June 11, 2024 • 30 mins
Jesse Lawson fell in love with Bruce Sprinsteen when they were 20. They knew who he was before then, but that’s the first time they’d properly heard his music. It went straight into their insides, pulling out feelings that they didn’t even realize they had yet, giving them new words as they were held up to the light.
It turns out, they are not alone. And Jesse has questions. What is it about Bruce? Why are queers so obsessed with him? And why don’t people know that Bruce is loved by queer people?
Show notes:
Read a transcript of today’s episode
Find more Butch Springsteen here.
If this is your first time thinking about The Boss as a queer icon, and you want to explore these new feelings you’re having, me and Holly have made a playlist: Queer Springsteen. Think of it as a Queer Bruce 101 - it’s a combination of Bruce songs that we think are queer anthems, and then covers of Bruce songs by legendary queer artists. Some of them are their friends, who made the covers to celebrate the release of the show!
Buy Jesse’s Gay Bruce Merch and support trans affirming surgeries and families evacuating Gaza xoxo
Credits:
Because the Boss Belongs to Us is a production of Molten Heart and iHeartPodcasts
Creator: Jesse Lawson
Hosts and Executive Producers: Jesse Lawson and Holly Casio
This episode features: Tom Rasmussen
Producer + Sound Designer: Jesse Lawson
Production Assistant: Tess Hazel
Mix Engineer: Michelle Macklem
Original music and theme: Talk Bazaar
Show Art: Holly Casio
Fact Checking: Serena Solin
Legal: Rowan Maron and Feil
Molten Heart Executive Producer: Jazmine (JT) Green
iHeartPodcasts Executive Producer: Lindsey Hoffman
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Well, now I'm putting my trousers on. I found a
red cap which I've put in the back pocket of
my blue jeans, like the one in the USA album cover,
and I lit it up and it is receiving visting
is what I'm flagging. Oh, I need to put my
willy in which is some socks stuff and down my
pants and Jesse. I'm a thirty one year old audio
(00:26):
producer and youth worker from London. Last year I started
doing drag as Butch Springsteen you're doing in the dressing
room of the RVC the Rowbox was having which is
London's oldest queer venner. I think it's one of the
oldest anyway. This is a recording of me backstage getting
(00:49):
ready for one of my first ever performances at a
night called Kings of Clubs run by drag king Frankie Sinatra.
And then my tool belt goes on, Aspana goes on
the tool belt and and I tucked the tool belt
into the genes because my clothes off later is there's
a fun reveal. Where I grew up in London. The
(01:11):
only people who'd heard of Bruce Springsteen were my friend's dads.
Bruce is usually described as a rock or Americani musician,
but each album's different. You've got hints of brock and
Roll or eighties synth pop, emotional man with a guitar.
It's always reminded me of country. Not the tunes necessarily,
but the way Bruce tells stories. His songs have these big,
(01:35):
grand narratives, tales of characters that Bruce has made up
or based on people in this life. I discovered Bruce
Springsteen when I was twenty. I knew who he was
before then, but that's the first time I properly heard
his music. It went straight into my insides, pulling out
feelings that I didn't even realize I had yet, giving
(01:56):
them new words as they were held up to the life.
I want to be more masking so I look like
like Bruce. So I'm putting like a big white line
down my nose to trying to make my nose look
as wide as possible, and I'm going to try and
(02:18):
make my like jaw look as square as possible. Opposite
of what drag queens do is what drag kings do.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Basically.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Yeah, I feel like sometimes people go through phases when
they're like teenagers of being really good at putting makeup on,
and I always felt like I was trying to do
drag when I put on because I was just so
bad at it. And sometimes I've come on to school
with like, you know, like misscar rolled down your face.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
It's that.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Bruce Binstein has had many looks over the years. The
one I'm currently getting into is inspired by his eighties
era blue denim but hugging tight jeans, white T shirt
with a denim vest over the top. In the eighties,
he had this mop of curly dark brown hair, often
pushed back with a little bandanna. Later on, I'll strip
(03:09):
down to a denhim harness. I made myself that's more
Butcher Springsteen than Bruce Springsteen. But a boy can dream.
I'm really sweaty as well, so it looks like a
salk in brunt of my face. Each act I do
is based on a different Bruce song. In the one
I'm about to do, I go on stage with a
huge cardboard red cut explain that she's my girlfriend and
(03:31):
she's upset with me. It turns out she's annoyed with
me because I don't go down on her properly. So
I learned how to do it on stage while singing
Bruce's I'm Going Down. It's fun and silly and campy.
I've always loved watching drag, but I never thought I'd
be able to get up on stage in front of
a crowded room doing it myself.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
Please welcome to.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
The stage, Butch Springy.
Speaker 5 (04:03):
I'm I'm an internationally famous musician in New Jersey, but
I can only do a Southern American accents.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
You've just got to do with it.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
This is because the bus belongs to us. It's a
series that has truly been years in the making when
my love for Bruce Springsteen takes me to places I
never would have expected. Who were it best, Bruce Springsteen
or Katie Lang.
Speaker 6 (04:34):
It's like you, Squinn and everyone can be a butch.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Why does sad likes love Nebraska? On my dating profile,
I had something about being a fan of Nebraska area.
Bruce Springsteen is Bruce, in fact the ultimate Emo. It
was with Bruce's music that when I first arrived, I
thought I'd assimilate into straight culture, which is such a joke. Now, considering,
(05:02):
let's start at the beginning.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Okay, so I'm sitting in my bedroom.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
I'm about to start making another issue of Caution More,
which is like my little diary sine.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
This is Holly Cassio. They make a zine series called
Me and Bruce, all about how a northern working class
DIY punk fell in love with Bruce Springsteen. They also
made a graphic memoor called Looking for Bruce, charting their
spiritual pilgrimage to New Jersey to somehow find the real
Bruce Springsteen. Holly is the key to this whole thing.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
I thought this would be really nice time to message
you and reflecting on my teenage queer love of Bruce Springsteen,
because this is exactly how it started. Me sitting on
the floor surrounded by Blood's papers and a long arm
Stappler and I have no idea where on earth my
pritt stick is, so that's where I'm taking a moment
to message you instead of looking for a pritt stick.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
He I'm currently sitting in my room.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
I have a picture of my all of one of
Bruce and Claracs's famous kisses.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
I'd like backed.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Onto some pink tissue paper and then put it in
a white frame, and it's six on my wall. Back
in twenty twenty, I was introduced to Holly by a
friend of mine. He was like, you're queer. You like
Bruce Springsteen, you would like Colly Fassio. It was in
the midst of a COVID nineteen lockdown, so our first
communication was through emails and voice notes.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
My memory is being like thirteen fourteen and being queer
but not out. It's the nineties, so the Internet exists,
but it doesn't exist in like everyone's house does, and
it definitely doesn't exist in our house. Section twenty eight exists,
so no one talks about being queer or feeling different
(06:46):
at school like Section twenty eight just means that no
one talks about that kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
For anyone who hasn't heard of Section twenty eight. It
was a UK law passed under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
in nineteen eighty eight which prohibited the quote promotion of
homosexuality by local authorities. This led to loads of teachers
and students feeling unable to come out in school, let
alone provide or access healthy LGBT sex education. The law
(07:16):
only started being repealed in England in two thousand and three,
so when I was eleven, but for Holly, all of
their schooling was under Section twenty eight not a great
time to be a queer teenager in the UK.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
I was really badly bullied.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
I didn't have any friends, and so for me, zines
were a lifeline. They were like this physical, tangible dispatch
from out there somewhere, from.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
A bunch of queers saying, there's more of us out here.
