Sound of Our Revolution | July 2023: Celebrating Queer Love

Love is Love, but Queer love is objectively better.

It’s finally pride month in Manchester! And I decided to treat myself, one of those gays that is proud and that, to a nice playlist for a change.

Previous years I’ve focused on the protest angle of pride, and don’t get me wrong, that is still the point of it, and we’ll be getting to that side of it before the month is over.

But the last few playlists I’ve done have been pretty heavy and depressing, and it doesn’t do anyone any favours to bum yourself out to a point of despaired inactivity. Things are terrible, but there are still things worth living for, and at the risk of being the most cliché fucker on the internet today, love is pretty neat.

Romantic love, sexual love, platonic love, familial love, all of it and more, and while Pride IS a protest at its core – being angry is not a foundational aspect of queer identity. The str8s have made us that way out of necessity, but most of the time we’re just lovely and whimsical nerds who are better at sex than everyone else, if we choose to have it. So, what I wanted to do with this month’s playlist is look at the duality of pride and wrath, starting with this playlist which is a celebration of the diverse experiences and expressions of queer love, and by the end of the month back to screaming about how all cis people smell like eggs and we should guillotine all the transphobes.

So, we’re going to be listening to LGBTQIA+ voices expressing their own experiences of love, whether sapphic, men loving men, bisexual polyamory, trans self-love, T for T connection, Asexual and/or Aromantic takes on love, and indeed any queer love that doesn’t get talked about and championed nearly enough even by the mainstream gay media.

It was hard to condense this into under 80 minutes, and I wanted to keep it reasonably balanced at least between the L’s and the G’s – and making sure the rest have decent representation too (because it turns out those first 2 letters have a heck of a LOT of songs compared to some of the others do on a notable level of success and accessibility in any case.) Point being I made a lot of tough cuts, but I’m happy that this selection of Queer love songs will give you the serotonin you need to get through the day and start throwing bricks at cops the next time they try to intervene at pride.

If you just wanna get to the gay love, you can listen on the below links:

Or if you want some waffling about why these songs are nice and that, carry on reading at your own risk.

1: Cherry – Rina Sawayama

Hold The Girl – 2022 – Indie Pop

“Down the subway, you looked my way
With your girl gaze, with your girl gaze
That was the day everything changed”

Starting the playlist with some sapphic joy from this Pansexual indie pop prodigy Rina Sawayama.

God, I almost forgot what happy music sounds like. This is so floaty and dreamlike, you really feel like you’re being taken through the singer’s journey of self-discovery and feeling of intense love and sapphic attraction in the moment, all from a look.

This song seemed to be inspired by someone who’s interaction extended only as far as catching each other’s eye on the subway. Yeah, if you put that over an acoustic guitar with James Blunt singing it, I may, hypocritically decry that as creepy. But I think it is a very on-brand sapphic experience to fall immediately in love with every woman you see and serenade them in a way that respects their privacy. It really just expresses your own joy you experience when you just see a woman with queer undertones.

And that’s what this song is. It’s inspired by this woman, and indeed there are expressions of desire and longing and fantasy within the lyrics. But at its core it’s about self-discovery and acceptance and finding something that fits you.

So, in that way it’s a love song about how nice love and crushes can feel when you’ve had to hide it for so long and maybe not understood it.

I feel like a lot of people get crushes for the smallest things that you wouldn’t dream of declaring to the person as that would be weird and invasive. But speaking for myself (which is admittedly a very different experience), it’s kind of refreshing to just experience these crushes from a different perspective or direction. You get a kind of “Oh, this is a thing I feel, cool, it won’t go anywhere, but feeling it is weirdly validating and nice in its own right.”

I may be projecting a lot onto this track that wasn’t intended to be in the subtext, but that’s what I got from it, and reading the comments on this one, it seems a lot of young queer women and femmes have been inspired to accept themselves, whatever shape that may be off the back of this song, so clearly, I’m not the only one.

2: THATS WHAT I WANT – Lil Nas X

MONTERO – 2021 – Pop Rap

“‘Cause it don’t feel right when it’s late at night
And it’s just me in my dreams
So I want someone to love
That’s what I fuckin’ want.”

