Content Warning: Discussion around LGBT+ suicide.
It’s often assumed if not downright wrongfully taken for granted that country music is a homophobic and at best a heteronormative genre. Even though people like Dolly Parton and Kacey Musgraves are known for being strong LGBT+ allies, they are very much treated as exceptions to the rule when it comes to country music. Such totalising narratives around country music exclude a number of people and experiences both of musicians and audiences who engage with the genre. This blog will use Wright’s 2010 album: Lifted Off The Ground released after her public coming out to demonstrate how country music has particular potential to give voice to different kinds of LGBT+ experiences and narratives.
It should be acknowledged that there have been LGBT+ performers in the genre for some time, such as Lavender Country in 1975 and K.D Lang in the late ‘80s and ‘90s. Although I only know of a small number of LGBT+ artists, they do indicate potential within the genre to speak to LGBT+ experiences, and perhaps in ways not as readily accessible within other genres. One thing that uniquely resonates with me in country music is its emotional directness and the number of songs that mention loneliness and other stigmatised emotions directly is striking. Country has a particular way of working with emotions, particularly in its “sad songs” which rely on audiences identifying with them and believing the singer is expressing what they, the listener are feeling. Through this experience the listener feels less alone and feels more connected and grounded to the world. Songs such as Hank Williams’ ‘I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry’ typify this. For LGBT+ people who have experienced loneliness, rejection, alienation, heartbreak, loss or anything else, country music should have a lot to offer.
Chely Wright’s Lifted Off The Ground explicitly brings LGBT+ experience into the emotional world of country music. Chely Wright rose to prominence during country’s pop crossover boom in the 90s and early 00s, but was also able to adapt to a more neotraditional country sound, giving her a degree of success particularly in the US country market. Throughout Wright’s success, she was in the closet and her unhappiness drove her to considering suicide. Lifted Off The Ground was in some ways Wright’s way of working through those feelings, reckoning with that period of her life, and by recording them have made those reflections available to other people that may be experiencing similar things. The album was released at the same time as Wright released her autobiography following her having publicly come out and very much resonates with Wright’s autobiography.
Album opener ‘Broken’ invites the listener to let their guard down and feel their brokenness with the singer. This emotional honesty and receptivity to it from the listener enables the experience of relatedness to come about. ‘Broken’ is about this process of moving from isolated brokenness to meaningful connection. The first time we hear the word broken it is the singular singer ‘I’m broken,’ the second time it is the implied listener ‘you’re broken,’ and every other time it is ‘we’re broken.’ The song moves the singer and listener from being alone in their pain to a sense of empathy, compassion and understanding. From the very first track, Wright positions this album within a well-established tradition of country music affect.
There are two songs on the album that particularly evoke Wright’s own experiences, and ones that might resonate with some of her LGBT+ listeners: ‘Notes To The Coroner’ and ‘Object Of Your Rejection.’ ‘Notes To The Coroner’ can be interpreted as being about Wright’s own suicidal thoughts. Around the early 2010s I remember increased awareness within the public consciousness of LGBT+ mental health, suicide and the links with homophobic and transphobic bullying and societal stigma and rejection. ‘Notes To The Coroner’ very much speaks to this reality and the emotionally direct language of country music gives frank expression to the feelings: ‘terminal sadness, chronic regret/ big ball of pain in pyjamas.’ The song seeks to resonate with these experiences as well as demonstrating that these experiences and by extension LGBT+ people belong in country music.
Object Of Your Rejection’ strikes a much more defiant tone holding people who reject her to account for their behaviour: ‘But you can't always get away treatin' people like shit/ And expect it won't catch up with you someday.’ Whereas the previous song worked to create a sense of shared compassion, this song gives listeners and the singer a sense of agency, justice and perhaps implicitly peace. The album then closes with hope that the singer and listen can ‘let go of feelin’ alone’ on with the song 'Shadows of Doubt.' From going through the pain and directly confronting and giving voice to the loneliness and isolation, Wright has used the affective tools of country music to work to arrive at a place of peace and strength, that in its particular way I would argue is empowering and positive for LGBT+ listeners. Especially those who are already invested in country music, like myself, having someone give voice to these feelings and experiences within country music is invaluable.
Here in 2020 there are positive signs that things are changing for LGBT+ people in country music. Not only are more and more country singers generally openly supportive and accepting of LGBT+ people, but in the last year alone there were a number of LGBT+ artists registering in and around the country music mainstream. From Lil Nas X’s ‘Old Town Road;’ to Brandi Carlile, whose lead vocal on the Highwomen’s ‘If She Ever Leaves Me’ is explicitly about a relationship between two women; to Orville Peck whose music is a queer pastiche of the country genre and yet I’d argue some country ‘sincerity’ not too far away from Hank Williams sneaks in; to singer-songwriters like Brandy Clark; not only are there more LGBT+ country artists, but the variety of expression from these artists is also expanding. This is definitely worth celebrating this LGBT+ History Month!
If anyone has been affected by any of the issues in this article the Samaritans website is here: https://www.samaritans.org
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