You're not alone, like this stuff happening, you can be
part of this.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
I was quite a repressed teenager, I would say, in
terms of my sexual and gender. I remember I came
up to my friends as bisexual when I was twelve
at a sleepover. Everyone was saying, what percentage gay are you?
And everyone was like, oh, maybe I'm like one cent gay,
and I was like, I think I'm fifty percent gay and.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
Everyone was like, no, you're not disgusting.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
And I simply didn't talk about it or think about
it again until I was.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
In my twenties.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
You know how sports fans meet each other and they
have like three standard questions to like get the chat going,
like what team you support? Oh, so, how do you
feel about Black blavest performance this season? And then some
kind of joke that shows that they know things about
the sport. They're talking about Well, me and Holly did
the queer Bruce fan version of that. We swap our
(08:46):
queer Bruce origin stories.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
I had two Bruce records. I had Start with the
Edge of Town email graphic, and I also had Bart
of the USA, also an email graphic, but like wrapped
up in the pretend to like a pop album. I
was making a zene and I was making a mixtape
for a friend, and I remember putting on Dancing in
the Dark onto a mixtape as like a novelty song.
(09:10):
I was like, Lol, won't this be funny putting on
this old dad music onto a mixtape.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
So I've got Dancing in the Dark on the background.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
I'm sitting on the floor and I'm making this zine
and it's like I'm hearing the song for the first time,
Like some of those lyrics just somehow hit me in
the gut in a way that hasn't happened before, and
I'm recognizing.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
It as the queer anthem of loneliness than it is.
You know.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
There's like lines like I want to change my clothes,
my hair, my face, Like tell me Bruce isn't queer
when he writes that line, tell me Bruce isn't staring
into reflection of himself, thinking about gender, thinking about how
no one else he knows looks like him, and how
he feels really alone and isolated. But the lyric that
for me always stood out, the lyric that made me
(10:00):
you just stop dead in my tracks, is there's a
line in that song that says, there's something happening somewhere, baby,
I just know that there is.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
There is no encapsulation.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Of my lonely, lonely, small town queer teenage life than
that line.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
It's really lonely.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
I think the queer teenage experience, particularly in the nineties,
particularly during section twenty eight, particularly in a small town
in West Yorkshire, sadly, it was a very lonely experience.
And I remember hearing that line playing in the song
when I was making a scene and just thinking.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Oh, that's it. That's exactly how I feel.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
That there's stuff happening out there, I'm just not part
of it yet is kind of enough to keep me going.
And I think that's where my lifelong obsession with Bruce
Springsteen kind of started.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
My lifelong obsession with Bruce Springsteen started a bit later
than Holly's. I spent almost the entirety of my teenage years,
not allowing myself to think about my queerness. When I
was twenty, I moved to Canada for a year, and
in very classic baby queer fashion, I shaved my head
for the first time, unlocking lots of new feelings that
(11:21):
I'd been hiding away under my curls. And then I
went to visit my friend in Chicago, Jake, who's this
huge Bruce Springsteen fan. I remember we were cooking spaghetti carbonara,
and we were frying those like little weird lard ons
that you can mind America, and like frying it to
all the fat fed off and made them really crispy.
(11:43):
And we were doing that and listening to Bruce in
his kitchen, and he was telling me all the things
they loved about Bruce Springsteen. And the song, like, the
song that really got me was It's still one of
my favorite songs.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
It's called Ain't Good Enough for You?
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Ain't Good Enough for You. It's quite an up, cheeky
song from an album called The Promise, a compilation album
from twenty ten of previously unreleased songs recorded in the
late seventies. The character in the song is singing about
his girlfriend who can never be pleased. The chorus goes,
no matter what I do ain't good enough for you.
(12:19):
There's a bit in it where he lists how he
tried all the things people say you should do to
please a partner. He gets a job in sales, he
buys a fancy shirt, he gets the cholest record, buys
a book about love, and goes to her door with
a bunch of flowers, and still she says he's not
good enough. The feeling I related to in the song
was him doing all the quote right things that society
(12:42):
tells you to do, but it's still not working, which
is basically exactly how I was starting to feel about
my gender. I tried on so many different ways. Society
told me I could be a woman from very butch
to very fem from the loosest, most shapeless, don't notice
be closed to bripen hair and trainers, And listening to Bruce,
(13:03):
I was like, yeah, I get how it feels to
try all the different things and it's still somehow just
not be right. But I guess I didn't realize at
that point that you could just be trans And so
now obviously that makes not more sense.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
So many of his songs are about.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Having a lot of feelings, being misunderstood, being in a
place where there aren't people like you, or people don't
understand you, and then needing or wanting escape. And that
was definitely the kind of angst I was feeling at
that time, and I've never really looked back. The end
of those voice notes sharing our Bruce Springsteen backstories was an.
Speaker 6 (13:45):
Invitation, yeah, for me to make a podcast with you
about queerness and Bruce Springsteen.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
Hello, Holly, Hello Jesse. Yeah, so you said yes, and
now you're my co host. Correct. So something that came
out of those first chats was how many queer Bruce fans?
Speaker 3 (14:01):
You know?
