Showing posts with label Top 100 Gay Classics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Top 100 Gay Classics. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
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Tuesday, April 8, 2008
My Friday visits at Rookie are ended when I saw him talking sweetly to his girl neighbor. After that incident, I’d convinced my family to give the dog to Rookie to stop us from going to their place anymore. That was the saddest of growing up; the feeling of emptiness after something habitual was untaken. It was pain in the most personal kind. And it took time to unbreak my heart. I’d engaged myself full time with my studies and disco, since around that time it was the craze thing to do during the weekends.
I Will Survive is a song first performed by Gloria Gaynor, released in October 1978. It was written by Freddie Perren and Dino Fekaris. The song's lyrics describe a narrator who finds personal strength while recovering from a break-up; it has often been used as an anthem of female empowerment, a gay anthem, and later on HIV/AIDS awareness--and is a firm favorite on the karaoke circuit. It is one of the most famous disco songs of all time, and easily Gaynor's biggest hit; it received massive airplay in 1979, reaching No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, also in the UK the next day. The song was originally released as the B-side to a Gaynor song called Substitute, a track thought to have more potential for mainstream success by her record label. Disc jockeys began flipping the single over and eventually copies of the record were pressed with I Will Survive as the A-side (Substitute managed to peak at No. 107 on Billboard's Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart). The song was rated No. 9 on George Carlin's 10 Most Embarrassing Songs of All Time. It received the Grammy Award for Best Disco Recording in 1980, the only year that the award was given. It is ranked No. 489 on the Rolling Stone magazine's list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time".
Papa bought our first cassette tape recorder with the Swedish pop group ABBA’s Arrival album. It contained the biggest hit ever recorded by ABBA, Dancing Queen, and as such I consider it to be my signature song. They’d said that it reached the No. 1 position on the pop music charts in 13 countries. I love its opening keyboard and hummed vocals, of Agnetha Fältskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad, are said to be one of the most identifiable sections in pop music. It was written by Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus and Stig Anderson for the group's album Arrival. It has a relatively straight-forward lyric/ storyline; it’s about a seventeen-year-old girl having a good time on Friday night. Not fazed by the social pressures in her daily life as a teenager, all she wants to do is go out and look for a “king” to dance with.
Interestingly, I learned that Dancing Queen was released as a single in 1976 with That’s Me as the B-side. I was ten-year-old then, we’re back in Pittsburg City of the South, and Papa was working this time at the flour mill. Every friday after class, we would visit the old apartment near the steel plant to check the police dog that we left behind. I looked forward to these visits not for our dog but for Rookie, he has grown since we left.
Interestingly, I learned that Dancing Queen was released as a single in 1976 with That’s Me as the B-side. I was ten-year-old then, we’re back in Pittsburg City of the South, and Papa was working this time at the flour mill. Every friday after class, we would visit the old apartment near the steel plant to check the police dog that we left behind. I looked forward to these visits not for our dog but for Rookie, he has grown since we left.
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