Pride Month: (facts about popular songs part three)

LET'S HAVE A KIKI by SCISSOR SISTERS

This fun-fuelled dance track starts as a message that co-vocalist Ana Matronic is leaving on someone's phone. She proceeds to describe her night out at a club, which gets shut down by the cops so she is forced to move the party home.

So what is a 'kiki'? "The term 'kiki' is a drag queen term," Matronic explained to Spinner, "and it's used in the drag community in America to describe a good time. You can have a kiki on the phone with your friend. It also means gossip. Or you might hear a conversation where somebody says, 'Did you go to the club last night?' and you're like, 'Wow, girl, you should have been there. It was a kiki.' It would mean that your friends were all there and you had a good time."

The song became an online hit after Anne Hathaway admitted she was a fan of "Kiki's" on Late Show With David Letterman.

DO YOU REALLY WANT TO HURT ME? by CULTURE CLUB

The four members of Culture Club wrote the songs for their first album Kissing To Be Clever together, with singer Boy George coming up with the lyrics. On this song, he later admitted that he wrote the lyrics about his relationship with their drummer Jon Moss. They had an affair for about six years that was kept hidden from the public, and George often felt hurt and emotional.

At first, Boy George didn't want this released as a single because it was such a personal song for him. When it was released, it hit #1 in 23 countries. Boy George told Q magazine September 2008: "Our first two singles failed. That single was our last chance. But I threatened to leave if (the label) released it. I didn't think it was us; it wasn't club music. It wouldn't stand up to Spandau Ballet. But I was wrong. It was so personal in a way that our other songs weren't. It was about Jon. All the songs were about him, but they were more ambiguous."

This was Culture Club's first single released in the United States. It was a huge and unlikely hit for the British band, who embarked on an American tour in 1983 to gain traction in that country. The song crossed over to Adult Contemporary radio, where most listeners had no idea the lead singer dressed like a girl. MTV, whose library was mostly British bands when they launched, had acclimated their US audience to guys in makeup, so Culture Club wasn't so shocking on the channel and the group developed a huge audience of young people who liked the sound and the look.

The "look" was authentic: Boy George had been wearing makeup and women's clothes since his school days, and while he exaggerated it for publicity, it was his preferred style. In a 1983 Trouser Press interview, the singer explained: "I wear my hair this way 'cause it makes my face look longer, my hat because it makes me look taller, black clothes because they make me look thinner, and makeup because it makes me look prettier."

The band came up with the soft reggae beat and put the song together when they found they had some spare studio time during a recording session for the Peter Powell show on BBC Radio One. Their bass player Mikey Craig brought a Caribbean influence to the band's sound.

Boy George surprised a lot of people who met him in person, as his substantial size and manly speaking voice belied his feminine appearance. At least one line in this song addresses how perceptions can be wrong. He told Musician magazine in October 1983: "There's a line from 'Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?' that says, 'Everything's not what you see,' which is basically what I believe. It's kind of boring when things are just what they are."

In the book 1000 UK #1 Hits by Jon Kutner and Spencer Leigh, Boy George said: "'Do You Really Want To Hurt Me' is a really well-constructed song. It's probably the only proper song we've got with proper chord sequences and keyboard changes in it. It's just very musical. The most powerful songs in the world are love songs. They apply to everyone - especially kids who fall in and out of love more times than anyone else. At the end of the day, everybody wants to be wanted."

In the 1998 film The Wedding Singer, which is set in the '80s, a member of the wedding band named George is clearly modeled after Boy George. At one point, he is thrust into the spotlight and sings this - twice.

In January 2009, one TV news program reporting the demise of the former Culture Club frontman Boy George said it was a case of life imitating art. The previous month, the openly homosexual George O'Dowd was convicted of the false imprisonment of a male escort. He was said to have handcuffed the man to the wall in his London apartment and beaten him with a metal chain. A Guardian correspondent reported that in an apparently accidental allusion to the 1982 hit, Heather Norton for the prosecution, asked the jury: "Did he really have to hurt him?"