Speaker 1 (14:02):
I think you're maybe like the third queer Bruce fan
I ever met, But it turns out there's loads of us.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (14:08):
I also spent so many years thinking I'm the only
queer person to find meaning in the songs of this
kind of centuriest dad. But once I started making my
Bruce scenes, loads of people started reaching out, and you were,
by no means the first person to contact me, being like,
I love Bruce too. There's actually loads of us out there.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
The more I found out there were loads of queers
who loved Bruce Bringsteen. The more questions I had, What
is it about Bruce? Why are we so obsessed with him?
And why don't people know that Bruce is loved by
queer people?
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Me too, one hundred percent.
Speaker 6 (14:42):
These questions are a huge part of my life, and
that's why we're putting our serious journalist hats on to
get to the bottom of Bruce's queer appeal.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
That's next, Jesse Holly, because the bus belongs to us.
Speaker 6 (15:11):
We know from personal experience that other queer Bruce lovers
do exist. But I also know that a lot of
queer people react to my love of Bruce Springsteen with
confusion and surprise.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Yeah, meeting he is simply a rich, white, straight cist
man who was heavily associated with the American flag, one
of the least queer symbols known to man.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Either that or the Saint George Flagg or English flag,
which I basically honestly at fascist rallies or painted onto
the faces of drunk, scary men at the football.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Yeah, that kind of nationalist pride is just not giving queer.
Bruce Brasteen is not someone you'd think of if someone
asks you to list celebrities loved by the queer community.
Speaker 4 (15:55):
Madonna Sinjan, when Marikerry, I really really, when I was young,
particularly looked to largely CIS female straight women to sort
of narrate the big emotions I was feeling, which was
like deep last heartbreak, loneliness.
Speaker 6 (16:13):
Even if Bruce feels niche or unconventional as an object
of queer fandom, queer people have a long history of
standing celebrities.
Speaker 4 (16:21):
Hello, my name is Tom russ.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Mussen, and my friend Tom is one of them. They're
a pop star, composer, writer, sex columnist, former drag queen, and.
Speaker 4 (16:33):
Proud dog mom to Celendon, who you can hear snoring
on my lap right now.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Selene lay sleeping on Tom's lap for the entire interview.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
She's such a joy.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Honestly, having a dog called Selene feels to me like
it gives Tom the right credentials to talk about the
queer community's relationship to.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Celebrity, and they are actually in the industry. So I
wanted to talk to them to see where what if
Bruce could fit into this list of celebrities loved by
the queer community.
Speaker 4 (17:03):
The good ones, you know, Shirley Bassy, Tina Derek Onik,
a bit of Brittany Christina, basically anyone who could actually sing.
When I got thinking about why I was so drawn
to them is because they were people who looked like women,
but who were given permission or demanded permission, to step
outside of their gender category, right, and so like you
(17:24):
know what I mean, shit like that is just so
inspiring to be like, oh, there's another way of life.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Tom became obsessed with these celebrities.
Speaker 4 (17:33):
I think I initially I misinterpreted that as wanting to
be famous, but I think I'm just trans basically. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
the classic it's like stepping outside of the expected and
(17:53):
being celebrated for that, I think is a really key thing.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
So these female pops were acting in ways that weren't
available to the women in Tom's life. I really resonate
with that feeling of finding hope basically that you can
also step outside of the expectations placed on you based
on your gender.
Speaker 4 (18:14):
I think it's also having big emotions that aren't pleased.
They like get to talk about what's happening inside them.
I think all of that stuff I wasn't really allowed
to do, and young queer people are not allowed to
do because if you do, there's there's fear you'll betray
your quickness and then then what happens. Oh that's sassly burping.
(18:35):
Celeon burps on radio.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
When Tom's talking about these celebrities that they love, they
refer to them as gay icons or queer icons. It
feels like.
Speaker 6 (18:46):
There's a difference between just like musicians that queer people
like and those big personalities that rise to icon hood.
What is it that draws queer people to certain celebrities.
What do we see in them that makes us feel sye?
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Me and Tom asked ourselves that as well. We were
talking about the kind of celebrated, over the topness that
seems to link these icons together, which to us feels
quite camp.
Speaker 4 (19:11):
The camp is always a step ahead of you. And
I think a real icon is a real icon knows
what is in control. Real icon, and it's self aware.
It's self aware, it's in control, but not as well like,
but it knows more than it lets on, So much
more than it lets on. Camp is like surprising, and
(19:33):
an icon remains surprising. I think keeps you on your toes,
keeps you interesteder us. They just fall off, you know.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Oh yes, this makes so much sense. There is something
so camp about a lot of these straight women who
are chosen by queers. Just look at Jennifer Coolidge.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Seeing celebrities being outrageous and being celebrated for it is
very compelling to me. It is interesting that so far
as far as we know that all sis straight women.
Speaker 6 (20:01):
I know are straight men so oppressed that they don't
even get a look in at being considered a queer icon.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Well interesting that you'd say that, because another thing that
we talked about was it's even more compelling if their
journey to fame included some hardship.
Speaker 4 (20:15):
Madonna is like the girl whose mother died and she's
from a family of so is it seven siblings and
she came to New York with thirty two dollars in
her pocket. That is true, but also like the struggle
sort of stopped there. She sort of had a few
club hits and then you know, was just made into
a massive star, and she made herself into Master's star.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
I think.
Speaker 4 (20:35):
Also that's Key Slindon, who I would say is one
of the last living entertainers. She was like from this
big family in Montreal. Plot from Obscurity, there's a sense
of struggle.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Tom isn't saying that fame fixed every one of these
women's problems and they never felt struggle again. But this
narrative of coming from nothing and then being discovered or
rising to fame in some way, it makes sense why
queer people would be into that. Oh yeah, the.
Speaker 6 (21:02):
Amount of time I spent thinking about how my heroes
have also come from hardship and survived, made it out
of their reinvented themselves. It's like proof that one day
you could do that too.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
And I also think there's something vindicating about like, even
if the people around you don't recognize it yet, there's
something special about you that the world was some day
celebrate you for, which I think is something you have
to try and cling onto if you're a queer person
who's shamed and bullied for your queerness.
Speaker 4 (21:30):
And also really continues, probably throughout their career, to pedal
that narrative of like I had it hard, I came
from nothing. Share is an amazed I mean, and it's
all true Share Tea, all those people, it's true of
them all, but it's also and it's a narrative pedled.
