Speaker 1: Hey, it's Holly. Just a quick note before we start.
Speaker 1: If you're enjoying Because the Buss Belongs to Us so far,
Speaker 1: please tell people. It makes a huge difference to us
Speaker 1: if you like, subscribe and review the show on your
Speaker 1: listening platform, and if you literally just tell your friends
Speaker 1: to listen. We are on a mission, after all, and
Speaker 1: for the sake of science, we need as many people
Speaker 1: as possible to go on this journey with us to
Speaker 1: get Bruce recognized as a queer icon. You can do
Speaker 1: your bit too.
Speaker 2: Because.
Speaker 3: This is episode five of Because the Bus Belongs to Us,
Speaker 3: a podcast where we acknowledge that the world is on fire,
Speaker 3: no one is perfect. And even though sometimes it's particularly
Speaker 3: jarring for people with our politics to spend so much
Speaker 3: time thinking about the queer credentials of a man who
Speaker 3: neither of us knows personally and whose financial situation and
Speaker 3: social status is simply unimaginable for us, it's also fun
Speaker 3: and stupid and a way for us to find meaning
Speaker 3: and joy in our lives.
Speaker 1: In other words, I'm Holly, I'm Jesse, and we're back baby.
Speaker 2: Maybe approach it from a hopeful point of view rather
Speaker 2: than a cynical point of view, Yeah, go with open hearts.
Speaker 3: With so much data guidance from our agony anti CJ.
Speaker 3: Ray last episode, we've decided to complete our mission to
Speaker 3: get Bruce Springsteen recognized as a queer icon with open hearts.
Speaker 1: Before our small crisis of confidence last episode, we decided
Speaker 1: that Bruce is camp. Our second checkles point was does
Speaker 1: Bruce qualify for underdog status.
Speaker 3: To which we said kind of half yes, yes, his
Speaker 3: music makes us feel seen, and then no, because maybe
Speaker 3: the whole checklist point and our relationship to the celebrity
Speaker 3: is a bit icky.
Speaker 1: So now it is time to investigate the next point
Speaker 1: on our is Bruce Bronksteen a queer icon checklist?
Speaker 3: Your queer icons music allows us into our emotions? Can
Speaker 3: you dance to it? Can you cry to it?
Speaker 4: Can you fuck to it?
Speaker 3: That's Tom Rasmussin who helps us figure out our checklist
Speaker 3: in episode one.
Speaker 1: Yes, a queer icons music needs to help us reaccess
Speaker 1: the emotions we got so used to pretending weren't there
Speaker 1: as closeted queer teenagers, which Tom's so eloquently summed up
Speaker 1: as dancing, crying, and fucking.
Speaker 3: Okay, Holly, one of these three mini questions, Can you
Speaker 3: dance to it? Can you cry to it? Can you
Speaker 3: fuck to it? Is a very straightforward.
Speaker 1: Yes, Yes, I think I know the one you're talking about.
Speaker 3: Okay, let's say it on three one two three? Can
Speaker 3: you cry to it?
Speaker 5: Every time I seem live it's the first time I've
Speaker 5: ever seen I go goose pimples. You know, I'll get
Speaker 5: emotional now. It's just when he walks out and he
Speaker 5: guns up, and I know what's coming, and I still
Speaker 5: I'd steal well up. See it's a credit. It is madness?
Speaker 5: Is it really madness?
Speaker 6: Please?
Speaker 3: Welcome to the show. Our tokens Sis White straight man
Speaker 3: to fulfiller diversity Quota. It's ser giopep Pinie aka my
Speaker 3: friend's dad.
Speaker 5: I am sixty two and I've been listening to Bruce
Speaker 5: Springsteen for most of my life, seeing him a good
Speaker 5: few times. It's got to be in the eighties eighty times.
Speaker 3: I think Sergio runs Beppe's calf in London with his
Speaker 3: cousin Daniello. That's what you can hear in the background.
Speaker 3: Beppe's is a fourth generation family business set up in
Speaker 3: nineteen thirty two by Sergio's grandparents who migrated to London
Speaker 3: from Italy. It's a proper classic London calf full fry ups, paninis,
Speaker 3: banging samages, tea coffee, juice delicious. I thought, if we're
Speaker 3: thinking about whether you can cry to Bruce Springsteen's music,
Speaker 3: we had to talk to Sergio.
Speaker 5: There's always a tune that's always gonna make him weep.
Speaker 5: He came in eighty five. We saw him. Saint James's Park,
Speaker 5: Born in USA was just massive and we were in
Speaker 5: seats at the time. I really came out.
