Winter Song... Money Can't Buy It

Money can't buy it

Sex can't buy it

Drugs can't buy it

You can't buy it

I believe that love alone

Might do these things for you

I believe in love alone

Take the power to set you free

Kick down the door

& throw away the key

Give up your needs...

Your poisoned seeds

Find yourself elected

To a different kind of creed

I believe that love alone

Might do these things for you

I believe that love alone

Might do these things for you

I believe in the power of creation

I believe in the good vibration

I believe in love alone

Won't somebody tell me what we're coming to

It might take forever

Till we watch those dreams come true

All the money in the world

Won't buy you peace of minde

You can have it all

But you still won't be satisfied

Money can't buy it

Sex can't buy it

Drugs can't buy it

You can't buy it

Now...

Hear this

Pay attention to me

'cause I'm a rich white girl

& it's plain to see

I've got every kind of thing that the money can buy

Let me tell you all about it

Let me amplify

I got diamonds...

You heard about those

I got so many

I can't close my safe at night in the dark

Lying awake in a sick dream

I believe that love alone

Might do these things for you

I believe that love alone

Might do these things for you

I believe in the power of creation

I believe in the good vibration

I believe in love alone

Lennox
1992

Born On This Day- December 25th... Annie Lennox

We were prodigious fans of Eurythmics in the 1980s. The duo was a tremendous part of the soundtrack of our lives in that decade. When we finally saw Eurythmics live in concert in 1985, I was struck at the unworldliness of Annie Lennox's voice, which I had erroneously credited to studio embellishment. I mean, I didn't understand that a human being could make that sound.

Here comes the rain again: Annie Lennox & I have always found the world a melancholy place. Lennox & I were born somehow old & pensive & just a tad more than a week apart. All her pain was poured into her songs. I gasped at the intensity projected in that powerful, luscious voice, but I feared for her sanity & my sanity as well. She is My Diva & one of my favorite artists ever.

Her next door neighbor- Sting insists she has a light side, & she hates being seen as a tragic figure, but she's conscious that crusading on behalf of HIV related causes doesn't lighten her image.  Lennox: "There's nothing worse than someone who takes themselves terribly seriously. I want to avoid becoming a parody. Maybe I am already & I don't know it."

I believe her to be a person of conviction and passion she is as genuine as they get. All her solo works find the darkness & pull light from it anyway. They doesn’t deny despair, but they don’t suggest there’s nothing else. Lennox's videos are works of art, but I have chosen a live performance for your consideration:

My Diva...Desire, Despair, Desire

I usually have 2 books going at the same time. For my MAX train ride, I often read non-fiction & my current commuter book is- My Diva: 65 Gay Men on the Women Who Inspire Them, edited by Michael Montlack. These are carefully chosen, insightful, funny & poignant short essays by gay writers & poets on the woman they chose as their Diva. The contributors were asked by the editor:
Who is this woman to you?
Why are you attracted to her?
What about her speaks to you about being gay?
How has she influenced your life?

Only 1 woman by 1 writer could be represented in the book; no repeats. The book has some of the usual suspects: Cher, Bette Midler, & Diana Ross, but many off- beat choices as well: Julia Child, Queen Elizabeth 1, & Sappho. It gave me pause to consider who my Diva would be. I really like, know alot about & can tell anecdotes about the biggies: Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Gloria Swanson, Marilyn Monroe & Marlene Dietrich. I think almost all gay men of a certain age can. It seems to be in our genes & part of our common language. Gay men seem to have an allegiance to certain talents with more focus than straight people. It makes me sad that younger gay men won’t know or care about them, but they will have divas of their own: Madonna, Mary J Blige, or Tori Amos. The baby queers will have their own divas & I won’t know who they are talking about. Says Montlack: “Whatever role the divas have played for us individually or communally- muse, goddess, sister, pioneer, survivor, alter ego, fairy godmother- they have protected us, guided us, & delighted us”. Sam J. Miller says it so well in his essay on Bessie Smith- “The gay community also has lots of to learn from women who seize hold of the oppression they face & turn it into something revolutionary, something beautiful, something fabulous.”

My true muses have always found their way to me through rock & roll & popular song, not the movies or stage. I have short listed my own diva to Dusty Springfield, Marianne Faithfull, or Annie Lennox. Although I love all 3 beyond all reason, I find that Annie Lennox is the owner of the most thrilling & seductive voice in pop. She holds out her bare arms & shows me her wrists: "there's no Band-Aids on me yet," she says. I am reminded again of the potency & power of her presence, the range & sweep of her high, clear voice & the fabulous catalogue of perfect pop songs on which she can draw her true artistry. These songs are full of cunning ideas, true emotions, & ferocious hooks, from storming Eurythmics classics such as Sweet Dreams Are Made Of These & Here Comes the Rain Again to shivery solo ballads such as Why (one of the greatest songs ever written), or her magnificent album of covers- Medusa including A Whiter Shade Of Pale, Take Me To The River & Train In Vain.. She is eloquent & poetic, but her underlying pessimism verges on the brutal. There is really no one quite like Annie Lennox. For more 30 years, she has maintained a striking image, often verging on the androgynous, but embodying the qualities I admire most in a woman: strength, intelligence & independence. As a gay man she makes me want to turn personal melancholy into shimmery, beautiful, honest music. Her music has been a soundtrack to my life in 3 different decades. She speaks to me...like no other.

"I would say that although my music may be or may have been part of the cultural background fabric of the gay community, I consider myself an outsider who belongs everywhere and nowhere... Being a human being is what truly counts. That's where you'll find me."

Mash Notes

Wow!
2 great, crazy, & amazing MASH- UPs: Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit + Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up & DJ EarWorm's Annie Lennox Backwords/Forwards. I dig it!




Thanks to my friends: the fabulous David Dust & talented writer Eric Arvin for posting first.