That's why the most iconic of all my icons, the
(21:51):
most iconic moment of any of them ever was when
a Donnaly's Ray of Light, because it was the most
aware of where she was now and it was like, honest,
it was like, I'm famous, and I've been doing this
to look for a mother, and I became a mother
and that's what I needed all along, and I haven't
been misunderstanding this whole journey, and that was like whoa Now.
(22:14):
That was like rubbed from under because it was just
really aware of what games she'd been playing. Kind of thing.
Speaker 6 (22:23):
This is so relevant to Bruce Sprinkstein. So many of
his songs are about working class struggles. His dad worked
in a factory, but he started being a musician at sixteen,
and his joke these days is I've never worked today
in my life.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
His class experience is kind of genuine and the narrative
peddled at the same time.
Speaker 4 (22:41):
People think they can just put on a great outfit,
dye their hair every album cycle a different color, and
get some pop bangs written and they'll become an icon.
But that is not the same as being someone who
speaks truth. And if you think about what actually connects
all the icons that I can think of and probably
definitely actually there's truth and then of course you dress
(23:03):
that up, you trojan horse it maybe by wild outfits
and pulling publicity stunts. But really that's why the campus moment,
let's say, in Britney Spears career, was when she released
Blackout after she had her two thousand and seven like
public really really like the horrific nervous.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Breakdown which she was pushed to you by the paparazzi
and the toxic celebrity culture of the early two thousands.
Speaker 4 (23:28):
Blackout, which she still cites as one of her best albums,
Her best album, I think, was her telling the truth
of that situation. It's just amazing. It's just it's amazing.
It's amazing.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
So you gain this, yeah, truth, right, Harley Jesse. This
leads me to your proposal. Okay, so we know that
Bruce is loved by lots of queer people, but for
some reason, he kind of flies under the raidar in
the queer community.
Speaker 6 (23:56):
He's not the first person who comes to mind when
you said queer icon.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
He's not. But I just think that Bruce Springsteen is
an unsugn queer icon. I think there's enough of us
who love him and relate to him in the ways
that Tom was talking about. And so that's my proposal,
me and you on a mission to get Bruce Springsteen
the queer icons seal of approval.
Speaker 6 (24:19):
Oh my god, Yes, okay, and how would you make
this happen? Like, who gets to say who a queer
icon is?
Speaker 3 (24:26):
Well?
Speaker 1 (24:27):
I thought maybe us talking to Tom, we kind of
realized halfway through that we were sort of accidentally making
a checklist for what people need to qualify as a
queer icon.
Speaker 6 (24:38):
Okay, so like there need to be camp and they
need to have some kind of narrative of struggle for
us to root for them as an underdog.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
Yes, exactly. I feel like that's two solid checklist points.
I was also thinking about the fact that Bruce is
a musician. How do you tell the difference between a
musician queer's like and a queer icon that happens to
be a musician. What does their music have to do
to qualify for I can state this.
Speaker 4 (25:05):
I don't necessarily think that the music has to be
played in a club necessarily, or like narrate where euphoria necessarily,
But I think maybe it has to narrate a certain
part of a queer person's emotional life, right, So Lana
del Rey, Lanna del Ray's music right allows you into
like a very complicated relationship with men, to be the
complicated person in a relationship with a man, so you know,
(25:30):
gay men or straight trans girls basically or bisexuals. Of course,
all of this goes without saying that there are like
everyone of every gender and of every race and of
every sexuality stands these people in their own different ways.
I think it has to narrate or facilitate an emotion,
(25:51):
a feeling that's quite deep, and so that is euphoria
for sure, or like real sadness or loneliness or obsession
deep sadness. Yeah, a lot of my friends, because of
certain and people I know, because of certain things they've
(26:11):
been through, are quite talented at association. And this is
across the sort of spectrum of sexualities and genders sort
of ignoring what's happening with them inside, because I guess
a big thing we all had to do when we
were young in a really homophobic society and transfer over
society is sort of is to sort of hide the
true emotions going on because that would betray our queerness,
(26:32):
and that isn't always the safest option, and so we
get quite good at association. And I think a queer
icons music allows us into our emotions feelings that might
be hard to access or complicate to access. You know,
can you dance to it? Can you cry to it?
(26:54):
Can you fuck to it?
Speaker 3 (26:55):
Like?
Speaker 4 (26:56):
Can you do something that is a bit more extreme
and expressive as a can I just like bop along
to it? But also can you bop a onto it?
It's actually you could do it's forever.
Speaker 6 (27:08):
Can you dance to it? Can you cry to it?
Can you fuck to it? Well, that's the next item
on our checklist.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Then I think this is such an essential raiming for
a queer icon checklist. Can their music help drag you
back from years of dissociation? What's career than that?
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Okay, this is like proper science that we're doing. We
have a hypothesis. Bruce Springsteen is an unsung queer icon.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
You and Tom have spoken.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
About like the control category if you will and they will.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
We know that.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
People who are already agreed upon as queer icons are
camp They have underdog status and have music that facilitates
queer emotion. That's three great checklist points.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
I think we're ready to go. There's one more thing
I spoke to Tom about which I think is important
for us to think about. By the end of our chat,
I'd realize this is the direction we needed to take
the podcast. In admission to make Bruce Bringsteen a widely
recognized queer icon, I told them, and they left me
with this.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
I think there is a sort of unanimous, lee agreed
upon code of people who are. And also, I think
one thing we've missed off this checklist is there's just something.
It's really hard to name it, but there is just
something and you just know it as a queer person.
You just know it in your soul places. And yet
(28:29):
you know you just know who's not and you know
who is. Yeah, it's a feeling. So do they have it?
Whatever it is? Maybe you'll find it over the next
however many episodes. But I think that, yeah, you've got
your workout. I think because there has been all these things,
(28:50):
and I think Bruce is many, but who knows if
he's all of them?
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Them challenge except it I, Holly Cassio, and and you
Jesse Lawson have anointed ourselves with queer scientist status on
a mission to get Bruce Brinsteen recognized as a queer icon.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Over the next six episodes, we will check if Bruce
Springsteen is camp.
Speaker 6 (29:13):
If Bruce Brinstein can be rooted for as an underdog.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
If you can dance, cry, and fuck to Bruce Springsteen's music.
Speaker 6 (29:21):
And if other queer people would be willing to recognize
Bruce as a queer icon too.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
We know that Bruce has queer fans, can we make
him into a queer icon?