At least one newspaper used a similar headline; this was O'Dowd's second conviction in recent years; he had previously been ordered by a US court to sweep the streets of New York for wasting police time after reporting a non-existent crime. Ironically, the video Culture Club made for "Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?" was set in a courtroom.

The concept of the video was Boy George as an outsider, getting kicked out of different places in various historical settings. It was directed by Julien Temple, who came up with the idea of jurors dressed in blackface. This was a shocking image for American audiences, who long associated blackface with racism, but in England it was far more accepted as part of their music hall tradition.

Temple explained in the book I Want My MTV: "'Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?" was about being gay and being victimized for your sexuality, which George was kind of emblematic of. It seemed appropriate to me that in the video he would be judged by jurors in blackface, to send up bigotry and point out the hypocrisy of the many gay judges and politicians in the UK who'd enacted anti-gay legislation."

This was released on September 3, 1982 in the UK to almost universal derision. Smash Hits, for instance, called it, "weak, watered-down fourth division reggae." It only became a hit after Boy George performed the song on BBC music program Top Of The Pops wearing something resembling a white nightie with dreads wrapped in colourful ribbons and a face caked in make up. George recalled in Q magazine: "Our plugger got called and was told. We can't promote this record. What is it? Is it a bird, is it a plane, is it a drag queen. The ensuing tabloid frenzy with the 'Is it a boy, is it a girl' headlines gave the song all the publicity it needed and it zoomed to the top of the charts."

(SING IF YOU'RE) GLAD TO BE GAY by TOM ROBINSON BAND

"(Sing If You're) Glad To Be Gay" by the Tom Robinson Band (TRB) was recorded as part of a live EP in November 1977 and appears on Robinson's critically acclaimed debut album Power In The Darkness. As might be expected, this song calls on homosexuals to "come out" and declare their sexuality with pride. Robinson was an out – though not effeminate – homosexual at the time, although in later life he married and raised a family.
The song contains the interesting couplet:

There's no nudes in Gay News, our one magazine
But they still found excuses to call it obscene

Those familiar with the story behind this claim might beg to differ.

In June 1976, Gay News published a poem by the academic James Kirkup, The Love That Dares To Speak Its Name (a pun on Oscar Wilde). This "poem" described a centurion performing sexual acts on the dead body of Christ, and caused grave offense to many people, especially Christians.

As a result of this, the Christian activist Mrs. Mary Whitehouse (one half of "Mary Long") brought a prosecution for blasphemous libel – the first in Britain since 1921 - against the paper and its editor, Denis Lemon. The trial, in July 1977, resulted in their conviction, a fine for both defendants, and a suspended sentence for Lemon; Kirkup was not prosecuted.

The same issue of the journal contained an article by an anonymous pedophile in defense of his perversion.

Cultural references aside, this song is a bitter attack on the police as much as on the law, a perennial favorite with Robinson.

DON'T LET THE SUN GO DOWN ON ME by ELTON JOHN

This is a song that was influenced by The Beach Boys, and contains contributions from members of the group; Carl Wilson and Bruce Johnston both sang backup. Elton said the Beach Boys "Sound, harmonies, and the way they structured their songs" was an influence on many of his tracks, including this one and "Someone Saved My Life Tonight."

As usual, Bernie Taupin wrote the lyrics. Taupin is a student of words, and was always looking for new ways to present an idea. "I like to be more interesting than a good old 'I love you, you love me, my heart will break if you leave me," he told Esquire. "Throw in a curveball. 'Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me.' Put a dark twist on them."

Regarding the composition of this song, lyricist Bernie Taupin said: "My only recollections of this is that we wanted to write something big. I mean, big in that dramatic Spectory (as in Phil Spector) style, like 'You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'.' Hopefully being powerful without being pompous. I'm not sure that with this in mind it made me fashion the lyrics any differently. Although, in retrospect, they do seem to have a slightly more Brill Building flair to them, so it's entirely possible that I did.

Of course, I always seem to have to revert to a crib sheet to check these things, as I just seem to have a really bad memory of my own work. In fact, it makes me think of a situation that I found myself in a few years ago watching some TV with some friends of mine. There was a game show on where one of the categories happened to be my lyrics. And there were, I believe, five questions, and four of them I got wrong."

