Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2017 April 8

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April 8

Changing the gender in song lyrics by a singer of a different gender

I've noticed that when songs are sung by a person of a different gender (original artist may be male, but the song is sung by a female), the gender in the lyrics will be reversed. Why do they make the change in the first place? If the original lyrics is about a guy complaining about a girl, then the new lyrics will be about a girl complaining about a guy. Has there ever been a case where the gender is not changed at all, where a female singer sings the original lyrics exactly or vice versa (where the male singer sings the lyrics exactly as written)? 50.4.236.254 (talk) 23:23, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

See Heteronormativity. Ian.thomson (talk) 23:27, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

I still don't get it. I am just wondering if a female singer sings the original lyrics, even though the original lyrics is a love song for a female sung by a male singer-songwriter. 50.4.236.254 (talk) 23:44, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

It's just normal. The standard rule is that lyrics that refer to a lover of the narrator must be the gender opposite the singer. But the rule only applies to lyrics whose referent is a lover of the narrator; it doesn't apply to lyrics referring to a random person. Georgia guy (talk) 23:48, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

See Heteronormativity. Ian.thomson (talk) 23:52, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) If a woman sings a love song that addresses another woman, or a man sings a love song that addresses another man, that would imply that the singer (or at least the character) is homosexual. It's only been recently that a significant portion of the audience would accept that as normal as well.

Oh, I do remember that Jack White of The White Stripes would occasionally cover Dolly Parton's "Jolene" at the end of concerts, with no changes. But that was usually an attempt to get people to leave at the end of the concert (not that it worked at all). Ian.thomson (talk) 23:52, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

50.4.236.254 That actually is a very good question. Has there ever been a singer who sang the song in the original lyric without classification of gender association? As early as certain songs such as Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man from Showboat and The Man I Love by George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin, these songs have always been gender specific and the defining word has had the option to change from man to "gal". However, in the later years of Ira Gershwin's life, a gay man's chorus recorded "The Man I Love" and Michael Feinstein had Ira listen to it. He did not like it. But it showed that a certain sexually oriented singer(s) could sing the original lyric; but for a specific reason. Your question focuses more: not sexually oriented, I would imagine, but has a singer ever sung a song regardless of sex / gender; and remained faithful to the lyrics for the song's sake. Correct? Interesting ... I hope you get educated answers to your question. Maineartists (talk) 23:59, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Maineartists unless something has changed in the last month or so pings don't work for IPs. I am pretty sure that this IP will see your post but I thought I would let you know for future reference. If things have change then in the immortal words of Emily Litella "Never mind" MarnetteD|Talk 01:06, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

Read. 50.4.236.254 (talk) 01:10, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

MarnetteD Sorry. Habit. Even though it doesn't work, I use it for aesthetics; just to direct my comments visually. That's all. Apologies. Maineartists (talk) 01:25, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

I suspect that there are lots of examples where the gender in the lyrics wasn't changed, but most of them are fairly obscure. If you're looking for examples that were actually hit records, there's the Joan Baez version of "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down", and "You Better Sit Down Kids" by Cher. (In the latter case, Cher was the original artist, but the songwriter was a man and the lyrics take a clearly male perspective.) --Metropolitan90 (talk) 01:00, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

The Dan Band is known for featuring a male singer singing songs originally recorded by women without changing the genders in the lyrics. But Dan Finnerty is doing that for comedy purposes, and as far as I can tell the Dan Band hasn't generated any charting hits. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 01:10, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

And I found a couple of discussion threads on StraightDope.com where people list examples of cover songs done without gender changes: [1] and [2]. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 01:35, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

Bob Dylan's version of House of the Rising Sun is sung from a female perspective. "It's been the ruin of many a poor girl/And me...I know... I'm one". --Jayron32 03:25, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

I've heard "Danny Boy" sung by both women and men with no noticeable change of lyrics. In fact, it can be read as either a father bidding farewell to his soldier son, or a woman bidding farewell to her soldier boyfriend going to war. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:27, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

It's quite common in Irish songs - "She Moved Through the Fair", "My Lagan Love" and "Down by the Salley Gardens" are examples of songs about a female lover that are often sung by women. --Nicknack009 (talk) 20:13, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

Here's a song called "I'll Tell Me Ma",[3] which seems to be from a female viewpoint. Sung here (and in some other links) by an all-male group. I've also heard it sung by a woman with male backers likewise singing about the boys pulling their hair and stealing their combs (at about 1:40 here[4]). Maybe to fans of Irish music, it's just a song, nothing to read too much into. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:29, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