Speaker 6 (29:32):
That's next episode.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Because the Boss Belongs to Us is a production of
malten Heart and iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
We're hosted by Jesse Lawson and Holly Cassio.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
The series is executive produced by Jesse and Holly and
created by Jesse Lawson.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
This episode was produced and sound designed by Jesse Lawson,
with production assistants by Ali Addington and Tess Hazel. Michelle
Maclam is our engineer.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Our original music and theme is by Talk Bizarre at
Talk b A z A R Underscore.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Our show art is designed and illustrated by Holly Cassio
at Holly c A s I O.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
And for more Butch Springsteen content, they're at Butch Springsteen Underscore.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Drag fact Checking is by Selina Soln. Legal services provided
by Rowan Morn and File.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Our executive producer from Malton Hart is Jasmin J. T.
Speaker 6 (30:25):
Green. Our executive producer from iHeart Podcast is Linday Hoffman.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
Bye
Well, now I'm putting my trousers on. I found a
red cap which I've put in the back pocket of
my blue jeans, like the one in the USA album cover,
and I lit it up and it is receiving visting
is what I'm flagging. Oh, I need to put my
willy in which is some socks stuff and down my
pants and Jesse. I'm a thirty one year old audio
(00:26):
producer and youth worker from London. Last year I started
doing drag as Butch Springsteen you're doing in the dressing
room of the RVC the Rowbox was having which is
London's oldest queer venner. I think it's one of the
oldest anyway. This is a recording of me backstage getting
(00:49):
ready for one of my first ever performances at a
night called Kings of Clubs run by drag king Frankie Sinatra.
And then my tool belt goes on, Aspana goes on
the tool belt and and I tucked the tool belt
into the genes because my clothes off later is there's
a fun reveal. Where I grew up in London. The
(01:11):
only people who'd heard of Bruce Springsteen were my friend's dads.
Bruce is usually described as a rock or Americani musician,
but each album's different. You've got hints of brock and
Roll or eighties synth pop, emotional man with a guitar.
It's always reminded me of country. Not the tunes necessarily,
but the way Bruce tells stories. His songs have these big,
(01:35):
grand narratives, tales of characters that Bruce has made up
or based on people in this life. I discovered Bruce
Springsteen when I was twenty. I knew who he was
before then, but that's the first time I properly heard
his music. It went straight into my insides, pulling out
feelings that I didn't even realize I had yet, giving
(01:56):
them new words as they were held up to the life.
I want to be more masking so I look like
like Bruce. So I'm putting like a big white line
down my nose to trying to make my nose look
as wide as possible, and I'm going to try and
(02:18):
make my like jaw look as square as possible. Opposite
of what drag queens do is what drag kings do.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Basically.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Yeah, I feel like sometimes people go through phases when
they're like teenagers of being really good at putting makeup on,
and I always felt like I was trying to do
drag when I put on because I was just so
bad at it. And sometimes I've come on to school
with like, you know, like misscar rolled down your face.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
It's that.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Bruce Binstein has had many looks over the years. The
one I'm currently getting into is inspired by his eighties
era blue denim but hugging tight jeans, white T shirt
with a denim vest over the top. In the eighties,
he had this mop of curly dark brown hair, often
pushed back with a little bandanna. Later on, I'll strip
(03:09):
down to a denhim harness. I made myself that's more
Butcher Springsteen than Bruce Springsteen. But a boy can dream.
I'm really sweaty as well, so it looks like a
salk in brunt of my face. Each act I do
is based on a different Bruce song. In the one
I'm about to do, I go on stage with a
huge cardboard red cut explain that she's my girlfriend and
(03:31):
she's upset with me. It turns out she's annoyed with
me because I don't go down on her properly. So
I learned how to do it on stage while singing
Bruce's I'm Going Down. It's fun and silly and campy.
I've always loved watching drag, but I never thought I'd
be able to get up on stage in front of
a crowded room doing it myself.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
Please welcome to.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
The stage, Butch Springy.
Speaker 5 (04:03):
I'm I'm an internationally famous musician in New Jersey, but
I can only do a Southern American accents.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
You've just got to do with it.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
This is because the bus belongs to us. It's a
series that has truly been years in the making when
my love for Bruce Springsteen takes me to places I
never would have expected. Who were it best, Bruce Springsteen
or Katie Lang.
Speaker 6 (04:34):
It's like you, Squinn and everyone can be a butch.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Why does sad likes love Nebraska? On my dating profile,
I had something about being a fan of Nebraska area.
Bruce Springsteen is Bruce, in fact the ultimate Emo. It
was with Bruce's music that when I first arrived, I
thought I'd assimilate into straight culture, which is such a joke. Now, considering,
(05:02):
let's start at the beginning.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Okay, so I'm sitting in my bedroom.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
I'm about to start making another issue of Caution More,
which is like my little diary sine.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
This is Holly Cassio. They make a zine series called
Me and Bruce, all about how a northern working class
DIY punk fell in love with Bruce Springsteen. They also
made a graphic memoor called Looking for Bruce, charting their
spiritual pilgrimage to New Jersey to somehow find the real
Bruce Springsteen. Holly is the key to this whole thing.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
I thought this would be really nice time to message
you and reflecting on my teenage queer love of Bruce Springsteen,
because this is exactly how it started. Me sitting on
the floor surrounded by Blood's papers and a long arm
Stappler and I have no idea where on earth my
pritt stick is, so that's where I'm taking a moment
to message you instead of looking for a pritt stick.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
He I'm currently sitting in my room.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
I have a picture of my all of one of
Bruce and Claracs's famous kisses.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
I'd like backed.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Onto some pink tissue paper and then put it in
a white frame, and it's six on my wall. Back
in twenty twenty, I was introduced to Holly by a
friend of mine. He was like, you're queer. You like
Bruce Springsteen, you would like Colly Fassio. It was in
the midst of a COVID nineteen lockdown, so our first
communication was through emails and voice notes.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
My memory is being like thirteen fourteen and being queer
but not out. It's the nineties, so the Internet exists,
but it doesn't exist in like everyone's house does, and
it definitely doesn't exist in our house. Section twenty eight exists,
so no one talks about being queer or feeling different
(06:46):
at school like Section twenty eight just means that no
one talks about that kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
For anyone who hasn't heard of Section twenty eight. It
was a UK law passed under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
in nineteen eighty eight which prohibited the quote promotion of
homosexuality by local authorities. This led to loads of teachers
and students feeling unable to come out in school, let
alone provide or access healthy LGBT sex education. The law
(07:16):
only started being repealed in England in two thousand and three,
so when I was eleven, but for Holly, all of
their schooling was under Section twenty eight not a great
time to be a queer teenager in the UK.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
I was really badly bullied.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
I didn't have any friends, and so for me, zines
were a lifeline. They were like this physical, tangible dispatch
from out there somewhere, from.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
A bunch of queers saying, there's more of us out here.