Speaker 3: I was.
Speaker 2: Crying. I was crying.
Speaker 3: Can I ask you this about crying? Yeah, go on,
Speaker 3: I'm just wondering about, like if you was like, it's
Speaker 3: it's very it's kind of like ritual vibes, right, like
Speaker 3: following someone around and like yeah, you're going and queuing
Speaker 3: up before and like being really special and like going
Speaker 3: to the front and then like waiting for someone like crying.
Speaker 3: I just wondering whether that's like the space in your
Speaker 3: life where you do crying.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, no, that's a really good point. I suppose
Speaker 5: that's where that is where you Yeah, that's really quite cool. Actually,
Speaker 5: there's something that you you've got something or near mind
Speaker 5: that you and it just literally opened everything. So my
Speaker 5: Luke was ill. Luke was ill, we had cancel.
Speaker 3: Luke is one of Sergio's sons. He had lukemia when
Speaker 3: me and his brother Steph were in school together. A
Speaker 3: few years later, once Luke had got the all clear,
Speaker 3: Sergio went to see Bruce Springsteen in Paris. It was
Speaker 3: a Wrecking Ball tour.
Speaker 1: Wrecking Ball is the last studio album that saxophonist Clarence
Speaker 1: Clarence appears on he passed away in twenty eleven, and
Speaker 1: Wrecking Bowl features the last recorded saxophone solo from the
Speaker 1: Big Man.
Speaker 3: The tour became a kind of dedication to Clarence and
Speaker 3: all he had given to Bruce and the Street Band.
Speaker 3: They'd have his empty chair on stage lit up by
Speaker 3: a spotlight. There was a moment each show where they
Speaker 3: would project a montage of Bruce and Clarence on stage
Speaker 3: together throughout the years.
Speaker 1: I remember being really close to the front of that
Speaker 1: tour and I could literally see the tears on Bruce's eyelashes.
Speaker 3: When Serge went to see him in Paris, one of
Speaker 3: the first songs he played was a track of that album.
Speaker 1: Called We Are Alive, a song that gets into the
Speaker 1: pin beauty and hope that comes with grief.
Speaker 5: They couldn't talk to me for I reckon half an hour.
Speaker 5: I reckon I missed the show. What is brewing inside you?
Speaker 5: Just it must connect somewhere. There must be a release
Speaker 5: of emotion that he sings. And then you, yeah, you
Speaker 5: think of your family, or you think of a problem,
Speaker 5: or you think of a situation. He's got a spell
Speaker 5: over the audience.
Speaker 3: There's a couple of songs and the edge of town
Speaker 3: where he's being like wailing. But does this like screaming?
Speaker 3: And when I have like an emotion to process that
Speaker 3: I don't have words for yet, I'll just put one
Speaker 3: of those songs on and just scream in my room
Speaker 3: as loud as I can. And it's just like released.
Speaker 3: Do you know what I mean? Yeah, no, no nose.
Speaker 5: Obviously you know you were emotional. Because he's emotional, you
Speaker 5: are drawn in and once you're in, it just sucks
Speaker 5: you in.
Speaker 6: You got no chance.
Speaker 5: It tempts you to look to, it brings you in,
Speaker 5: It brings you in, chaws you in, and then you're
Speaker 5: double for.
Speaker 6: And in your DUBFA. I think as simple as that, really, So.
Speaker 3: He do you told this he often saves up his emotions,
Speaker 3: knowing he'll get the cathartic cry of released that he
Speaker 3: needs next time he goes to see Bruce live.
Speaker 1: Every single time I've been to see Bruce live, I've
Speaker 1: seen men crying, which sadly is quite a rare thing
Speaker 1: to I.
Speaker 3: Know we've been focusing on Bruce as a queer icon,
Speaker 3: but I do think this is a real gift that
Speaker 3: Bruce gives all of his fans, this window into accessing
Speaker 3: emotions that, for whatever reason, are hard to face.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's something so beautiful about how his music helps
Speaker 1: all kinds of people cry, not just queer people.
Speaker 3: Which I think definitely makes him iconic. But let's be
Speaker 3: scientists for a second. Yes, of course, in order to
Speaker 3: be certified as a queer icon, Bruce brings to his
Speaker 3: music needs to help people access emotions that they have
Speaker 3: learnt to repress in some kind of coping mechanism around
Speaker 3: queer trauma.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, I've released Bottled Up Anger, crying and shouting
Speaker 1: along to bad Lands at his live shows.