I can’t believe this album is nearly 2 years old. This was the first album in a long time I was proper hyped to drop. 2021 was Lil Nas X’s year, dominated it with single after single, weaponizing controversy to his advantage over the ultra-conservative Christian right, making his worst enemies market him to the point that he may very well have been the most famous musician on the planet at the time.

And for a recently out gay black man in his early 20s, dealing with that kind of fame and especially the vitriol he’d get from being openly those things, he fucking nailed it.

All the while releasing banger after banger, culminating in the last single before the album dropped “THATS WHAT I WANT” (which Windows keeps trying to auto apostrophize, and like, I get it, that is grammatically correct, but this is how the title is written and I care more about that than I do arbitrary grammar rules).

Montero (the single) was a sexually provocative artistic masterpiece, subverting the all-gays-go-to-hell trope by him doing just that, only to seduce then murder the devil to take over his kingdom. Fucking based.

Then Industry Baby was a smug fuck you to a music industry who wasn’t able to stifle him no matter how hard they tried, ruined by a mediocre verse by Jack Harlow that just feels more and more out of place as time goes on. I mean even at the time Harlow was very much not up and coming on the same level – but now it’s kind of laughable.

And then this one, which is an almost power pop/rock track, featuring upbeat acoustic guitar chords driving the beat, with some synthpop stings over the chorus, and Lil Nas X earnestly singing about his desire for a boy to love, painfully cawing at the sadness of not having that, especially with how much harder finding actual love must be as a young gay black celebrity.

But despite the sad undertones, this song feels more deterministic, and goal-driven rather than wallowing, which really works with his style, and culminates in a timeless gay anthem, projecting a dream love and skyrocketing up the pop charts with a song who’s first lyric explicitly genders the desired love, which is frankly incredible. This is one of the best gay love anthems of all time and honestly, I think it’s going to be a generation before anything even comes close to matching or topping it. Unless Lil Nas X decides to release a new album next year, in which case he might.

3: Revolution Lover – Left at London

Transgender Street Legend, Vol. 1 – 2018 – Indie

https://leftatlondon.bandcamp.com/album/transgender-street-legend-vol-1

“We’ll be side-by-side
I know we’ll make it out of this one alive”

Left at London has been on my radar for several months now, but this is the first time I listened to any of her music, and this is a certified bop.

I love the big-band-esque instrumentals, with a bit of a cabaret/jazz/soul vibe but a delightfully indie pop song structure and delivery. This is just beautiful songwriting and emotive musicianship.

/@/ as it’s stylised is the stage name of Trans lesbian singer-songwriter Nat Puff and is a stunning voice on queer and particularly trans experiences in the modern day.

Revolution Lover is a reassuring and cosy love song about the relationship solidarity bond you end up forming when you are dating as a queer person. At its heart it’s a very earnest expression of love, but crucially it is full of hope and adoration and a desire to get through this life together so they can get to just exist and be together.

A lot of the songs on this playlist I can connect to, to a greater or lesser degree, but this may be one of the closest to my actual experience and voice on this list. T for T relationships in particular are likely to resonate with this one – the whole world seeming to want to eradicate you for simply existing and being happy.

So having songs like this one to just feel like you’re not alone, and especially if you can share this with a loved one, it creates a feeling of safety that honestly makes me tear up just for the respite of the outward hostility of the wider world. I know I just said the last track was the gay love song of a generation, this might be the sapphic equivalent. So good.

4: Thank God, You Introduced Me To Your Sister – Sarah Barrios

Thank God You Introduced Me To Your Sister – 2021 – Pop Punk

“With her hands in my hair
Oh, I love the way she touches
I’m a mess, I don’t care
And I kinda fucking love it, boy”

What if we made Stacy’s Mum but gay and also not fucking weird?

Thank God You Introduced Me To Your Sister is exactly as it sounds, a love song between the singer and the sister of a boy she’s not interested in. It’s very Avril style pop-punk, very ’00s adolescent vibes, and just a fun track about being in love with this dude’s sister and getting off with her – which, if I know my audience, is something we can all enjoy.

5: If You let Me – Lukas Clay

If You Let Me – 2020 – Indie Pop

“I’ll be your after-school kiss in the park
Your dream boy, dance in the dark
I promise not to break your heart”

There’s definitely a trend of gay gen-Z musicians having this very particular style of indie/bedroom pop, and I’m absolutely here for it. Like if Owl City was the raging queer all of his biggest fans turned out to be.