You're not alone, like this stuff happening, you can be
part of this.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
I was quite a repressed teenager, I would say, in
terms of my sexual and gender. I remember I came
up to my friends as bisexual when I was twelve
at a sleepover. Everyone was saying, what percentage gay are you?
And everyone was like, oh, maybe I'm like one cent gay,
and I was like, I think I'm fifty percent gay and.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
Everyone was like, no, you're not disgusting.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
And I simply didn't talk about it or think about
it again until I was.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
In my twenties.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
You know how sports fans meet each other and they
have like three standard questions to like get the chat going,
like what team you support? Oh, so, how do you
feel about Black blavest performance this season? And then some
kind of joke that shows that they know things about
the sport. They're talking about Well, me and Holly did
the queer Bruce fan version of that. We swap our
(08:46):
queer Bruce origin stories.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
I had two Bruce records. I had Start with the
Edge of Town email graphic, and I also had Bart
of the USA, also an email graphic, but like wrapped
up in the pretend to like a pop album. I
was making a zene and I was making a mixtape
for a friend, and I remember putting on Dancing in
the Dark onto a mixtape as like a novelty song.
(09:10):
I was like, Lol, won't this be funny putting on
this old dad music onto a mixtape.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
So I've got Dancing in the Dark on the background.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
I'm sitting on the floor and I'm making this zine
and it's like I'm hearing the song for the first time,
Like some of those lyrics just somehow hit me in
the gut in a way that hasn't happened before, and
I'm recognizing.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
It as the queer anthem of loneliness than it is.
You know.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
There's like lines like I want to change my clothes,
my hair, my face, Like tell me Bruce isn't queer
when he writes that line, tell me Bruce isn't staring
into reflection of himself, thinking about gender, thinking about how
no one else he knows looks like him, and how
he feels really alone and isolated. But the lyric that
for me always stood out, the lyric that made me
(10:00):
you just stop dead in my tracks, is there's a
line in that song that says, there's something happening somewhere, baby,
I just know that there is.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
There is no encapsulation.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Of my lonely, lonely, small town queer teenage life than
that line.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
It's really lonely.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
I think the queer teenage experience, particularly in the nineties,
particularly during section twenty eight, particularly in a small town
in West Yorkshire, sadly, it was a very lonely experience.
And I remember hearing that line playing in the song
when I was making a scene and just thinking.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Oh, that's it. That's exactly how I feel.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
That there's stuff happening out there, I'm just not part
of it yet is kind of enough to keep me going.
And I think that's where my lifelong obsession with Bruce
Springsteen kind of started.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
My lifelong obsession with Bruce Springsteen started a bit later
than Holly's. I spent almost the entirety of my teenage years,
not allowing myself to think about my queerness. When I
was twenty, I moved to Canada for a year, and
in very classic baby queer fashion, I shaved my head
for the first time, unlocking lots of new feelings that
(11:21):
I'd been hiding away under my curls. And then I
went to visit my friend in Chicago, Jake, who's this
huge Bruce Springsteen fan. I remember we were cooking spaghetti carbonara,
and we were frying those like little weird lard ons
that you can mind America, and like frying it to
all the fat fed off and made them really crispy.
(11:43):
And we were doing that and listening to Bruce in
his kitchen, and he was telling me all the things
they loved about Bruce Springsteen. And the song, like, the
song that really got me was It's still one of
my favorite songs.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
It's called Ain't Good Enough for You?
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Ain't Good Enough for You. It's quite an up, cheeky
song from an album called The Promise, a compilation album
from twenty ten of previously unreleased songs recorded in the
late seventies. The character in the song is singing about
his girlfriend who can never be pleased. The chorus goes,
no matter what I do ain't good enough for you.
(12:19):
There's a bit in it where he lists how he
tried all the things people say you should do to
please a partner. He gets a job in sales, he
buys a fancy shirt, he gets the cholest record, buys
a book about love, and goes to her door with
a bunch of flowers, and still she says he's not
good enough. The feeling I related to in the song
was him doing all the quote right things that society
(12:42):
tells you to do, but it's still not working, which
is basically exactly how I was starting to feel about
my gender. I tried on so many different ways. Society
told me I could be a woman from very butch
to very fem from the loosest, most shapeless, don't notice
be closed to bripen hair and trainers, And listening to Bruce,
(13:03):
I was like, yeah, I get how it feels to
try all the different things and it's still somehow just
not be right. But I guess I didn't realize at
that point that you could just be trans And so
now obviously that makes not more sense.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
So many of his songs are about.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Having a lot of feelings, being misunderstood, being in a
place where there aren't people like you, or people don't
understand you, and then needing or wanting escape. And that
was definitely the kind of angst I was feeling at
that time, and I've never really looked back. The end
of those voice notes sharing our Bruce Springsteen backstories was an.
Speaker 6 (13:45):
Invitation, yeah, for me to make a podcast with you
about queerness and Bruce Springsteen.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
Hello, Holly, Hello Jesse. Yeah, so you said yes, and
now you're my co host. Correct. So something that came
out of those first chats was how many queer Bruce fans?
Speaker 3 (14:01):
You know?
Speaker 1 (14:02):
I think you're maybe like the third queer Bruce fan
I ever met, But it turns out there's loads of us.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (14:08):
I also spent so many years thinking I'm the only
queer person to find meaning in the songs of this
kind of centuriest dad. But once I started making my
Bruce scenes, loads of people started reaching out, and you were,
by no means the first person to contact me, being like,
I love Bruce too. There's actually loads of us out there.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
The more I found out there were loads of queers
who loved Bruce Bringsteen. The more questions I had, What
is it about Bruce? Why are we so obsessed with him?
And why don't people know that Bruce is loved by
queer people?
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Me too, one hundred percent.
Speaker 6 (14:42):
These questions are a huge part of my life, and
that's why we're putting our serious journalist hats on to
get to the bottom of Bruce's queer appeal.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
That's next, Jesse Holly, because the bus belongs to us.