And I've heard recordings from the early 1900s where men sang songs apparently intended for women to sing, and vice versa, but nobody thought anything of it, "gay" not really being on the public radar. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:29, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

And if you go back another century to Classical opera, there are arias expressly intended for women to sing whose lyrics clearly imply a male character (e.g. Mozart's KV 528, Bella mia fiamma, written for Josepha Duschek). Baseball Bugs' conjecture seems to be quite right here: in the eighteenth century, homosexuality was thought of as not so much an alternative way of life, but just an addictive vice which everyone could partake in at their leisure. ("I storm, and I roar, and I fall in a rage. / And missing my whore, I bugger my page." – John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, clearly not homosexual from his article.) Double sharp (talk) 14:46, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

I've heard lots of Muzak like this. That is, they get some no-name singer to cover a decent song, so they won't have to pay royalties, and they also don't want to pay to have the lyrics rewritten. It usually was the case that they had a female singer performing a song originally by a man, so the result seemed like a lesbian love song. StuRat (talk) 07:14, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

Cyndi Lauper's version of When You Were Mine comes to mind. The second section of the article comments on her use of the original lyrics. Hassocks5489 (Floreat Hova!) 16:55, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

At about the 1:55 mark of this video,[5] Daffy Duck (male) sings "I'm Just Wild about Harry" complete with lines like "the heavenly blisses / of his kisses." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:16, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

Here are the Clancys singing a song called "The Gallant Forty Twa", which sounds like it was written from a woman's viewpoint.[6] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:21, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

Songs by Spanish group Mecano were usually written by Nacho Cano and sung by Ana Torroja with lyrics unchanged, for example in Me colé en una fiesta she sings about not finding single cute women in a party.--Pacostein (talk) 19:01, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

Ella Fitzgerald famously sings the original male-view lyrics of "Change Partners" (see here), and I think there are other examples of this from songs of the Great American Songbook. On a slightly different note, see versions of "Black Is the Colour (Of My True Love's Hair)", where some singers chose to sing male or female orientated lyrics despite not being of the opposite sex (Cara Dillon's version springs to mind). This is Paul (talk) 19:56, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

The thoroughly heterosexual aria "Girls Were Made to Love and Kiss" from Franz Lehár's 1925 operetta Paganini became famous in the English translation as sung by Richard Tauber. Some of the words have not translated well in the modern gay-friendly era when they appear to mean something quite different from that which were originally intended:

• Girls were made to love and kiss / And who am I to interfere with this? / Is it well? Who can tell? / But I know the good God made them so. / Am I ashamed to follow nature's way? / Shall I be blamed if God has made me gay? / Does it pay? Who can say? / I'm a man and kiss them when I can.

All you'd have to do is change "Girls" to "Boys" and it could be an anthem for proud gay love. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:24, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

• • It could. "Gay" had different implications in those days, at least in the mainstream. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:30, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

English folk bands such as Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span, Pentangle have recorded a fair number of songs in which the singer and the narrator are not of the same sex. (No specific title springs to mind at the moment tho.) —Tamfang (talk) 08:19, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Veruca Salt's cover of Depeche Mode's song "Somebody" on "For the Masses" retains the female subject - "She'll hear me out, and won't easily be converted.." Some amazing cover songs on that album BTW. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 10:22, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

In singing a song, a singer is engaging in a form of storytelling. Sometimes the story is intended to be understood as representing experiences of the actual singer (even if it's really fictional). Sometimes, however, the singer is effectively presenting the story of some other character entirely distinct from themself. There is no reason why this other character should be the same sex as the singer, and audiences are expected to have the artistic sophistication to understand this. The same conventions have long been used in drama: Shakespeare's plays were originally performed by all-male casts, and are now sometimes played by all-female casts; in Noh theatre female actors were only introduced in the 20th century; Pantomimes traditionally have roles of Dames and Principal Boys played by members of the opposite sex, which facilitates humour on more than one level simultaneously. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.217.249.244 (talk) 11:44, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

It is easy to find examples if you just listen. Foxes did not change the gender in Don't Stop Me Know when she did the cover for Doctor Who. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 11:52, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Another one: The Blues Brothers singing "Stand by Your Man" and demonstrating through gestures that they weren't trying to be women (despite their breaking into falsetto at one point). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:04, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS presents a benefit revue every year, Broadway Backwards, whose premise is male performers singing songs written for women and vice versa. The results are often hilarious, and many of the performances can be seen on YouTube. MCC Theater produces a similar event, often but not always gender-flipped, called Miscast Catrionak (talk) 14:23, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

How about Sinéad O'Connor singing about breaking her balls at the Live in Berlin concert?Hayttom (talk) 19:21, 10 April 2017 (UTC)