Music, Please! - Tear Stained Teens, Drama & Dreams Pt.1
"Sometimes I wish I were a boy"
Feminist voices of the 60’s, across RnB, Motown, Popcorn, Girl Groups and Northern Soul.
The growing pains of 60’s teenagers were dramatised in popular music by a myriad of forgotten song writers and performers. These heartfelt songs explored parental disapproval, sexual relationships and wider intergenerational politics. Many of the songs speak of constraints, of hidden lives, yearning for lovers who are seen as taboo, or relationships that will transform them, or for escape to places where they can truly be themselves.
The highly emotional and often ambiguous tone of these ‘three minute soap operas’ addressing un-requited love and heartbreak, teenage shame, secrets, betrayal, joy, devotion and envy - also provided a fertile canvas for the imagination of emerging Gay, Lesbian and gender different communities. Within these melodic narratives negational spaces opened, allowing subversive re-imaginings and non-normative readings.
Othered communities superimposed their own validating interpretations, and through imagination and hope forged their own understandings, taking ownership of these songs meanings, and the artists who performed them, as anthems and icons for their own lives.
Your friendly boy next door.
≈Ω HuussH Ω≈
Shangri-las - out on the streets
The Shirelles - doomsday
Dionne Warwick - are you there with another girl?
Annabell Fox - lonely girl
dialogue fragment - "carry your comb & lipstick"
Aizie Mortimer - lips
Bernadette Carroll - he's just a playboy
Barbara Chandler - it hurst to be sixteen
Erma Franklin - I don’t want no mama’s boy
Donna Lynn - I’d much rather be with the girls
dialogue fragment - "my stack of records keeps getting larger"
Joan Moody - we must be doing something right
Cathy Saint - big bad world
The Secrets - the boy next door
Patrice Holloway - stolen hours
dialogue fragment - dating courtesy tip from Mary Weiss
Lesley Gore - sometimes i wish i were a boy
Linda Kaye - i cant stop thinking about you
Jeanie - i love him
dialogue fragment - "parking in cars with boys"
Diane Renay - watch out sally!
Tracey Dey - who's that
Nancy Sinatra - lightning's girl
The Whyte Boots - nightmare
The Goodees - condition red
Robin Ward & The Rainbows - in his car
Lorraine Childs - you
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