Speaker 3: I've finally let myself cry after a breakup, lying curled
Speaker 3: up on the floor listening to Drive all night.
Speaker 1: I've cried for my lonely teenage emo self dancing to
Speaker 1: No Surrender with my friends, and then rolled right through
Speaker 1: to continue crying to the next song on that album,
Speaker 1: Bobby Jean.
Speaker 3: I've cried missing an experience I never got to have
Speaker 3: listening to Walk Like a Man.
Speaker 1: I'm crying right now thinking about how much he's helped
Speaker 1: me access parts of my more difficult emotions over the years.
Speaker 3: You can definitely cry to Bruce Springsteen.
Speaker 1: You can definitely cry to Bruce Springsteen. Next, can you
Speaker 1: Dance to Bruce Springstein?
Speaker 4: It was Shinky Shonky, a trashy pop queer club.
Speaker 7: This girl came up to me with these pomp poms,
Speaker 7: sort of femin looking girl, and she just sort of
Speaker 7: disappeared and beckoned me to follow her.
Speaker 1: That's after the break. We're back.
Speaker 3: We've split our good music queeric on checklist point into
Speaker 3: three Can you dance to it? Can you cry to it?
Speaker 3: Can you fuck to it?
Speaker 1: We started with the easiest, Yes, you can definitely cry
Speaker 1: to Bruce Springsteen. Now we're on Dance.
Speaker 4: And Tamsin. I'm one half of Unskinny Bop.
Speaker 3: Hi am Rudy.
Speaker 4: I am the other half of Unskinny Pop.
Speaker 1: I took Jesse to meet two absolute legends of my life,
Speaker 1: Rudy and Tamsin, aka DJs and founders of Unskinny Bop,
Speaker 1: a queer club night in London that's been running for
Speaker 1: over twenty years centering fat queer weirders. Rudy and Tamsin
Speaker 1: are also a couple. You heard Tamsin starting to tell
Speaker 1: the story of how they met before the break. When
Speaker 1: Tamsin was in her twenties, she was on the dance
Speaker 1: floor of this club, got a tap on the shoulder
Speaker 1: and it's this hot fem with pomp pom saying something inaudible,
Speaker 1: beckoning Tamsin to follow her, and I was like.
Speaker 7: Oh, I was because I did not the traditionally pull
Speaker 7: at shinky shonky. And then she just disappeared and revealed
Speaker 7: this face looming up.
Speaker 1: At me that would be Rudy's face. The hot fem
Speaker 1: with pomp poms was in fact Rudy's straight sister in law.
Speaker 8: She probably said something along the lines of your vice,
Speaker 8: you fancy me mate. I'd seen Tamsin across the dance
Speaker 8: floor and I think she was one of about three
Speaker 8: girls in the place to be killed. But I'd seen
Speaker 8: her and was like, oh my god, look at that
Speaker 8: American girl. She's so cute, and she had these like
Speaker 8: cool glasses and she.
Speaker 4: Just looked America.
Speaker 7: I was wearing a mohair polar neck so then we
Speaker 7: ended up chatting for a bit. You had a Christina
Speaker 7: Ricci homemade necklace on which I was quite impressed by,
Speaker 7: and we bonded over the fact that we both really
Speaker 7: liked Letigra and yeah, and that was the beginning of
Speaker 7: the rest of my life.
Speaker 1: Rudy and hams In are those kinds of queers that
Speaker 1: are just properly obsessed with music. They started djaying together
Speaker 1: and shared their frustration that they weren't seeing themselves represented
Speaker 1: in a London queer clubbing scene.
Speaker 4: This is bullshit.
Speaker 8: There should be something about like how cool fat people are.
Speaker 8: And so from that idea we were like, let's do
Speaker 8: a disco celebrating fat people in pop and.
Speaker 4: Let's call it on Skinny BOPO.
Speaker 8: At one point we were going to have a tape
Speaker 8: measure on the door, which like you're only allowed in
Speaker 8: if you've got past to sell, and we decided that
Speaker 8: was a bit much, so we ditched that on and
Speaker 8: it was like the it was the formation of like
Speaker 8: our queer community friendship group that like as much as
Speaker 8: much as it was about like doing unskinny boppets, how
Speaker 8: we met all of our friends.
Speaker 7: All the people that we now consider like our best friends,
Speaker 7: who we've known for twenty years. That shared interest, that
Speaker 7: shared politics, and shared tasting music as well, like is
Speaker 7: what really formed those bonds.
