartwarming popular music portrayal of having a crush on a girl in high school.
Commenting that I really want to be at the worship circle of Angel Haze’s “Same Love”. When/Where?
Okay reading the article now.
I’ll bring the lentils to that Angel Haze sit-in.
“… and may you never.” _Bless._
I HAVEN’T READ IT YET, BUT THIS IS RELEVANT TO MY INTERESTS!!!!!!!!!
ETA: It was everything I could have hoped for, but you guys, there are so many songs that fit this,. YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW.
Mallory, Nicole: I will make you post about TSwift as many times as possible. I will write many articles!
I can’t say all that much about “making it gayer” (…yet. Femslash Friday is awfully inspiring in that regard), but my version of taking on the world definitely involves wearing power blazers.
Great piece, Liz! Imagining her songs are about lesbians has exponentially increased my liking for Taylor Swift. And now I’m gonna spend the rest of the day trying to find queerness in popular songs. Yay!
RIGHT YES THIS IS EXCELLENT BUT WHAT ABOUT TREACHEROUS?? “and all we are is skin and bone, trained to get along. forever going with the flow, but you’re friction”. um, yes.
OMG has anyone heard the mashup of “We are Never Ever” and “Complicated” by Avril Lavigne? It’s wonderful and was accompanied on Tumblr with an adorable imagined scenario about a romance between the Taylor and Avril high school archetypes. <3
Link please. I find tumblr difficult to search.
Voila!
http://slapmymind.tumblr.com/post/44277808306/tas…
FOUND IT. http://ewebean.tumblr.com/post/67540068527/nodayb…
OMG THAT IS FABULOUS.
I already really liked both songs and they’re EVEN BETTER put together like that. Thank you thank you thank you for one of my new favorite things. (now where do i download it for my music player…….. gonna have to do some googling!)
YES. We Are Never Getting Back Together also has this gem:
And you would hide away and find your peace of mind
With some indie record that’s much cooler than mine
BECAUSE OF COURSE SHE WOULD. We all just need to admit we listen to Taylor Swift in break ups, instead of posing like bands no one has heard of really get us.
FURTHER:
I’d Lie- struggles of the closested life, possibly about the same girl as You Belong With Me?
I could tell you his favorite color’s green
He loves to argue, born on the seventeenth
His sister’s beautiful, he has his father’s eyes
And if you asked me if I love him,
I’d lie
Also, All Too Well, Mary’s Song, and Holy Ground: “We blocked the noise with the sound of ‘I need you’, And for the first time I had something to lose.”
Oh man, “All Too Well” is a Song That Should Be About Everyone. “All Too Well” is about literally any human experience and is probably made up of chords all found in nature. “All Too Well” is a true canonical work in that it was handed down by a deity and cannot be improved by human touch. I maybe care a lot about “All Too Well”.
Let’s be real here – “Treacherous” is the Lesbian Taylor Swift song
“I’ll do anything you say, if you say it with your hand” um, fingerbanging anyone? “That nothing safe is worth the drive and I will follow, follow you home”
I mean, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGks5k4mfyQ
I think we all know what “a drawer of my things at your place” means.
(it means a drawer of sex toys fyi)
Oh god, this is perfect. But it definitely makes “Picture to Burn” even more awful and vindictive–you’re gonna tell her friends she’s gay? Taylor, I’m 100% certain it ain’t your place to out people, even if they are a redneck heartbreak who’s really bad at lying. God knows her life would be hard enough.
She was still a clueless teenager when she wrote that song! I’m pretty sure in the original version she means to tell her friends that he’s gay (even though he’s straight) so he becomes unavailable to them.
P.S. I think Ours is the perfect LGBT anthem
I can’t really remember how I got to this website, but this article sure is interesting. Hearing Taylor’s songs I sometimes think they sounded more like they could be addressed to girls for some reason, haha. There’s a song in 1989 that I’m currently addicted to, it’s called “I Wish You Would”, I just liked it because of the sound at first but when I read the lyrics I thought it had a hint of gayness because of this line:
“We’re a crooked love in a straight line down” I love the song even more now!