I can’t find a lot of information about Lukas Clay specifically, but this is another floaty gay intimate love song describing the thrill of the sex interspersed with seduction and wooing fantasies. It’s a delightfully romantic depiction of a very hypersexual sounding queer relationship, definitely the kind of song that plays when you meet someone in a gay club and immediately hit it off on the dance floor and start playing out the rest of your life together in your heads. No? Just me? Well, that’s the vibe you get from this song anyway, so if that sounds like something you’d enjoy, definitely check out this song and artist.

6: D&D + Asexuality – Skull Puppies

Critical Failures – 2014 – Indie Rock

“Am I a zombie if I don’t want in your pants?”

Starting this playlist, I very deliberately wanted to make sure there was some Ace inclusion – as they are routinely overlooked in discussions of the queer experience and spectrum.

Equally I don’t want to talk on behalf of them as I am very much not an Asexual person – so my narrative with these songs comes from a place of respect and championing and solidarity, but not specific knowledge or direct relation. So if I have less to say it’s not because I think there’s less to unpack, more that I am absolutely not qualified to do it!

This one on the surface I was worried it’d be a bit on the nose and stereotypical but listening to it a few times I can think of several Asexual people in my life who could relate to this one.

It’s a downbeat indie rock acoustic tune all about wanting to connect with people through comic books and Dungeons and Dragons and getting tired of the sexual nature and expectations of connections. Getting to have physical affection without any sexual undertones to it. It’s a nice song, and a great thing to platform the non-sexual forms of queer love that often get left behind.

7: Sofia – Clario

Immunity – 2019 – Indie Pop

“(Sofia, know that you, you, you and I
Shouldn’t feel like a crime)
I think we could do it if we tried”

I should definitely have disclaimed if you don’t like low-fi indie pop then you might wanna skip about half of this playlist.

Sofia is all about Clario’s early sapphic crushes, and a celebration of the beauty of women.

I’m particularly drawn to the refrain of love shouldn’t feel like a crime, and so much of this playlist is love acknowledging the hardships and the abuse endured from the wider world but the purity and joy of the love itself feeling very much the opposite of that, and that’s what I get from this one too. It makes my heart happy.

8: Loverboy – Adam Lambert

Velvet – 2020 – Glam

“I don’t wanna be another number
Wanna feel like your loverboy, oh yeah”

Adam Lambert is another one I’ve been aware of because of his work with Queen – and honestly when I first heard of him, I was very much in my “No one can replace Freddie” era – and I still kind of feel that. But Adam Lambert is absolutely the best choice, and listening to his own work it is clear to see that he absolutely is a good fit.

This track oozes influence from ’70s Glam and disco – giving huge Prince vibes, or to use a more modern and less cool comparison – Scissor Sisters. A band who isn’t even a guilty pleasure for me, they’re just genuinely great and I will fight anyone who says otherwise.

This track is similar to THATS WHAT I WANT by Lil Nas X in its search for true love and not just being used for a one-night thing. While as a poly queer myself I can’t specifically relate to the notion of wanting to be the only person in anyone’s life, I do still get the not wanting to just feel like a notch on someone’s bedpost. Honestly I think it’s an especially important thing to hear from gay men, that has historically for fascinating sociological reasons that I won’t get into been very more on one night stand and non-mono culture than the heterosexuals.

So yeah, while it’s not for me, gay men singing about wanting monogamy in their relationships is absolutely something worth listening to.

This song also doesn’t explicitly have to be gay – but I mean, come on, look at him, listen to him, Loverboy is not a thing a hetero man says. It’s just not gay enough so listeners can pretend if they want, but it’s absolutely a song that lends itself to gay clubs and identities.

9: The Ocean – Against Me!

New Wave – 2007 – Punk Rock

“And if I could have chosen, I would have been born a woman
My mother once told me she would have named me Laura
I’d grow up to be strong and beautiful like her”

This might be a bit of an odd pick, as it’s not a love song as such – but something about it just feels at home here. It is a song from a pre-out Laura Jane Grace, and from her account was a tough sell to get on the album at all.