Speaker 8: It's just that thing of being on a dance floor
Speaker 8: and screaming out lyrics with people and you all like
Speaker 8: the same songs, and it's a bit too hot, you're
Speaker 8: a bit too close together, You're screaming in each other's faces.
Speaker 4: It's beautiful.
Speaker 1: Queer club nights. Queer dance floors hold so much power
Speaker 1: in this way that dancing and the dark lyric I
Speaker 1: was so obsessed with as a teenager. There's something happening somewhere, babe.
Speaker 1: I just know that there is. That came true for
Speaker 1: me on Skinny Up. It's where I found so much
Speaker 1: of my queer community. And not to be all suppy,
Speaker 1: but I actually met my partner screaming meat laugh into
Speaker 1: each of the's faces at the Buck.
Speaker 7: And sometimes we know it will clear the dance floor
Speaker 7: to play I don't notice slater kiddie album tracker like
Speaker 7: quarters to two, but we know that there are, like
Speaker 7: there will have been somebody there who's been badgering us
Speaker 7: all night and they have been dancing all night to everything,
Speaker 7: and we will they.
Speaker 8: Deserve, but we do like to reward people.
Speaker 1: Are you talking about me? Not even?
Speaker 4: Not even?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 8: I think there's something about being obsessive about music when
Speaker 8: you're like technically an adult that is very queer. I
Speaker 8: think some straight people do it as well, but I
Speaker 8: think it's like quite a thing for queer people that
Speaker 8: we like. That's part of how we do our queerness.
Speaker 1: In a way, this is a queer thing that actually
Speaker 1: transcends music. I think I'm definitely someone who just doesn't
Speaker 1: know how to love things and not amount and I
Speaker 1: love other people who are obsessed in the same way.
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly literally, that's why we're friends. This whole pocus
Speaker 3: is proof that we do not know how to just
Speaker 3: casually like something.
Speaker 1: Tams In and Rudy are obviously the same. So when
Speaker 1: it came to Bruce and where the queers can dance
Speaker 1: to his music, they had a million opinions.
Speaker 8: I think there's maybe a longer history of femininity being
Speaker 8: like queered, shall we say, I think it's like a
Speaker 8: newer phenomenon as part of dyke culture to be like
Speaker 8: queerying masculinity in a similar way, it's like that Dike
Speaker 8: camp thing, which I think Bruce like. So you know
Speaker 8: some of the outfits that Bruce has on. It's just
Speaker 8: such classic dyke looks in terms of like songs themselves.
Speaker 8: I think it's like there's got to be a bit
Speaker 8: of camp in the either camp or pathos, and ideally
Speaker 8: like a bit of a mix of the two.
Speaker 3: A tiny producer pup in here we interviewed Rudy and
Speaker 3: Tamsin in their home. Well, some pretty serious building work
Speaker 3: was going on. You might hear some funny noises in
Speaker 3: the background.
Speaker 7: I mean quite often we have wanted to play Born
Speaker 7: to Run and I've said, no, it's not gonna not
Speaker 7: gonna work.
Speaker 4: Like in the moment it would. We really disagree on
Speaker 4: this point. Have we not DJed it? We must have?
Speaker 7: But it doesn't it It dies a death. Holly is
Speaker 7: the only one dancing. It doesn't have I'm going to
Speaker 7: say the word that you don't like grooves.
Speaker 8: It's a screaming your lungs out on the dance floors.
Speaker 4: That's true.
Speaker 8: That's the point of it on a dance floor, is
Speaker 8: it's more like you jump and scream.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 8: The one that we've dj' the most is danced in
Speaker 8: the dock, and we've never had a point where I've
Speaker 8: never regretted.
Speaker 6: I'm not going to get this.
Speaker 7: I think it's the Y word yearning. His esthetic is
Speaker 7: I am alienated from love and from society. I mean,
Speaker 7: I've got a Bruce inspired tattoo from racing in the
Speaker 7: streets on my on my leg.
Speaker 4: It says easily found. And it's just it's just a
Speaker 4: little gap filler. But like there's something about that.
Speaker 7: Line where she wants to see me tell her I'm
Speaker 7: easily found. Is like my yearning is so craven and
Speaker 7: so desperate, and it is so obvious that it should
Speaker 7: be this like lighthouse to the people that I want
Speaker 7: to love me. That's how that's kind of like how
Speaker 7: I relate.
Speaker 1: To that in a moment that.
Speaker 4: I've just realized it's darkness on the turn, not racing
Speaker 4: the street.
Speaker 7: But now I realized that, I was like, oh no,
Speaker 7: but you know, edit it, well, you can edit away.
