[MUSIC] Joe Jackson, "Real Men"
Oct. 18th, 2005 11:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldI first heard "Real Men" as interpreted by Tori Amos on Strange Little Girls, the last track, bringing an uneven album to an interesting speculative close. When I heard the original version--track #8 off of British singer-songwriter Joe Jackson's 1982 album Night and Day--I discovered how closely Amos imitated Jackson's original, down to the intonations of the singer's voice and his instrumentation of pianos and strings, a slow and thoughtful song. I won't say that Amos' version is redundant, because it isn't; I will say that Joe Jackson is clearly the master of the chanson bien faite.
One reason--perhaps the reason--I like this song, whether performed by Jackson or by Amos, is because I first heard this song at just the time I began to wonder about my gender identity in relation to my sexual orientation. It wasn't so much gender panic on my part, I think, as my complete uncertainty as to how I was perceived by others, and how gender and orientation were related, and how I should start to try to determine some sort of personal policy apart from "unconscious drift."
I've since moved towards something somewhat like actor and porn star Gus Mattox's (decidedly not work-safe!) ideas in my personal life. At the time, back in those frightening exhilarating days of 2002, "Real Men" likely was the first thing that came to my mind as any sort of pop-cultural guide to the terrain I was trying to navigate. Hence my sympathetic negative nostalgia, of a sort, for this song.
One reason--perhaps the reason--I like this song, whether performed by Jackson or by Amos, is because I first heard this song at just the time I began to wonder about my gender identity in relation to my sexual orientation. It wasn't so much gender panic on my part, I think, as my complete uncertainty as to how I was perceived by others, and how gender and orientation were related, and how I should start to try to determine some sort of personal policy apart from "unconscious drift."
What's a man now - what's a man mean
Is he rough or is he rugged
Is he cultural and clean
Now it's all change - it's got to change more
'Cause we think it's getting better
But nobody's really sure
[. . .]
See the nice boys - dancing in pairs
Golden earring golden tan
Blow-wave in the hair
Sure they're all straight - straight as a line
All the gays are macho
Can't you see their leather shine
You don't want to sound dumb - don't want to offend
So don't call me a faggot
Not unless you are a friend
Then if you're tall and handsome and strong
You can wear the uniform and I could play along
And so it goes - go round again
But now and then we wonder who the real men are
I've since moved towards something somewhat like actor and porn star Gus Mattox's (decidedly not work-safe!) ideas in my personal life. At the time, back in those frightening exhilarating days of 2002, "Real Men" likely was the first thing that came to my mind as any sort of pop-cultural guide to the terrain I was trying to navigate. Hence my sympathetic negative nostalgia, of a sort, for this song.