Without speculating as to whether Laura knew herself at this point or not, the second verse was very much recontextualized to the audience after she did come out 7 years later, and this is a track with a clear sense of longing and a bit of melancholy of a life she couldn’t or at least didn’t have. Even on my happier playlist themes I’m a sucker for sad bitch tunes, leave me alone.

I included it here as it’s got that dream sense but about the self-love and acceptance more than love of others, and as a trans person myself it really hits hard.

I also just wanted to include an Against Me! track and was a bit burnt out on Transgender Dysphoria Blues which has featured several times on these playlists with both the title track and True Trans Soul Rebel. Nice to take a bit of a deeper cut with the same themes.

10: She’s So Lovely – The Butchies

Make Yr Life – 2004 – Pop-Punk

“Come here, come here, I’m scared but not alone”

You know what they say about shes? She do be lovely. (The they is the gays.)

Iconic queercore sapphics, what more do we need.

11: Tongue – MNEK

Language – 2018 – House

“I’m putting both hands over my mouth
I can only hope nothing’s gonna come out, baby
But there it is on the tip of my tongue
(I think I love you) I think you’re the one”

This is another track that lyrically is ambiguous about genders, but the artist is out as gay, and that does come across in the delivery of the song. I don’t have good gaydar at all, I still remember being taken aback when I realized Russell T Davies was gay.

But this song very much has the vibes. It has a sexuality in it that is distinct from heterosexual artists singing about similar themes of being reluctant to admit that you might be in love in case you do it wrong and ruin it. There’s another dimension with queer attraction as well – certainly for men.

Like the worst that will happen to a straight man is he’ll be turned down – potentially in a not very empathetic way, and it can hurt. But if you’re anything but that, there are other things to take into account. Even when you think you can sense a mutual attraction, that doesn’t always mean it’s safe, and that’s not really even in the subtext of this song. But it is kind of in the sub-subtextual vibes.

If you’ve ever felt this attraction there is an additional layer of pragmatic fear in addition to the usual anxieties about having your dreams crushed by the person you love.

I’m getting sad again, this is not a sad song, merely linking it to the queer experience, the song itself is a fantastic dance track blending House beats with UK Garage vocals making it an ideal gay club track, with the lyrics just adding to that atmosphere.

12: Asexual Love – Lily Summer

Asexual Love – 2020 – Indie Pop

“No, I don’t need no lover
But I can fall in love”

This is another artist who I can’t find a great deal of information about, but this track is a nice soulful indie ballad. It has a really satisfying piano groove to it, and lyrically is all about… well, asexual love.

As I said above, this is not a specific kind of love I have a lot of experience with, so don’t take my brevity to mean anything other than wanting to let the artist talk for herself on this.

The vibes are nice, and it makes me feel very nostalgic in a way I can’t quite place. It’s comforting, cozy. It feels like love.

13: we fell in love in october – girl in red

We fell in love in October – 2018 – Indie Pop

“You look so pretty, and I love this view
Don’t bother looking down
We’re not going that way
At least I know, I am here to stay”

Okay yeah, I’m sorry for how much SoundCloud bedroom pop is on this list, it wasn’t intentional but it’s like 2/3 of this playlist, I guess that’s just the gayest genre of music.

We fell in love in October is the first song girl in red ever wrote about lesbian romance feelings, and it is one of the best and most earnestly true expressions of sapphic love. I think the low fi really works with sapphic romances in particular, the minimal instrumentation, understated vocals, it’s the music of pillow talk, and it carries the vibes brilliantly.

If you don’t tear up at the sweetness of the chorus here then I don’t know what to tell you, this is the cutest thing, and you are wrong.

14: Queer Love Outlaw – Ryan Cassata

Queer Love Outlaw – 2021 – Indie Rock

https://ryancassata.bandcamp.com/track/queer-love-outlaw

“Oh, this queer love feels like home
This queer love feels like mine”

This was a last-minute addition to this list as I did last minute due diligence checks on some of these artists and found one was a terf and another had sexual assault allegations against him. So while quickly scrambling for a replacement, I remembered the incredible trans advocate and artist Ryan Cassata, behind one of my favourite trans solidarity songs of all time and wondered if he had any Queer love songs.

First thing I find, Queer Love Outlaw. Perfect, he knew the brief.