Speaker 7: But they're both both those songs. They both convey that
Speaker 7: same energy.
Speaker 4: To me, well, they actually belong together.
Speaker 1: There's two sons really that their book and each other.
Speaker 1: It's the same character, the same woman he's singing about,
Speaker 1: the woman that's in Racing on the Street is the
Speaker 1: one that's left him in darn.
Speaker 4: Thank you for validating me.
Speaker 1: Okay, So DJ Legends on Skinny Bop say yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: you can dance to Bruce Brinsteen's music. And even more
Speaker 1: than that, the lyrics have got enough queer meaning in
Speaker 1: them that Tamsin got them etched in to her skin forever.
Speaker 3: But for tams In, just because his music is great
Speaker 3: doesn't necessarily make him eligible for icon status.
Speaker 4: I'm on the fence, you know.
Speaker 7: I firmly believe that there are like sort of five
Speaker 7: or six Bruce songs that are queer anthems that I
Speaker 7: love and will love till the day I die. But
Speaker 7: I don't know if it makes him an icon. I
Speaker 7: don't know if I would describe as a queer icon.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're running into the same problem we had in
Speaker 3: episode three with Naomi Gordon lerbul There just is a
Speaker 3: difference between getting meaning from someone's songs and making the
Speaker 3: person who wrote those songs into a queer icon.
Speaker 7: I love streets of Philadelphia the song, was completely in
Speaker 7: love with it.
Speaker 1: Bruce wrote Streets of Philadelphia in nineteen ninety three for
Speaker 1: the film Philadelphia, the first mainstream film to tell the
Speaker 1: story of a gay man during the AIDS crisis.
Speaker 7: I guess he put his neck on the line to
Speaker 7: associate himself with a film about a gay man with
Speaker 7: AIDS at a time when you know, a lot of
Speaker 7: big names would not have touched that.
Speaker 4: I love him for that, and he's you know, he's
Speaker 4: a good egg. Might not be a far right.
Speaker 6: There you go, there you go.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 1: So Bruce has a track record of showing support for
Speaker 1: the queer community, and we feel like we can dance
Speaker 1: and crit his music. But for tams In, that's still
Speaker 1: not enough for icon status.
Speaker 3: What would be enough? That's next, Jesse Holly, because the
Speaker 3: bus belongs to us. We know that.
Speaker 1: Queers can definitely cry and dance to Bruce Springsteen, but
Speaker 1: we're unsure about whether queer is liking your music is
Speaker 1: the same as being a queer icon who makes good music.
Speaker 1: We are scientists. We need to dig deeper, get more granular.
Speaker 1: We need someone on a new level of technical analysis.
Speaker 2: I was actually just playing around with the drums for
Speaker 2: one of the tracks in the podcast.
Speaker 3: This is Alex.
Speaker 2: I make music as talk bizarre. I'm making the music
Speaker 2: for this podcast, this delightful podcast.
Speaker 3: Alex is someone who I can only describe as a
Speaker 3: musical witch. They understand sound like no one else.
Speaker 2: I like learned how to process my feelings first and
Speaker 2: foremost through kind of reflecting it back to myself in
Speaker 2: music form. My strongest language, I think is music and
Speaker 2: sound before like a. I don't know. I'm struggling to
Speaker 2: talk about it because English is my second language.
Speaker 3: Our executive producer, Jasmine J. T. Green went to visit
Speaker 3: Alex in their music studio slash bedroom in Little Haiti,
Speaker 3: the heart of Flatbush, Brooklyn.
Speaker 2: Welcome to my home, my home, my studio, the place
Speaker 2: that I should probably leave more. Can see that I've
Speaker 2: been expanded. Oohoo, there's no room. You walk in through
Speaker 2: the doors and you are instantly met by a tall
Speaker 2: tower of synths, on top of which is a fashionista ken.
Speaker 2: This was a birthday present when I had longer hair,
Speaker 2: and I kept it in a bun. My dad just
Speaker 2: couldn't get over it, I guess, And so for Christmas
Speaker 2: one year, I received this illustrious fashionista Ken with a bun.
Speaker 2: This is where I've been making all the music for
Speaker 2: the podcast where all the magic happens.
Speaker 6: Oh my god, So the energy of Bruce is literally
Speaker 6: in these walls.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Alex made almost all the music you hear in
Speaker 1: the podcast, even including the little checklist sounds we're using.
Speaker 3: It's such a tough brief through musician to make a
Speaker 3: body of music which is a nod to and a
Speaker 3: celebration of Bruce Springsteen and his queer repeal without actually
Speaker 3: copying any of Bruce Springsteen's work.
