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The AfterEllen.com Huddle: The soundtrack of your sexuality

The AfterEllen.com Huddle is a new weekly group post about one topic. This week: What song, album or artist was the soundtrack of your coming out?

Take a knee!

Hornito: My true coming out song was probably along the lines of Sesame Street’s Sesame Street Fever (feat. The Count).

For the sake of this post though, Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game” really hit on my feelings of unrequited love. It still makes me feel a bit emo when I listen to it.

thelinster: My coming out song probably is the theme from Harold & Maude: “If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out” by Cat Stevens.

If you want to sing out, sing out

And if you want to be free, be free

’cause there’s a million things to be

You know that there are

The movie caused a shift in me that made me consider that it just might be OK to be gay. Not exactly a lesbian anthem, I know, but I sang it a lot in my head – and kissed the girl I was in love with the very next day.

Karman: Most of my coming out aha moments are focused around films and television (hey, I’m visual!), but there are a couple of rare musical exceptions. One of my early memories of realizing I was kinda gay was when, at age 7, I felt compelled to give a modern performance (including dance moves) of Elvis’s “Blue Suede Shoes” in front of my entire Baptist summer camp population. The laughter and polite applause also compelled me to do an unsolicited encore. I think by the end of it all they were ready to announce that little lez Elvis had left the building.

When my family moved out of the country and into town, I was finally able to get cable television, which meant MTV. The earth moved, the angels cried, and I saw Stevie Nicks’s “Stand Back” video for the first time.

Let’s just say that I was willing to give her a lot of sympathy. I told myself that my obsession fascination with her was obviously evidence of a past life connection. After coming out a few years later, I realized that what I really meant was a past life love connection. Wishful thinking + crystal visions = babydyke in denial.

Snoodit: Sarah McLachlan’s Fumbling Towards Ecstasy always reminds me of coming out. I was crushing on a teammate from my first all women’s adult softball team and always went for post-game drinks with the team, where she regularly played songs from Fumbling: “Good Enough,” “Fear” and, of course, “Ice Cream.” Sarah’s music helped me literally change teams midseason.

Years later, Sarah remains my favorite singer-songwriter and I can’t help but smile when I hear any of her songs on the radio. For me, her music will always better than ice cream (and Pinkberry).

Grace Chu: Bif Naked’s album I Bificus. My first-ever girlfriend and I came across one another on a music forum in a Bif Naked thread. To make a long story short, we became friends because of similar music tastes, and we chatted for several months during which I had no idea she was flirting with me, because I am dense like that.

Finally, she made her intentions known quite clearly by jumping on me, to which I did not object. She was a huge Bif Naked fan, and we would go to Bif shows together, but one day she dumped me for a high school student, who, ironically, lived all the way out in the fine city of Vancouver, Bif’s hometown.

After this most unfortunate incident I Bificus did not lose its worth, because “Moment of Weakness” is an excellent yet fun breakup song. Breakup songs should be energetic and danceable in my opinion; this way, you forget that you’re supposed to be angry and homicidal, which is good for your health and your criminal record.

drummerdeeds: My very first concert was Lilith Fair when I was 9 years old, and I’m pretty sure it had a lot to do with the way I turned out now. I was like, “Mom, come on, it’s not my fault – you took me to Lilith Fair when I was 9.”

As for when I actually came out, I listened to Fiona Apple’s When the Pawn… album nonstop, especially “Fast As You Can.” My guy friends said that Fiona Apple was “such a lesbian singer,” so I guess that works.

Oh wait – actually the song “My Love is Like Wo” by Mya has some very interesting associations with my identity discovery.

Trish Bendix: When I first saw But I’m a Cheerleader, I fell in love with the song “Glass Vase Cello Case” from the band Tattle Tale. If you’ve seen the film, you know it as the violin-based song that plays while Clea DuVall and Natasha Lyonne are making out under some sheets on the floor of their ex-gay conversion camp.

Napster was around in those days, so I tried my damndest to find the song online, but was having a difficult time. Eventually I was able to track it down and Jen Sabella also burnt me the entire unofficial soundtrack that I still have. But “Glass Vase Cello Case” reminds me not only of discovering a movie that made me feel like I hadn’t before and also happened to be in heavy rotation on my iPod while I was coming out and falling in love for the first time.

What about you? “Fast Car?” Ani Difranco’s entire songbook? “Closer to Fine“? Or maybe something more recent like “Speak Slow“? Ready, break!

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