“All my friends are outlaws, and all my friends are in love” is such a powerful statement. The law and society are so against us existing, but we’re all just in love and vibing. This is exactly the tone I wanted for this playlist, and I’m so happy I found this one just in time. Brilliant song.

15: Bisexual Anthem – Domo Wilson

Chapter 5: Domonique – 2019 – Hip-Hop

“If I wanna date a girl and we don’t work out then it’s cool
Sexuality is fluid, it’s okay to date a dude”

I was 50/50 on this one as it’s pretty bio-essentialist and graphic with the lyrics, but honestly if I’m going to nitpick every single “Bisexual Anthem” on that metric, we’re going to have very few. This is the only song I could find that explicitly celebrated bisexuality, and it goes fucking hard.

If you don’t mind the explicit and frequent references to genitals, then this is the song for you. It’s especially refreshing the amount of more overt queer hip-hop that’s been coming out lately to be honest.

And the women in the genre are getting more of a platform. Absolutely one of my favourite genres, and I’m always glad to have more of it.

16: Silk Chiffon – MUNA ft. Phoebe Bridgers

Muna – 2022 – Synth-Pop

“Life’s so fun, life’s so fun
Don’t need to worry about no one
She said that I got her if I want
She’s so soft like silk chiffon”

Haha, Wikipedia says this track is synth-pop and not indie pop – so it’s technically a different genre!

Not a lot to say about this that hasn’t been covered in previous entries, but again it’s one where I just love the happiness that radiates out of it. “Life’s so fun” is such a powerful stand and statement to make. Enjoying life in a queer relationship is honestly one of the most revolutionary things you can do in a world that is so desperate to stamp it out.

And it’s a great experience, anyone who’s been in one can tell you. I love this.

17: Preacher – Years & Years

Palo Santo – 2018 – Dance

“He’s a preacher, but he’s preaching a lie”

This is dance pop, not synth pop – SO STOP SAYING THIS IS TOO SAMEY, THEY’RE DIFFERENT GENRES.
Gonna start getting all wanky metal subgenre gatekeeper about dance music now, like no synthpop and dance pop are COMPLETELY different, sh’up.

I digress, this up-tempo track from Years & Years is all about the hold of religion on internal and external homophobia, and the singer helping someone discover themselves and escape that dogmatic hold the institution of the church has on them. “He’s preaching a lie” by itself is a simple yet savage takedown of the religious rhetoric used to stifle queerness out, and that’s before you get to the singer adopting religious language to himself, offering to be the subject’s “salvation” into gayness. Power move tbh, this one is also great.

18: You and Him and Her and Me – White Town

Polyamory – 2019 – Indie Pop

https://whitetown.bandcamp.com/album/polyamory

“Want to spread you for the world
Every enby, boy or girl”

Okay, this is another one I wasn’t 100% sure about – as Polyamory in itself arguably isn’t inherently queer, there are heterosexual people who engage in it, although it is definitely ingrained in queer culture, and requires a view of sexuality and relationships that is open and accepting and… well queer, I guess.

I’m sceptical of otherwise straight men who are polyamorous just from personal experience, but White Town has been demonstrably based for a while. I don’t know if he is straight, but if he is he’s always been open to the idea of not being, just hadn’t encountered any man he fancied at the time, and he is very protective and advocates for trans rights. So I think even if he is straight he gets a pass.

This song is a nice little guitar driven folky song about sharing each other sexually, and the EP also features tracks about love not being property, which is a really nice sentiment. I will say it does sound like an EP about polyamory by a man in his 50s, so do with that information what you will. But it’s a thing so rarely explored in pop culture or music, it felt worthwhile including here.

It is nice, if a little bit cringe adjacent (affectionate). And we’d love to see more of it.

19: All I Want Is to Be Your Girl – Holly Miranda

Holly Miranda – 2015 – Indie

https://hollymiranda.bandcamp.com/album/holly-miranda

“I wasn’t looking for love, but she found me
And I got a lot of control when you’re not around me”

More sapphic vibes here, and another track that doesn’t explicitly denote the gender of the subject but come on “we could fuck in the sun and dance till dawn” is not a heterosexual thing to say. Even if you say that to someone you are in a heterosexual relationship with, if you say that line, you’re a lesbian. Idec what gender you are, that’s lesbian as fuck.