Speaker 1: A fun thing that came out of it for Alex
Speaker 1: was I started hearing Bruce's songs in a whole new light.
Speaker 2: I had a great time going through the archives and
Speaker 2: like actually listening to what's happening. The drum sound like this,
Speaker 2: and the reverb sound like this, sound like this, sound
Speaker 2: like this, big classic gated reverb on the snare. I
Speaker 2: got to get really like nerdy and granular and vnular.
Speaker 2: There's so little happening. Actually, every time I like approach
Speaker 2: music with like a critical Okay, if I was gonna
Speaker 2: make this, how would I make it? Kind of brain?
Speaker 2: Nine times out of ten I come back with the
Speaker 2: realization that, oh, it's really very simple. There's maybe like
Speaker 2: some little thing like the bells and Born to Run
Speaker 2: or like the synth in Born in the USA, But
Speaker 2: it's like, it's usually very simple, but it doesn't feel
Speaker 2: boring because it's like the sound of a band in
Speaker 2: a room playing rock and having a great time. Music
Speaker 2: is linear through time. You don't see a moment of
Speaker 2: music like you see a picture, right. You experience music
Speaker 2: through time, and the way that a live band moves
Speaker 2: through time is dynamic and ever changing. And even if
Speaker 2: you can't pick out the fact that the snare is
Speaker 2: a little bit offset on the next measure, you feel
Speaker 2: it and you move with it. And that's what keeps
Speaker 2: these recordings so alive, even though it's there's not that
Speaker 2: much going on.
Speaker 6: So the interesting point figuring out if Pruse is in
Speaker 6: fact a queer icon is that like a queer icon
Speaker 6: must make quote music that narrates a certain part of
Speaker 6: a queer person's emotional life. This idea totally hits for me,
Speaker 6: Like I'm thinking about like the moment when I was
Speaker 6: like a little kid. My queer icon and still to
Speaker 6: this day is Anita Baker. Oh Yeah, particularly rapture for
Speaker 6: me as a child who could not express herself with
Speaker 6: words out of a degree of fear, trauma, et cetera,
Speaker 6: et cetera. That record has punctuated so many points in
Speaker 6: my life where it's like I don't have words, but
Speaker 6: Anita does that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I'm all in on this criteria. I
Speaker 2: think that often the music that pulls me out of
Speaker 2: dissociation maybe fits into kind of like two camps. I
Speaker 2: guess both of the directions that I will take kind
Speaker 2: of existed at a similar point in my life when
Speaker 2: maybe I I was also actively learning to bottle things up.
Speaker 2: One direction is like Joni Mitchell sad Girl, Like I
Speaker 2: listened to Blue obsessively. I was actually looking back at
Speaker 2: old recordings of my first band yesterday, and all of
Speaker 2: my songs were about becoming a man or being a man.
Speaker 2: And also at this time I was like alone in
Speaker 2: my car scream singing along to Blue. Also at the
Speaker 2: same time was like me discovering like fortet and very
Speaker 2: like heady dancy things. Nobody I knew in my school
Speaker 2: listened to Fortet and I couldn't talk to anyone about that.
Speaker 2: And I didn't talk to anyone about that. I just
Speaker 2: played it really loud and I had a good time.
Speaker 2: Those both feel like moments in like young years, as
Speaker 2: I started to learn to hide myself from myself.
Speaker 6: Where does Bruce fall into this mix?
Speaker 2: It should, of course, first be said, I grew up
Speaker 2: in the greatest state in this here Union, New Jersey.
Speaker 2: Home of Bruce. I grew up just outside Princeton, in Princeton,
Speaker 2: right on Nassau, very close to Hogi Haven, the place
Speaker 2: that changed my life. There was a bust of Bruce
Speaker 2: that was It was in that the gas station. For
Speaker 2: a while. It was like at a roundabout kind of nearby.
Speaker 2: I don't know where it is anymore because I haven't
Speaker 2: really been in a while, but Bruce was a presence
Speaker 2: lurking around every corner. Bruce was a super macho idea.
Speaker 2: So me young, wanting a simple answer, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 2: Bruce is doing it right. I should be like Bruce.
Speaker 2: And to be like Bruce is to kind of say
Speaker 2: nothing while saying a lot all at once, such beautiful
Speaker 2: liberal and nothing writing songs about the things he saw
Speaker 2: in a way that seems really candid and is but
Speaker 2: doesn't really rock many boats. I love you, Bruce, so yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, how do you, Yeah, how do you? How
Speaker 2: do you move forward in this when when beautiful music
Speaker 2: is made and everyone is flawed and we're trying to
Speaker 2: figure it out.