Toni Tennille and Daryl Dragon, who would later have several hits and their own TV show as The Captain & Tennille, performed on this. The idea was to have a huge chorus made up of semi-famous singers in the background. Dusty Springfield, as well as members of America and Three Dog Night recorded vocals for the song, but all the voices sounded terrible when mixed together so they just used Wilson, Johnston, and Tennille.

This was extremely difficult and frustrating to record. Elton was not satisfied with any of his vocal takes, and the producer Gus Dudgeon had fits trying to mix all the voices and instruments that went into this. In Philip Norman's book Sir Elton: The Definitive Biography, Dudgeon said, "When Elton recorded this track, he was in a filthy mood. On some takes, he'd scream it, on others he'd mumble it, or he'd just stand there, staring at the control room. Eventually, he flung off his headphones and said, "Okay, let's hear what we got." When Gus played it for him, Elton said, "That's a load of crap. You can send it to Engelbert Humperdinck, and if he doesn't like it, you can give it to Lulu as a demo."

Elton claims he would not have attempted a song like this early in his career. He feels his voice has improved over the years, and by 1974, he had enough confidence and ability to sing with a very broad range.

This was released as a live duet with George Michael in 1991. That version was taken from a George Michael concert in London on March 25, 1991, which was Elton's 44th birthday. Elton appeared as a surprise guest at the show. The duet was a #1 hit in both the US and UK.

If Elton's line "Don't discard me" sounds a little weird, that's because he was doing an exaggerated American accent. Producer Gus Dudgeon was going to bury the line in the mix, but Toni Tenille, who was singing some of the background vocals, convinced him to keep it out front.

The horns heard on the last refrain and at the outro to this song were played by the horn section from the band Tower of Power, who had a hit single in 1972 with "You're Still A Young Man" and another the following year with "So Very Hard To Go."

Oleta Adams recorded this for the album Two Rooms: Celebrating the Songs of Elton John & Bernie Taupin. Other artists who covered the song include Joe Cocker, Obsession, and The Three Degrees. Various orchestras have also recorded the song, including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

Roger Daltry of The Who sang this song in 1987. This version was used in the hit motion picture The Lost Boys.

Nigel Olsson's drumming on this track was an influence on three Guns N' Roses songs. According to GnR drummer Matt Sorum, "November Rain,"
"Don't Cry" and "Estranged" started out as all one song. After they broke them up and were getting ready to record "November Rain," Axl Rose played "Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me."

"I said, 'God, listen to the tom toms on that,'" Sorum told us. "Axl goes, 'Yeah, that's cool. So epic.'"

Sorum worked that drum phrasing into the song, and played the same fills on "Don't Cry" and "Estranged" to unify the tracks.

Caribou was mostly recorded in a mere nine days. It reached #1 in just its second week on the Billboard 200 chart and was certified double platinum by the RIAA.

THE SHOW MUST GO ON by QUEEN

Guitarist Brian May wrote this while lead singer Freddie Mercury was dying of AIDS. It was Mercury's last official album with Queen, and when it was released, very few people knew he had the disease.

The lyrics are about the need to press on and make the most out of life while you can still enjoy it. It is inevitably a comment on Mercury's worsening condition, and his attitude towards life - May noted his incredible courage in the Days of our Lives documentary. "He never moaned, he never said 'my life is s--t, this is terrible, I hate it,'" said May. "He had an incredible strength and peace."

The song's placing as the final track on Innuendo is notable, as it's likely that the band thought that this might be the last album Mercury would be healthy enough to perform on before his death. In the sessions, he made enough recordings to provide the band with material to release the posthumous 1995 album Made In Heaven.

This was used in the movie Moulin Rouge. It is performed in an operatic style by Jim Broadbent and Nicole Kidman in a scene that sets up the climax of the movie.

In a 2005 poll by digital TV channel Music Choice where 45,000 adults across Europe were asked which song they would like played at their funeral, this was the favorite.

The video is mainly just clips of old Queen videos and a few live performances, but it is so cleverly edited and spliced together that it works as a video of it's own.