Not much to add but this is another great example of low-key expressions of queer love that are as seductive as they are wholesome. Can’t get enough, and I hope you can’t either, ‘cause there’s probably about 5 more.

20: Neverland – Holland

Holland – 2019 – K-Pop

“I could be your love
But never mind I’m neverland”

Bit of a wildcard here, a lot of this song isn’t in English, but even without translating and reading the lyrics, the neverland imagery is a well-trodden gay allegory. It’s not often I get to include any K-Pop on these, so fuck it, discovering an explicitly gay K-Pop R&B track that charted reasonably well when it was released and crossed over much better than you’d expect, you’re damn right I’m reserving a spot for it here.

21: For Me – Dearlie

Dearlie – 2017 – Pop

“Everybody loves a little different, everybody’s heart’s pretty much a mess
Everybody loves a little different, doesn’t mean I love you any less”

That refrain at the end, so fucking good. Such a simple idea, but yeah, at the heart of all this is the idea that everybody loves a little different, and that doesn’t make it less valuable.

This track is about Dearlie’s acceptance of her asexuality, which is quite clear in the lyrics, but that particular part of the song is applicable to queerness as a whole, and generally a healthy thing to remember in relationships. As someone who does ENM, it particularly resonates with me, relationships with different people will be different and be expressed in different ways, but that does not mean that the quantity or value of love is any different.

It’s just such a nice message and the fact it’s repeated so many times to drill it in is good, because it’s a lesson, whatever your sexuality or relationship status is, could do with remembering.

22: She Keeps Me Warm – Mary Lambert

She Keeps Me Warm – 2014 – Pop

“And I can’t change, even if I tried
Even if I wanted to
My love, my love, my love, my love
She keeps me warm”

It’s very weird to look back at Same Love by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis 10 years on. What was at the time seen as a pretty revolutionary ally song with how well it did in the charts, is a little bit cringe and basic in hindsight. Kinda like Born This Way by Lady Gaga, or even Fuck You by Lily Allen. Like the sentiments are appreciated, but it’s reassuring that the public discourse of queer rights has progressed enough that these songs that aren’t even that old feel so much more dated now.

Anyway, Mary Lambert, the artist behind that song’s beautiful chorus, kind of reverse sampled that and extended it into a full song, which is a beautiful lesbionic piano ballad about being in love with a woman, and this has definitely aged better than the original song. The chorus was always the best part, and as nice as it is having allies, as crucial in fact, sometimes it’s nice to just let the lesbian sing about how much she loves her wife/girlfriend/all women and take a step back.

23: Bloom – Troye Sivan

Bloom – 2018 – Pop

“Tell me right before it goes down
Promise me you’ll
Hold my hand if I get scared now”

Some more floaty indie throwback disco funk as the penultimate track.

Troye Sivan’s ambient gay love song shares a lot with the other tracks on this playlist, and has a quality to it that really takes you along for the ride and puts you into the heart of this man experiencing this new exciting and intimate experience with a lover, that you feel just as nervous as he is in the song, but that excited nervous where you don’t know what to do but you’re so happy it’s happening and you’re doing the thing.

Can you tell I’m running out of words?

24: I Am Her – Shea Diamond

Seen It All – 2018 – Pop

“Don’t care too much what other people say
I get along swell by my goddamn self
Never asked for no-one’s philosophy
It’s obvious I’m proud of me”

Closing up the playlist back on the theme of self-love and acceptance we’re closing with one of my favourite Transgender singers of all time and her signature track.

This song is all about Shea Diamond saying fuck you to a world who says she shouldn’t exist. Written while she was in prison and recorded shortly after her release, this song is a staple of trans empowerment, and I can’t think of a better way to end this playlist than with a trans woman confidently singing “I am her” to the world, loud and proud, unapologetically her.

Queer love takes many different forms, but the way discovering queer identities makes the queer people in my life love themselves more is probably the best thing I’ve ever got to experience. I am so proud of each and every one of you.

And that’s the list – this was a pleasant change of pace, although I do wish I’d had a bit more genre variety, but oh well. I hope you enjoy the generally more positive playlist this time around, at least until I publish my “Queer Wrath” playlist later in the month.

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