Speaker 6 (15:11):
We know from personal experience that other queer Bruce lovers
do exist. But I also know that a lot of
queer people react to my love of Bruce Springsteen with
confusion and surprise.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Yeah, meeting he is simply a rich, white, straight cist
man who was heavily associated with the American flag, one
of the least queer symbols known to man.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Either that or the Saint George Flagg or English flag,
which I basically honestly at fascist rallies or painted onto
the faces of drunk, scary men at the football.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Yeah, that kind of nationalist pride is just not giving queer.
Bruce Brasteen is not someone you'd think of if someone
asks you to list celebrities loved by the queer community.
Speaker 4 (15:55):
Madonna Sinjan, when Marikerry, I really really, when I was young,
particularly looked to largely CIS female straight women to sort
of narrate the big emotions I was feeling, which was
like deep last heartbreak, loneliness.
Speaker 6 (16:13):
Even if Bruce feels niche or unconventional as an object
of queer fandom, queer people have a long history of
standing celebrities.
Speaker 4 (16:21):
Hello, my name is Tom russ.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Mussen, and my friend Tom is one of them. They're
a pop star, composer, writer, sex columnist, former drag queen, and.
Speaker 4 (16:33):
Proud dog mom to Celendon, who you can hear snoring
on my lap right now.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Selene lay sleeping on Tom's lap for the entire interview.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
She's such a joy.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Honestly, having a dog called Selene feels to me like
it gives Tom the right credentials to talk about the
queer community's relationship to.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Celebrity, and they are actually in the industry. So I
wanted to talk to them to see where what if
Bruce could fit into this list of celebrities loved by
the queer community.
Speaker 4 (17:03):
The good ones, you know, Shirley Bassy, Tina Derek Onik,
a bit of Brittany Christina, basically anyone who could actually sing.
When I got thinking about why I was so drawn
to them is because they were people who looked like women,
but who were given permission or demanded permission, to step
outside of their gender category, right, and so like you
(17:24):
know what I mean, shit like that is just so
inspiring to be like, oh, there's another way of life.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Tom became obsessed with these celebrities.
Speaker 4 (17:33):
I think I initially I misinterpreted that as wanting to
be famous, but I think I'm just trans basically. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
the classic it's like stepping outside of the expected and
(17:53):
being celebrated for that, I think is a really key thing.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
So these female pops were acting in ways that weren't
available to the women in Tom's life. I really resonate
with that feeling of finding hope basically that you can
also step outside of the expectations placed on you based
on your gender.
Speaker 4 (18:14):
I think it's also having big emotions that aren't pleased.
They like get to talk about what's happening inside them.
I think all of that stuff I wasn't really allowed
to do, and young queer people are not allowed to
do because if you do, there's there's fear you'll betray
your quickness and then then what happens. Oh that's sassly burping.
(18:35):
Celeon burps on radio.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
When Tom's talking about these celebrities that they love, they
refer to them as gay icons or queer icons. It
feels like.
Speaker 6 (18:46):
There's a difference between just like musicians that queer people
like and those big personalities that rise to icon hood.
What is it that draws queer people to certain celebrities.
What do we see in them that makes us feel sye?
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Me and Tom asked ourselves that as well. We were
talking about the kind of celebrated, over the topness that
seems to link these icons together, which to us feels
quite camp.
Speaker 4 (19:11):
The camp is always a step ahead of you. And
I think a real icon is a real icon knows
what is in control. Real icon, and it's self aware.
It's self aware, it's in control, but not as well like,
but it knows more than it lets on, So much
more than it lets on. Camp is like surprising, and
(19:33):
an icon remains surprising. I think keeps you on your toes,
keeps you interesteder us. They just fall off, you know.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Oh yes, this makes so much sense. There is something
so camp about a lot of these straight women who
are chosen by queers. Just look at Jennifer Coolidge.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Seeing celebrities being outrageous and being celebrated for it is
very compelling to me. It is interesting that so far
as far as we know that all sis straight women.
Speaker 6 (20:01):
I know are straight men so oppressed that they don't
even get a look in at being considered a queer icon.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Well interesting that you'd say that, because another thing that
we talked about was it's even more compelling if their
journey to fame included some hardship.
Speaker 4 (20:15):
Madonna is like the girl whose mother died and she's
from a family of so is it seven siblings and
she came to New York with thirty two dollars in
her pocket. That is true, but also like the struggle
sort of stopped there. She sort of had a few
club hits and then you know, was just made into
a massive star, and she made herself into Master's star.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
I think.
Speaker 4 (20:35):
Also that's Key Slindon, who I would say is one
of the last living entertainers. She was like from this
big family in Montreal. Plot from Obscurity, there's a sense
of struggle.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Tom isn't saying that fame fixed every one of these
women's problems and they never felt struggle again. But this
narrative of coming from nothing and then being discovered or
rising to fame in some way, it makes sense why
queer people would be into that. Oh yeah, the.
Speaker 6 (21:02):
Amount of time I spent thinking about how my heroes
have also come from hardship and survived, made it out
of their reinvented themselves. It's like proof that one day
you could do that too.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
And I also think there's something vindicating about like, even
if the people around you don't recognize it yet, there's
something special about you that the world was some day
celebrate you for, which I think is something you have
to try and cling onto if you're a queer person
who's shamed and bullied for your queerness.
Speaker 4 (21:30):
And also really continues, probably throughout their career, to pedal
that narrative of like I had it hard, I came
from nothing. Share is an amazed I mean, and it's
all true Share Tea, all those people, it's true of
them all, but it's also and it's a narrative pedled.
That's why the most iconic of all my icons, the
(21:51):
most iconic moment of any of them ever was when
a Donnaly's Ray of Light, because it was the most
aware of where she was now and it was like, honest,
it was like, I'm famous, and I've been doing this
to look for a mother, and I became a mother
and that's what I needed all along, and I haven't
been misunderstanding this whole journey, and that was like whoa Now.
(22:14):
That was like rubbed from under because it was just
really aware of what games she'd been playing. Kind of thing.
Speaker 6 (22:23):
This is so relevant to Bruce Sprinkstein. So many of
his songs are about working class struggles. His dad worked
in a factory, but he started being a musician at sixteen,
and his joke these days is I've never worked today
in my life.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
His class experience is kind of genuine and the narrative
peddled at the same time.
Speaker 4 (22:41):
People think they can just put on a great outfit,
dye their hair every album cycle a different color, and
get some pop bangs written and they'll become an icon.
