Click to Click to listen to male vocal: [Audio clip: view full post to listen]

Dear Peter,

Something always brings me back to you. It never takes too long. No matter what I say or do, I’ll still feel you here ’til the moment I’m gone. You hold me without touch, keep me without chains. I never wanted anything so much than to drown in your love and not feel your rain.

Set me free, leave me be. I don’t want to fall another moment into your gravity. Here I am, and I stand so tall, just the way I’m supposed to be — but you’re on to me, and all over me.

You loved me ’cause I’m fragile — when I thought that I was strong. But you touch me for a little while and all my fragile strength is gone. I live here on my knees as I try to make you see that you’re everything I think I need here on the ground. But you’re neither friend nor foe, though I can’t seem to let you go.

The one thing that I still know is that you’re keeping me down. You’re on to me, on to me, and all over

…Something always brings me back to you. It never takes too long.

Monty

Image: Photographer, sitters, unknown
Vocal: Brent Wilson
Text: Song lyrics, Gravity, by Sarah Bareilles,
imagined here as a letter from one lover to another

Click to hear song:
[Audio clip: view full post to listen]
I got to sing, I got to dance, I got to be a part of a great romance
Still forbidden, still outrageous, only a few around us knew
but no one said a word it was contagious
We looked out the window as we watched the cars fly by
I look at you and I start to cry — what you did was you saved my life –
I won’t forget it

You said even if I left my girlfriend, packed up my stuff, loaded up my car,
Drove down to your house with good intentions and came through your door –
For what’s it worth

I got to love, I rode the rails, you came with me because you cared
I was broke and I was scared, you held my hand and took away my fear
We knew it couldn’t last and that was hard

We looked out the window as we watched the cars fly by
I look at you and I start to cry — what you did was you saved my life –
I won’t forget it

Image: Photographer, subjects, unknown, via Rebecca Wilde/Flickr
Text/Song: For What It’s Worth
Lyrics: Mike Campbell; Performed by: Stevie Nicks

Editor’s note: When I heard For What It’s Worth from the inimitable Stevie Nicks’ new album In Your Dreams, an image of two women who shared longing, love and heartbreak came to my mind. Indeed, I think a new lesbian anthem may be born. I include here only an excerpt of the audio. I highly encourage you to buy the album to hear the whole song, all of the songs, of a brilliant new work. — KH

Click to hear song:
[Audio clip: view full post to listen]
I fell in love with your sound
Oh I love to sing along with you…

Babe we both had dry spells
Hard times in bad lands
I’m a good man – for ya
I’m a good man…

Last night there was a horse in the road
I was twisting in the hairpin
My hands held on my mind let go
And back to you my heart went skipping

I found the inside of the road
Thought about the first time that I met you
All those glances that we stole
Sometimes if you want them then you’ve got to…

You’re not a good shot but I’m worse
And there’s so much where we ain’t been yet
So swing up on this little horse
The only thing we’ll hit is sunset…

Babe we both had dry spells
Hard times in bad lands
I’m a good man for ya
I’m a good man

Editor’s Note: Whenever I hear Josh Ritter’s ‘Good Man,’
there are two men from the old West in my mind’s eye. In love.
Excerpted here is a selection from the lyrics that take me there.
Josh Ritter is a lovely singer and gifted lyricist.
I hope you’ll listen to the song. – kh

Text: Good Man, lyrics by Josh Ritter
Music: Music, lyrics and performance by Josh Ritter
Image: Late 19th century; sitters, photographer, unknown

Click for musical accompaniment:
[Audio clip: view full post to listen]

…I was stationed at Tinker Field in Oklahoma, and assigned a job in the command headquarters on the airbase. Evenings and weekends, I was now free to go into Oklahoma City, and when I was checking out the men’s room of one of the big movie houses downtown, I met two soldiers who were just hanging around in the lounge. They were show-offs, and when they saw me watching them, they both whipped powder puffs from their regulation shirt pockets and flamboyantly powdered their noses, which, considering that they were in uniform, I found hilarious. It was my first introduction to camp, though I still hadn’t learned the word…

…I also went out drinking at a tavern with with a bunch of regular army men from my barracks…

…One night, a master sergeant joined us from the next booth. A baby-faced youth with a southern accent who smoked cigars… Glenn, as it turned out, lived in one of the private rooms at the end of my barracks reserved for noncoms, and I began joining the bull sessions in his room, during which he tied trout fishing flies, his favorite hobby…

…I knew he liked me when he gave me one of his trout flies, which I pinned to my shirt. Sometimes we would walk around the base at night, he’d light a big cigar, and in the darkness I’d be moved by the brilliant desert sky to philosophize, which he would tolerate with grown up amusement, though he was only nineteen himself.

We soldiers were transported back and forth between the airbase and Oklahoma City in the backs of personnel carrier trucks, and it was always a dash to catch the last run around 11:30 P.M.  One night, after a double date with a couple of civilian girls we worked with at HQ, so many GIs piled into the truck that I had to sit on Glenn’s lap, and in the pitch blackness, hanging onto each other as the vehicle bounced over potholes, his lips nuzzled mine and buyddyhood turned into a love affair.

Text: Excerpt from Gay In the Army, by Edward Field (b. 1924),
from a longer excerpt which appears in Gay American Autobiography,
Edited by David Bergman
Image: Army Buddies, 1944, subjects/photographer unknown
via miss magnolia thunderpussy/ipernity
Music: My Dreams Are Getting Better All the Time, 1945
music by Vic Mizzy, lyrics by Manny Curtis,
performed by the Les Brown Orchestra with vocals by Doris Day.

Thanks Stacy and Michele

Matt Alber

hide me in your hollows
taste the salt that clings to me
shipwrecked in your shadows
scented by the sea
hide me in the wisdom of your thighs
ride me like a wave

chart my secret places
navigate my shores
map the ocean’s traces
lick them from my pores
dry me with delusion and desire

ride me like a wave

cover me in spray

promise you will stay

Text: Ride Me Like a Wave, Janis Ian (excerpt)
Audio: Ride Me Like a Wave,
words, music, performance by Janis Ian
Image: Photographer, sitters, unknown,
via bobster855/creativecommons/flickr

Edith Piaf and Théo Sarapo, 1962
Words and music: Michel Emer

Click to hear song:
[Audio clip: view full post to listen]

The rain may fall, the wind may blow, it may get down to 20 below,
But I don’t mind ’cause I’m goin’ to the dance with you.

The rent’s unpaid, the cupboard’s bare, I don’t mind, I won’t despair
‘Cause I’m in love and goin’ to the dance with you.

And when the orchestra plays so sweet and low,
I’ll take your hand and hope you’ll know
How I wish the dance would never end, and how I’d give my love forever.

And I’d be yours, please be mine, you have made my world divine
I’m in love, goin’ to the dance with you.

Text: Goin’ to the Dance With You, excerpt, by Richard Dworsky
Audio: Goin’ to the Dance With You, Shawn Ryan
Image: 1920s, subjects unknown, via Varones/Flickr