The Sexual Orientation of Our Repertoire

In Glee Club right now, we're singing a diverse range of pieces.  Some of the things we're doing, which will begin the concert, are breathtakingly beautiful.  I'd link to the videos, but there exist no recordings online.  At least two of the others are so contrary to my taste that it causes me pain to sing them.  I'm not linking to them because I don't want to feign endorsing them.

All things considered, I guess it's pretty fair for me to put up with a song about throwing a house party and discriminating against people who choose lifestyles of tranquil civility, even though  that I am personally averse to wasting time and energy on partying away my young life.  I'm ultimately capable of singing yet another rowdy-young-man song about the perils of courting women, despite the fact that it makes me feel like I'm stumbling back into the closet and a façade of oppressive heteronormativity.  And you know, even though one of the songs reminds me of the same kind of Christian evangelism that I thought I escaped after many bitter bouts with my mom in high school, I'll sing it without complaining.

This is because I know that, to everybody who appreciates good music in the audience, there'll be a number of pieces that stick out as far too beautiful to be considered on the same plane as those crowd-pleasers.  And they'll understand why it has to be that way.  Any concert that we do is basically a way to showcase some pieces of music that are beautiful, plus a few pieces that will make the vast majority of people who prefer entertainment to art feel like they spent their money well.  I mean, I really wish that the order of the concert was such that we sang the high-quality pieces at the end, but you can't win them all.  And the Rutgers University Glee Club has an interesting, historical culture of both being the performers of fine men's choral pieces and the representatives of the University's traditions.  I guess the only way to justly represent this college I attend is to include a whole lot of pointless shouting and waving our arms around, because that's apparently a significant part of the "college experience", and most people really quite like it.

I hope that I sound like I'm bashing my social environment and deriding the culture of the state university.  I am.  But more importantly, I'm trying to say that I understand the context of this repertoire, and all of this elitist, judgmental blathering is an inner turmoil that is soundly trumped by a smug satisfaction in my personal, abstract interpretation of the lineup.

For all of the entertainment value that may be found in these fun-filled songs about pop culture and praises to The Male Lord Our God And Opiate, there's enough artistic value in the better pieces to outweigh everything that the lesser ones detract.  In my angsty inner thoughts, the two songs that I enjoy the most so far have some interesting qualities that really appeal to me on a deep, emotional level.

One was commissioned by the New York City Gay Men's Chorus, which gives it an substantial degree of meaning to me.  It speaks of existential crisis, lives filled with pain, and love as the way to triumph over a nihilistic and cruel Universe.  This speaks to me in a big way.

The second piece is another disillusioned question about the nature of our existence, but this time with far more

intimate imagery.

 It was just written, actually, and my interpretation may a bit skewed in this case... nevertheless, the anaphora in the lyrics lends the poem to a substantiably gay interpretation.  Since my director is good friends with the composer, I know for a fact that it's erotic in nature.  When read as something erotic, the poem doesn't seem be as ambiguous as it is without that lens, wherein both the first and second persons have erections by the end of the poem.  

It's pretty standard for men to sing songs about being attracted to women, and it's pretty common for gay men to sing in those choirs and kind of ignore the fact that they're being untrue to themselves.  Personally, I view it as a means to reach a musical apex that transcends the literal meaning of the lyrics.  Although I put massive weight on lyrics to the songs that I listen to, perform of my volition, and put on mixes for friends, I generally end up ignoring the lyrics to songs that I am forced to sing in whatever ensemble I'm in, unless they have some profound meaning that speaks to me.

I'll go out on a limb and suppose that I am particularly picky about which types of songs I relate to. If a song is overtly straight, I feel uncomfortable.  I resent the fact that gay men have to pretend they're straight for all of the music they sing.  I'm sure many gay men don't really mind that much, because that's just the standard for music in the popular domain, especially with the classics that come from a history without canonical homosexuality.   For that reason, I have always just assumed that it'd be something I would deal with, and that would always work unidirectionally.  Now two of the songs we're singing are, albeit neutral in regards to any spectra of gender or sexuality, are pretty much gay.  I mean, one was written for gay men, meaning that the composer must have had a substantial intent to represent that community's particular needs, and the other most likely makes reference to multiple erections in the same bed.

This makes me very happy.  Partly because I can relate with the music better than something like "Girls, Girls, Girls".  Partly because music written by people of non-hetero-cis identities intrinsically have added significance.  But mostly because all the people who have so far been co-opting me into singing for their messages are now being co-opted into singing my message.  These songs, however significant, mean a lot more to me and the other gay men of glee club than they can for the straight men.  Whatever the reasons actually are for its inclusion into our repertoire, it pleases me extravagantly that, for once, based on what I think is a fair interpretation, the straight men are singing gay songs, and not just the other way around.