But that is not the same as being someone who
speaks truth. And if you think about what actually connects
all the icons that I can think of and probably
definitely actually there's truth and then of course you dress
(23:03):
that up, you trojan horse it maybe by wild outfits
and pulling publicity stunts. But really that's why the campus moment,
let's say, in Britney Spears career, was when she released
Blackout after she had her two thousand and seven like
public really really like the horrific nervous.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Breakdown which she was pushed to you by the paparazzi
and the toxic celebrity culture of the early two thousands.
Speaker 4 (23:28):
Blackout, which she still cites as one of her best albums,
Her best album, I think, was her telling the truth
of that situation. It's just amazing. It's just it's amazing.
It's amazing.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
So you gain this, yeah, truth, right, Harley Jesse. This
leads me to your proposal. Okay, so we know that
Bruce is loved by lots of queer people, but for
some reason, he kind of flies under the raidar in
the queer community.
Speaker 6 (23:56):
He's not the first person who comes to mind when
you said queer icon.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
He's not. But I just think that Bruce Springsteen is
an unsugn queer icon. I think there's enough of us
who love him and relate to him in the ways
that Tom was talking about. And so that's my proposal,
me and you on a mission to get Bruce Springsteen
the queer icons seal of approval.
Speaker 6 (24:19):
Oh my god, Yes, okay, and how would you make
this happen? Like, who gets to say who a queer
icon is?
Speaker 3 (24:26):
Well?
Speaker 1 (24:27):
I thought maybe us talking to Tom, we kind of
realized halfway through that we were sort of accidentally making
a checklist for what people need to qualify as a
queer icon.
Speaker 6 (24:38):
Okay, so like there need to be camp and they
need to have some kind of narrative of struggle for
us to root for them as an underdog.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
Yes, exactly. I feel like that's two solid checklist points.
I was also thinking about the fact that Bruce is
a musician. How do you tell the difference between a
musician queer's like and a queer icon that happens to
be a musician. What does their music have to do
to qualify for I can state this.
Speaker 4 (25:05):
I don't necessarily think that the music has to be
played in a club necessarily, or like narrate where euphoria necessarily,
But I think maybe it has to narrate a certain
part of a queer person's emotional life, right, So Lana
del Rey, Lanna del Ray's music right allows you into
like a very complicated relationship with men, to be the
complicated person in a relationship with a man, so you know,
(25:30):
gay men or straight trans girls basically or bisexuals. Of course,
all of this goes without saying that there are like
everyone of every gender and of every race and of
every sexuality stands these people in their own different ways.
I think it has to narrate or facilitate an emotion,
(25:51):
a feeling that's quite deep, and so that is euphoria
for sure, or like real sadness or loneliness or obsession
deep sadness. Yeah, a lot of my friends, because of
certain and people I know, because of certain things they've
(26:11):
been through, are quite talented at association. And this is
across the sort of spectrum of sexualities and genders sort
of ignoring what's happening with them inside, because I guess
a big thing we all had to do when we
were young in a really homophobic society and transfer over
society is sort of is to sort of hide the
true emotions going on because that would betray our queerness,
(26:32):
and that isn't always the safest option, and so we
get quite good at association. And I think a queer
icons music allows us into our emotions feelings that might
be hard to access or complicate to access. You know,
can you dance to it? Can you cry to it?
(26:54):
Can you fuck to it?
Speaker 3 (26:55):
Like?
Speaker 4 (26:56):
Can you do something that is a bit more extreme
and expressive as a can I just like bop along
to it? But also can you bop a onto it?
It's actually you could do it's forever.
Speaker 6 (27:08):
Can you dance to it? Can you cry to it?
Can you fuck to it? Well, that's the next item
on our checklist.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Then I think this is such an essential raiming for
a queer icon checklist. Can their music help drag you
back from years of dissociation? What's career than that?
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Okay, this is like proper science that we're doing. We
have a hypothesis. Bruce Springsteen is an unsung queer icon.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
You and Tom have spoken.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
About like the control category if you will and they will.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
We know that.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
People who are already agreed upon as queer icons are
camp They have underdog status and have music that facilitates
queer emotion. That's three great checklist points.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
I think we're ready to go. There's one more thing
I spoke to Tom about which I think is important
for us to think about. By the end of our chat,
I'd realize this is the direction we needed to take
the podcast. In admission to make Bruce Bringsteen a widely
recognized queer icon, I told them, and they left me
with this.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
I think there is a sort of unanimous, lee agreed
upon code of people who are. And also, I think
one thing we've missed off this checklist is there's just something.
It's really hard to name it, but there is just
something and you just know it as a queer person.
You just know it in your soul places. And yet
(28:29):
you know you just know who's not and you know
who is. Yeah, it's a feeling. So do they have it?
Whatever it is? Maybe you'll find it over the next
however many episodes. But I think that, yeah, you've got
your workout. I think because there has been all these things,
(28:50):
and I think Bruce is many, but who knows if
he's all of them?
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Them challenge except it I, Holly Cassio, and and you
Jesse Lawson have anointed ourselves with queer scientist status on
a mission to get Bruce Brinsteen recognized as a queer icon.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Over the next six episodes, we will check if Bruce
Springsteen is camp.
Speaker 6 (29:13):
If Bruce Brinstein can be rooted for as an underdog.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
If you can dance, cry, and fuck to Bruce Springsteen's music.
Speaker 6 (29:21):
And if other queer people would be willing to recognize
Bruce as a queer icon too.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
We know that Bruce has queer fans, can we make
him into a queer icon?
Speaker 6 (29:32):
That's next episode.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Because the Boss Belongs to Us is a production of
malten Heart and iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
We're hosted by Jesse Lawson and Holly Cassio.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
The series is executive produced by Jesse and Holly and
created by Jesse Lawson.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
This episode was produced and sound designed by Jesse Lawson,
with production assistants by Ali Addington and Tess Hazel. Michelle
Maclam is our engineer.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Our original music and theme is by Talk Bizarre at
Talk b A z A R Underscore.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Our show art is designed and illustrated by Holly Cassio
at Holly c A s I O.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
And for more Butch Springsteen content, they're at Butch Springsteen Underscore.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Drag fact Checking is by Selina Soln. Legal services provided
by Rowan Morn and File.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Our executive producer from Malton Hart is Jasmin J. T.
Speaker 6 (30:25):
Green. Our executive producer from iHeart Podcast is Linday Hoffman.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
Bye
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.