We have all heard love songs in our life. It doesn’t matter whether you hate them or love them - they exist. What I have noticed, however, is that many of these songs have to do with heterosexual relationships - and there is nothing necessarily wrong with that. There are many more heterosexual people in the world in comparison to LGBTQ members - so it makes sense that there would be more heterosexual love songs.
I talked with some of my friends about this unbalanced ratio and asked them if they knew any LGBTQ related singers or songs. Together we discussed artists and songs associated with the LGBTQ community. After some debate, we came up with a quick and short list of LGBTQ love songs worth listening to:
Keiyonan Lonsdale - Kiss the Boy
This song talks about the feelings associated with falling for someone of the same gender. Telling the story through his perspective, Lonsdale talks about being afraid to love another man in fear of what it means about himself and how the world would see him. He describes being afraid of the thoughts in his head - but then ultimately decides that it should not matter who you are attracted to. In the end his message is clear: love cannot be denied and one should not resist how they truly feel.
Girl in Red - I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend
In this song, Marie Ulven (Girl in Red) sings a song to her friend whom she calls “Hannah” within the song. In the lyrics, she pleads to Hannah to feel the same way she does. She desperately explains that she wants to be more than friends and describes her pain of not being able to hold and kiss her like she wants to. The song is her feelings of despair from wanting something romantic with another girl but being unable to achieve it.
Yungblud - Parents
In this song, Dominic Harrison (Yungblud) describes the negative stigma towards homosexuality parents tend to put on their children. He uses the word “parents” both literally and figuratively to describe society as a whole trying to put homosexuality in a negative light. He explains feeling hopeless and like there is no point in fighting back. Eventually he realizes that he is not alone and there are many others like him. He decides there is hope and that just because someone tells you something, that doesn’t mean it’s true. While this does not take the stereotypical approach of a love song where one person sings about their feelings for another, my peers and I decided that because of the message he sends of people deserving to be with whoever they want, it was fit to be on our list.
Obviously there are many more songs and artists out there worth listening to, but my peers and I made our list with the mentality/idea that someone had asked for a few songs to listen to. I would highly suggest listening to these songs - and more by these artists. They have a lot to say about the LGBTQ - along with other issues - that are worth listening to. Don’t be afraid to explore and find other artists/songs like these, there’s a lot to be gained from them.