This song was performed in dramatic style in 1997 with Elton John on guest vocals with an Italian ballet trope. It would be John Deacon's last performance with the band, and last public appearance - he retired from music after the performance.

Pride Month: Facts about Pride Parade

The Stonewall riots (also referred to as the Stonewall uprising or the Stonewall rebellion) were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations by members of the gay (LGBT) community against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn, located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. They are widely considered to constitute the single most important event leading to the gay liberation movement and the modern fight for LGBT rights in the United States.

Gay Americans in the 1950s and 1960s faced an anti-gay legal system. Early homophile groups in the U.S. sought to prove that gay people could be assimilated into society, and they favored non-confrontational education for homosexuals and heterosexuals alike. The last years of the 1960s, however, were very contentious, as many social/political movements were active, including the Civil Rights Movement, the counterculture of the 1960s, and the anti-Vietnam War movement. These influences, along with the liberal environment of Greenwich Village, served as catalysts for the Stonewall riots.

Very few establishments welcomed openly gay people in the 1950s and 1960s. Those that did were often bars, although bar owners and managers were rarely gay. At the time, the Stonewall Inn was owned by the Mafia. It catered to an assortment of patrons and was known to be popular among the poorest and most marginalized people in the gay community: drag queens, transgender people, effeminate young men, butch lesbians, male prostitutes, and homeless youth. Police raids on gay bars were routine in the 1960s, but officers quickly lost control of the situation at the Stonewall Inn. They attracted a crowd that was incited to riot. Tensions between New York City police and gay residents of Greenwich Village erupted into more protests the next evening, and again several nights later. Within weeks, Village residents quickly organized into activist groups to concentrate efforts on establishing places for gays and lesbians to be open about their sexual orientation without fear of being arrested.

After the Stonewall riots, gays and lesbians in New York City faced gender, race, class, and generational obstacles to becoming a cohesive community. Within six months, two gay activist organizations were formed in New York, concentrating on confrontational tactics, and three newspapers were established to promote rights for gays and lesbians. Within a few years, gay rights organizations were founded across the U.S. and the world. On June 28, 1970, the first gay pride marches took place in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago commemorating the anniversary of the riots. Similar marches were organized in other cities. Today, Gay Pride events are held annually throughout the world toward the end of June to mark the Stonewall riots. The Stonewall National Monument was established at the site in 2016.

The month of June was chosen for LGBT Pride Month to commemorate the Stonewall riots, which occurred at the end of June 1969. As a result, many pride events are held during this month to recognize the impact LGBT people have had in the world. Brenda Howard is known as the "Mother of Pride", for her work in coordinating the first LGBT Pride march, and she also originated the idea for a week-long series of events around Pride Day which became the genesis of the annual LGBT Pride celebrations that are now held around the world every June. Additionally, Howard along with fellow LGBT rights activists Robert A. Martin (aka Donny the Punk) and L. Craig Schoonmaker are credited with popularizing the word "Pride" to describe these festivities. As LGBT rights activist Tom Limoncelli put it, "The next time someone asks you why LGBT Pride marches exist or why [LGBT] Pride Month is June tell them 'A bisexual woman named Brenda Howard thought it should be.'"

On several occasions, the President of the United States has officially declared a Pride Month. First, President Bill Clinton declared June "Gay & Lesbian Pride Month" on June 2, 2000. Then, in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016, President Barack Obama declared June Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month.

Google marked any LGBT-related search results in June 2012 with a rainbow colored pattern underneath search results

There are five main Pride events in the UK gay pride calendar: London, Brighton, Leeds, Manchester and Birmingham being the largest and are the cities with the biggest gay populations.

Lesbian Strength March 1983
Pride London is one of the biggest in Europe and takes place on the final Saturday in June or first Saturday in July each year. London also hosted a Black Pride in August and Soho Pride or a similar event every September. During the early 1980s there was a women-only Lesbian Strength march held each year a week before the Gay Pride march. 2012 saw World Pride coming to London.