Speaker 6: I'd say there's nothing more queer than that, right.
Speaker 2: I think that is right. Yeah. I've been able to
Speaker 2: access a lot more enjoyment in Bruce world as I
Speaker 2: have come to terms with masculinity and what it means
Speaker 2: for me. My relationship with Bruce has changed because I
Speaker 2: understand like Camp and like this is something silly, right,
Speaker 2: Like what machismo is is silly, and we can also
Speaker 2: have fun with that. So that's been the arc, and
Speaker 2: now it's fun, and now I'm having fun.
Speaker 3: I didn't know any of this Bruce backstory when I
Speaker 3: first met Alex. They're the partner of one of my
Speaker 3: best friends in the world, and we were introduced in
Speaker 3: a way. I've become accustomed to you, which is something
Speaker 3: along the lines of, hey, Jesse, Alex likes Bruce Ta.
Speaker 2: I love Bruce as much as I am critical of
Speaker 2: Bruce the first time I met Jesse lu By the
Speaker 2: end of the night, we were screaming thunder Road together
Speaker 2: in a subway station. Bruce is so much more than Bruce.
Speaker 2: Music is contextual. Music leaves the person making it and
Speaker 2: becomes something that is actively created and fortified by everyone
Speaker 2: else who engages in it. And I love thunder Road
Speaker 2: not just because Bruce said it, but because we all
Speaker 2: get to say it to each other there.
Speaker 1: I have always said that the queerest thing about Springsteen's
Speaker 1: music is the wailing. There's this specific kind of howling
Speaker 1: scream that he does which just goes right through me
Speaker 1: every time it comes up in a few songs something
Speaker 1: in the Night that Jesse mentioned when we talked to Sergia.
Speaker 2: And Backstreets, he's really hitting that scream over and over again,
Speaker 2: and it's delightful and it's like, oh, yeah, me too.
Speaker 2: It's literally the sound of abusing your vocal cords. It
Speaker 2: is the sound of pain, literally what I was like
Speaker 2: learning how to sing and things. One thing that I
Speaker 2: learned was that there's so much magic in that space
Speaker 2: just beyond the things you are comfortably physically capable of,
Speaker 2: where you can still make that noise, but if you
Speaker 2: screamed like backstre It's in every song the whole time,
Speaker 2: you would not be able to tour the way that
Speaker 2: Bruce does. Right, So it's like this kind of like
Speaker 2: fleeting transient moment to kind of transcend your body even
Speaker 2: though you are still in your body for that moment.
Speaker 2: When we hear someone using their body in a way
Speaker 2: that is clearly unsustainable but is kind of necessary for
Speaker 2: the thing you're trying to externalize, that's kind of like
Speaker 2: inarguably human.
Speaker 1: To be honest, for me, this technical musical analysis of
Speaker 1: Bruce's scream is credit enough to say that his music
Speaker 1: qualifies for queer icon status. If the broad question is
Speaker 1: does their music make us feel things that we've kept
Speaker 1: hidden from ourselves for fear of shame, rejection, or danger,
Speaker 1: then I honestly challenge anyone listening to go and play
Speaker 1: Backstreets or something in the night and not be moved
Speaker 1: by that sound that Alex just described so beautifully.
Speaker 3: Yes, I agree, But we weren't just here for the
Speaker 3: technical details. There is one more important question we needed
Speaker 3: Alex to answer. We've said you can dance to Bruce Springsteen.
Speaker 1: We've said you can cry to Bruce Springsteen.
Speaker 2: You could totally fuck to Bruce go to town, but
Speaker 2: I can't do that. There was a bust of him
Speaker 2: in my local gas station. It's too close to home.
Speaker 6: So that is a no for you. In regards to
Speaker 6: putting Bruce on the Sex SCE mixtape.
Speaker 2: I don't see it for myself, and as much I
Speaker 2: know you know, I'm pretty open minded, I am willing
Speaker 2: to be convinced otherwise.
Speaker 3: You better know we were prepared for this Queers and
Speaker 3: Stem deal. In evidence. To secure our findings, Alex listened
Speaker 3: to three songs that we think could be included on
Speaker 3: a world class sex playlist.
Speaker 2: Okay, so I've just started playing I'm on Fire.
Speaker 3: Song one. I'm on Fire from the album Born in
Speaker 3: the USA.
