What’s in your ‘big queer songbook’?
The Glory pub in Haggerston is launching Big Queer Songbook this Sunday: a schmoozy candlelit piano bar night with the motto “Singing the songs that made us gay!”
Leading the way on the keys will be East London’s chic Irish pirate Rudi Douglas who Jonny Woo discovered in his garden once the morning after a party. The night is billed as a “Campy-loo sing-a-long! Sing your sins away after a heavy weekend! We’ll help you forget about that Sunday lunch at your aunt’s. Or just kick back and sip a pint of Whitstable Bay while watching the nut bags”…
We caught up with The Glory’s director John Sizzle and the pub’s PR boy Jack discussing “What are the songs that made us gay?”
John Sizzle: For me, it was all about Erasure (pictured below). My coming out song was Sometimes on their album The Circus. I was seventeen, I had my first pair of Doc Martins and a blond quiff. I looked like Jason Donovan, I was a total Bros-ette. Looking back, especially at that age, Erasure were a really wonderful gay band to have dominating the charts.
Jack: See I’m a generation younger and also love Erasure. When I was thirteen Wheetus did a cover of A Little Respect, so perhaps I found them that way. Much younger than that though I was completely sucked in by Aqua and the Vengaboys when I’d not long left primary school – essentially totally gay euro dance.
John Sizzle: There are two distinct sides to the “Big Queer Songbook”. There’s all that stuff – hyperactive nutbag music that gay boys want to jump around to at parties, all those massive Kylie anthems. And then there’s music that taps into the whole self-indulgent misery of being gay.
Jack: Like what?
John Sizzle: Well for me it was Kate Bush. Totes emoshe! I was sitting in my childhood bedroom in Highgate feeling like the only gay person in the world. Little did I know I was just a 210 bus away from Hampstead Heath! And yeah, Kate Bush swoops in and wraps her arms around that. She understood my plight!
Jack: Again, she’s stood the test of time. People my age and younger are obsessed with Kate, she’s a phenomenon. And again as a teenager Futureheads had a massive chart cover of Hounds of Love – it was Kate in disguise, sucking in a new generation of gays!
John Sizzle: And as well as being gay, it’s about feeling all of those adult emotions for the first time. You realise that you don’t just like ponies anymore, but you’re in love with your penis, and the builders next door, and possibly your Dad.
Jack: It’s funny when you then join a gay scene and realise that all of these other people liked the same songs as you. One of the songs I liked most in my Dad’s record collection was Ballroom Blitz by Sweet, and then one of the first times I saw Jonny Woo perform at The Hippodrome casino there he was singing it in towering heels and lipstick. I’ve always had you written down as a massive Madonna fan John?
John Sizzle: Justify My Love was vicarious bliss for me, a slice or Parisian S&M with Tony Ward her gay porn star boyfriend!
Jack: I was raised on The Immaculate Collection and have got involved with every Madonna album since.
John Sizzle: That’s another feature of The Queer Songbook, you stand by your icons. I don’t disagree or like everything Madonna’s released in recent years, but I remain loyal. What is Madonna doing now? How is Madonna ageing? I care about these things! They become a constant in your life and a barometer almost.
Jack: I maybe feel like that about Britney. I saw Baby One More Time while being babysat at a neighbour’s house. It came on about once an hour and I was hooked. Twenty years later I still think Britney’s musical output has been consistently strong, except for all the filler on Britney Jean obviously.
John Sizzle: Likewise I remember jumping around off-my-tits to Toxic, whether you like Britney or not she’s had some really fun hits.
Jack: Who’s the younger model of Kate Bush in The Big Queer Songbook?
John Sizzle: Well she’s incomparable really, but I suppose younger gays identify with Florence and Adele don’t they.
Jack: Watching Jonbenet Blond perform here in The Glory is slowly getting me into Celine Dion. Jonbenet’s lip-sync’s really squeeze every last gay drop out of her songs in terms of the longing and yearning.
John Sizzle: She’s brilliant. Something I find funny is when you grow up and start getting invited to gay dinner parties and suddenly everyone likes Ella Fitzgerald. You think someone mentions jizz and then you realise what they actually said was jazz.
Jack: Haha, the sophisticated “A-Gay” side of the Big Queer Songbook.
John Sizzle: When you get your first Daddy and you’re desperately trying to impress him with your musical taste so you buy an Ella Fitzgerald CD, and he’s interested in theatre and you’ve got no idea what he’s talking about.
Jack: Is that the final stage of The Big Queer Songbook?
John Sizzle: The final stage is when you’re an old gimp, encased in your gay existence.
Jack: Like a mosquito crystallized in sap.
John Sizzle: Swigging Tennants in your ruby slippers listening to The Winner Takes It All.
Big Queer Songbook is FREE ENTRY and launches at The Glory pub this Sunday. Follow @TheGloryLondon and #TheGloryLDN on Instagram.