Brighton Pride is held on the first Saturday of August (apart from the 2012 where event was moved to September due to the 2012 Olympics). The event starts from the sea front and culminating at Preston Park.

Liverpool Pride was launched in 2010, but by 2011 it became the largest free Gay Pride festival in the United Kingdom outside London. (Liverpool's LGBT population was 94,000 by mid-2009 according to the North West Regional Development Agency.

Manchester Pride centres around the famous Canal Street and Is usually held about the 3rd weekend of August.

Birmingham Pride usually takes place during the final Spring bank holiday weekend in May, and focuses on the Birmingham Gay Village area of the city, with upwards of 70,000 people in attendance annually

Pride events also happen in most other major cities such as Belfast, Londonderry, Bristol, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leicester, Sheffield and Newcastle.

Montreal's Gay Pride Parade (in French, Défilé de la fierté gai) is held in mid-August and has taken place every year since 1979, when a group of 200 people commemorated New York City's 1969 Stonewall Riots with "Gairilla", a precursor to Montreal's gay pride parade celebrations. The festivities take place over six days, from Tuesday through Sunday, with events centered on the Gay Village, and in particular, Place Émilie-Gamelin.

Toronto's pride parade has been held yearly since 1981. In 2003 its activists help score a major victory when the Ontario Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling which made same-sex marriage legal in Ontario, the first jurisdiction in North America to do so. By this time the Toronto Pride Week Festival had been running for twenty-three years. It is also one of the largest, attracting around 1.3 million people in 2009. The latest pride parade in Toronto was held on Sunday July 3, 2016. Toronto hosted WorldPride in 2014.

Canada Capital, Ottawa's annual pride parade named Capital Pride is held in late August. Held yearly since 1986 Capital Prides goal is to help educate and promote the issues and interests of the LGBTQ community. In 1998 the Capital Pride Week Committee received a letter of support from Prime Minister Jean Chrétien.

Vancouver's Pride Parade takes place each year during the August long weekend (BC Day falls on the first Monday of August in the province of British Columbia). The parade takes place in the downtown core with over 150 floats moving along Robson Street, Denman Street and along Davie Street. The parade has a crowd of over 150,000 attendees with well over half a million in attendance for the August 4, 2013 Pride Parade.[103][104] New for 2013 are the permanently painted rainbow crosswalks in Vancouver's West End neighbourhood at Davie and Bute streets. The city of Surrey, in the Metro Vancouver area also hosts a Pride Festival, though on a much smaller scale.

New York City's LGBT Pride March began in 1970, as did Los Angeles Pride, Chicago Pride, and Pride San Francisco that year.

The 2011 New York City parade was held just two days after the legalization of gay marriage in the state of New York. Other pride parades include Boston Pride, Rhode Island Pride in Providence, Chicago Pride Parade, Denver PrideFest, Columbus Pride, Cincinnati Pride, Albuquerque Pride, Atlanta Pride, Augusta Pride, Capital Pride, Come Out With Pride (Orlando), Circle City IN Pride, Houston Gay Pride Parade, Jacksonville Pride, Nashville Pride, New Orleans Decadence, San Diego Pride, Long Beach (CA) LGBT Pride, Palm Springs Pride, Philly Pride, Queens Pride, San Francisco Pride, Seattle Pride, St. Louis PrideFest, Portland Pride, Twin Cities Pride (Minneapolis/St. Paul) and Utah Pride Festival, among many others.

The first gay pride parade in Mexico occurred in Mexico City in 1979, and it was attended by over a thousand people. Ever since, it has been held annually under different slogans, with the purpose of bringing visibility to sexual minorities, raising awareness about HIV/AIDS, fighting homophobia, and advocating for LGBT rights, including the legalization of civil unions, same-sex marriages, and LGBT adoption. In 2009, more than 350,000 people attended the gay pride march in Mexico City—100,000 more than the previous year. Guadalajara has also held their own Guadalajara Gay Pride every June since 1996, and it is the second largest gay pride parade in the country. Gay pride parades have also spread to the cities of Monterrey, León, Guanajuato, Puebla, Puebla, Tijuana, Toluca, Cancun, Acapulco, Mérida, Yucatán, Xalapa, Cuernavaca, Chihuahua, Matamoros, Saltillo, Mazatlan, Los Cabos, Puerto Vallarta, and Hermosillo, among others.

