In the disco era, Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive was a post-break-up song inspired by a potentially career-ending back injury McFadden and Whitehead’s Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now was simply celebrating the duo’s emergence as major artists after years as underappreciated songwriters and Sister Sledge’s We Are Family described the tight bond between the four sisters, but they all became anthems for black, gay and feminist listeners because that’s what the audience demanded. The hype around Born This Way’s online premiere breeds snap judgements (like this one) but I think the song’s significance will only become clear a few months down the line. Bean’s song sounds like it’s bursting upwards Gaga’s sounds like it’s bearing down on you.īut I don’t want to use Bean’s record as a stick with which to beat Gaga’s. What’s more, Bean’s song (like those of his disco contemporary Sylvester) has a sense of liberating joy, captured in the space and movement of the arrangement Gaga’s song is dense and unyielding, with that will-to-power hardness that Madonna brought to pop. I Was Born This Way still sounds both ecstatic and courageous because of those two words, “I’m gay.” Bean was singing about himself Gaga is addressing her constituency. “I am using my voice to tell gay people that they can still feel good about being gay even if there are people like Anita Bryant around,” said Bean. It, too, failed to cross over but it was a vital and stirring statement in the same year that the Christian conservative singer Anita Byrant led a legal “crusade” against homosexuality. Jones and Motown tried again in 1977, recording a much stronger version with Carl Bean, a gay gospel singer who once attempted suicide in anguish over his sexuality. “It’s really strange how one word can upset so many people.” “When the song came on, immediately people would begin dancing, and then when people got to that one word they would stop dancing,” said poor Valentino. “No one ever stood up and said, ‘I’m gay.’” She soon found out why, because the record flopped. “No major company has ever had to deal with a gay protest record before,” said Jones. The lyric became a song in 1974, with music by Chris Spierer, and the first version (by 22-year-old Valentino) was distributed by Motown. The lyric says homosexuality “ain’t no fault, it’s a fact” (compare Gaga’s “God makes no mistakes”) and builds towards the joyously blunt chorus, “I’m happy, I’m carefree and I’m gay/I was born this way.” Bunny Jones, a straight, black, Christian woman, ran a string of beauty salons in Harlem and was shocked by the bigotry suffered by her gay employees. It was written in 1971, just two years after the Stonewall riots, back when there was no such thing as a gay anthem, at least not an explicit one. I hope it will lead some people to look up the inspiration for the title, Carl Bean’s 1977 disco anthem I Was Born This Way. Unattached to any specific community, the message of overcoming obstacles and “lovin’ who you are” is pretty much the same you could get from Oprah, albeit with a whiff of amyl nitrate. It’s calculated to be a Gay Pride anthem but one that won’t scare the straights, or indeed anybody else: “No matter gay, straight or bi/Lesbian, transgendered life… black, white or beige/Chola or orient made…” That just about covers it. Though she calls it “a message song”, Born This Way isn’t quite the real deal. Interviewed about my book recently, I told someone that I dreamt of a huge, undeniable protest song coming straight from the heart of popular culture, which in 2011 basically means Lady Gaga. By speaking out against Arizona’s tough new immigration laws and campaigning intelligently for the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell last year, she connected the self-conscious, stylised outsiderdom of the pop fanatic with the genuine persecution of certain social groups. What I like about Gaga is the way she endeavours to put some political weight behind her celebration of her “little monsters”, the underdogs and outcasts she considers the core of her fanbase. Using Madonna maths, Born this Way = Express Yourself (imperious self-help vibe) + Vogue (deadpan spoken-word bit) x Confessions on a Dancefloor (whooshy electro-disco rampage). I think it’s fine, if effective rather than innovative. If you have any interest in pop music then you’ve probably heard it, or at the very least heard about it, this being the most anticipated release since Aung San Suu Kyi’s.