Speaker 2: You've got the like palm muted guitars, and the like
Speaker 2: gentle mellow. Since it sets the scene it's nighttime, you've
Speaker 2: spent hours looking into each other's eyes over at Martini. Oh,
Speaker 2: Bruce just started singing, Yeah, he's really tender in this one.
Speaker 2: I can fuck to this. Yeah, I have to go.
Speaker 1: Check you can fuck to I'm on Fire. The second
Speaker 1: song is Prove It All Night from Darkness on the
Speaker 1: Edge of Town.
Speaker 2: I am less immediately down to fuck to this. It's
Speaker 2: like a little too cheery and bubbly for me. He
Speaker 2: started to sing, He's got more of the like I'm
Speaker 2: Bruce and I'm having fun and it's working. But it's
Speaker 2: a little too close maybe to like all the funny
Speaker 2: connection that have in my head to Bruce. So this
Speaker 2: one doesn't make the cut for me. I think.
Speaker 3: Okay, so we're in one yes and one not. Let's
Speaker 3: see if we can get a majority without a last
Speaker 3: song from the album the Promise.
Speaker 2: I have just pressed play on Fire by Bruce Springsteen,
Speaker 2: and this feels more fuckable than our previous entry. It's
Speaker 2: still got a bounce, It's got like that kind of
Speaker 2: muted bass. It's really round. The tambourine is doing its thing,
Speaker 2: keeping things moving, but it's a little less in your
Speaker 2: face than prove it all night, which I appreciate. I
Speaker 2: need my own room to spread out in however I
Speaker 2: would like, and Bruce is allowing me that we've picked up.
Speaker 2: The snare has entered. It's propulsive. There's a little organ
Speaker 2: in the corner keeping it groovy. I think what I'm
Speaker 2: learning for myself is that if Bruce is doing too much, Bruce,
Speaker 2: then I don't want to. But when Bruce is leaving
Speaker 2: room for the East Group Bend to also do their thing,
Speaker 2: and obviously you know Bruce is doing the thing on
Speaker 2: this and I'm having a good time. Yeah, I'm in
Speaker 2: on this one.
Speaker 4: All right.
Speaker 1: We have proved in this episode that you can dance, cry,
Speaker 1: and fuck to Bruce Sprinsteen's music.
Speaker 3: In other words, Bruce Bingstein's music can and does help
Speaker 3: us access the emotions we've learnt to associate from due
Speaker 3: to being queers who live in a homophobic and transphobic society.
Speaker 1: So that's basically three out of four items on our
Speaker 1: checklist fulfilled. Bruce is camp. Even if Bruce Sprinksteen himself
Speaker 1: is somewhat still a question mark ari being rooted for
Speaker 1: as an underdog, there is a sense of struggle in
Speaker 1: his lyrics and stories that we vibe with as queer people.
Speaker 3: And we basically decided it was a bit icky anyway
Speaker 3: to root it and tootle around for struggle in celebrities
Speaker 3: personal lives. So that's it, Yes, and I'm too underdog.
Speaker 1: Status And we've just spent this episode conclusively proving with
Speaker 1: scientific eviddents that you can dance, cry, and fuck to
Speaker 1: Bruce Springsteen's music, and that his music helps trag us
Speaker 1: back from years of association.
Speaker 3: All we have left is to see if other queer
Speaker 3: people would be willing to recognize Bruce as a queer icon.
Speaker 1: To how do we go about doing that convincing.
Speaker 3: That's next episode, Because the Bass belongs to Uds.
Speaker 1: As a production of Malton Hart and iHeart Podcasts were
Speaker 1: hosted by Jesse Lawson and Holly Cassio.
Speaker 3: The series is executive produced by Jesse and Holly and
Speaker 3: created by Jesse Lawson.
Speaker 1: This episode was produced and sound designed by Jesse Lawson,
Speaker 1: with production assistants by Tess Hazel. Michelle macklum is our
Speaker 1: mix engineer.
Speaker 3: Our original music and theme is by Talk Bazaar at
Speaker 3: Talk b a z AAR Underscore, and our show art
Speaker 3: was designed and illustrated by Holly Cassio at Holly c Asio.
Speaker 1: Fact Check in Serena Solin. Legal services provided by Rowan,
Speaker 1: Moran and File.
Speaker 3: Our executive producer from Modern Heart is Jasmine J. T. Green.
Speaker 3: Our executive producer from iHeart Podcasts is Lindsay Hoffman.
Speaker 1: Don't forget to review the show on your podcast platforms.
Speaker 3: And tell your friends to listen. It makes a huge difference.
Speaker 3: Bye bye bye