There are two cities in Puerto Rico that celebrate pride parades/festivals. The first one began in June, 1990 in San Juan; later in June, 2003 the city of Cabo Rojo started celebrating its own pride parade. The pride parade in Cabo Rojo has become very popular and has received thousands of attendees in the last few years. San Juan Pride runs along Ashford Avenue in the Condado area (a popular tourist district), while Cabo Rojo Pride takes place in Boquerón

The Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras is the largest Australian pride event and one of the largest in the world. The celebrations emerged during the early 1980s after arrests were made during pro-gay rights protests that began in 1978. The parade is held at night with nearly 10,000 participants on and around elaborate floats representing topical themes as well as political messages.

Auckland's City Auckland Pride Festival holds its parade in February every year. In March, Wellington also holds a pride parade during the Wellington Pride Festival.

São Paulo Gay Pride Parade happens in Paulista Avenue, in the city of São Paulo, since 1997. In the year of 2006, it was named the biggest pride parade of the world by Guinness World Records. In 2010, the city hall of São Paulo invested R$1 million in the parade.

The Pride Parade is heavily supported by the federal government as well as by the Governor of São Paulo, the event counts with a solid security plan, many politicians show up to open the main event and the government not rarely parades with a float with politicians on top of it. In the Pride the city usually receives about 400,000 tourists and moves between R$180 million and R$190 million.

The Pride and its associated events are organized by the Associação da Parada do Orgulho de Gays, Lésbicas, Bissexuais e Travestis e Transsexuais, since its foundation in 1999. The march is the event's main activity and the one that draws the biggest attention to the press, the Brazilian authorities, and the hundreds of thousands of curious people that line themselves along the parade's route. In 2009, 3.2 million people attended the 13th annual Gay Pride Parade.

The second biggest Pride Parade in Brazil is Rio de Janeiro Gay Pride Parade, numbering about 2 million people, traditionally taking place in Zona Sul or Rio's most affluent neighborhoods between the city center and the world-famous oceanic beaches, which usually happens in the second part of the year, when it is winter or spring in the Southern Hemisphere, generally characterizing milder weather for Rio de Janeiro (about 15°C in difference), except for some storm and cold fronts which occasionally came from southerly latitudes through the year but most commonly in winter. The Rio de Janeiro Gay Pride Parade and its associated events are organized by the NGO Arco-Íris (Portuguese for rainbow). The group is one of the founders of the Associação Brasileira de Gays, Lésbicas, Bissexuais, Travestis e Transexuais (Brazilian Association of Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals, Transvestites (this word used as a synonym for transgender persons in Brazil) and Transsexuals). Other Pride Parades which happen in Greater Rio de Janeiro take place in Niterói, Rio de Janeiro's ex-capital in the times when Rio was the Brazilian capital and a separated Federal District, and Nova Iguaçu, where about 800,000 persons live and is located in the center of Baixada Fluminense, which compose all northern suburban cities of Rio de Janeiro metropolitan area numbering 3.5 million people.

Other Southeastern Brazilian parades are held in Cabo Frio (Rio de Janeiro), Campinas (São Paulo), Vitória (capital of Espírito Santo), and Belo Horizonte and Uberaba (Minas Gerais). Southern Brazilian parades take place in Curitiba, Florianópolis, Porto Alegre and Pelotas, and Center-Western ones happen in Campo Grande, Cuiabá, Goiânia and Brasília. Across Northeastern Brazil, they are present in all capitals, namely, in Salvador, Aracaju, Maceió, Recife, João Pessoa, Natal, Fortaleza, Teresina and São Luís, and also in Ceará's hinterland major urban center, Juazeiro do Norte. Northern Brazilian parades are those from Belém, Macapá, Boa Vista and Manaus.

Buenos Aires held a pride parade and festival in 2011 that was attended by several thousand people. Argentina was one of the first countries in the Western Hemisphere to legalize gay marriage.