Wurst Case Scenario

For those of you who don't live in Europe, the Eurovision Song Contest is an annual tournament of pop music which involves most European nations (and a few which are not, strictly speaking, in Europe, such as Israel). The rules are that each country submits a brand new song by a chosen artist (often a newcomer act), which must be performed live on the night of the contest.


What's the Wurst that could happen?

The contest has given rise, over the years since 1956, to some very famous acts, such as ABBA, and even Celine Dion, singing for Switzerland in 1988. However, the tendency of some acts to compete in bizarre costume and with bizarre lyrics (who could forget the majestic poetry of Ding-a-Dong?), lends the entire contest an air of camp, verging at times on the farcical. It's screened live all over Europe, and it's a wonderful evening's entertainment, albeit pretty low-brow.

The other problem with the contest is the tendency of countries to vote for their political allies, regardless of the artistic merit of the songs. Each country, including the minnows like Malta, is allocated an equal weight of voting in the contest. This tends to make for some tension, as occasionally obviously good songs get gradually nudged downward in the rankings by political voting.

This year, of course, the winner was Austria, whose artist, Conchita Wurst, won by a comfortable margin. So far, so normal. What is different about this contest (and the reason I am writing about it) is that Conchita Wurst is a drag queen, with a beard. (I love that in German, wurst means sausage). Take a look:

Before Wurst even sang in the contest, she came under fire from Russia, Belarus and Armenia, who demanded she withdraw. Russian lawmaker Vitaly Milonov branded Eurovision a "hotbed of sodomy", while Armenian competitor Aram Mp3 described her as "not natural". Russia, in particular, has been institutionally homophobic for many years.

If the Wurst comes to the Wurst

Though I haven't listened to all the songs for this year, I don't think this one, Rise Like a Phoenix, is all that brilliant. Even allowing for the handful of songs by fishwives in knitted shawls with accordions, which we are usually treated to in Eurovision, I can't believe this one, though it's all well and good, is actually the best in the competition. (The second-place song, Calm After the Storm by the Netherlands' Common Linnets, is, I think, a much better song).

And that leads me to believe that something else is responsible for Wurst winning the contest.

The most obvious thing which strikes one about Wurst is her appearance. Conchita Wurst is the drag persona of Tom Neuwirth. As a woman (i.e. without the beard), she would be absolutely dazzling; a knockout. On the other hand, the beard looks very odd indeed, very disturbing and out of place (while everything else, from the exquisitely curved eyelashes to the lip gloss, to the flowing gowns and fabulous shoes, screams "gorgeous woman!").

But perhaps gorgeous drag queens are too common; too mainstream? Perhaps an "ordinary" drag queen wouldn't have captured everyone's attention. The beard, without doubt, is the hook. The beard is also cosmetically enhanced; it looks just too perfect. And yet, Wurst is beautiful, in a strange and unusual way. Like chilli pepper on fruit salad, the whole package kinda works. I think it may be because she reminds me of another figure, with long flowing hair, a light beard, and deep, soulful eyes.

Wurst bears an unmistakeable resemblance to popular depictions of Jesus. There is no evidence that this is intentional, but it is (at least to my eyes) inescapable. Before you deluge me with hate mail, I intend to draw no further parallels between those two figures (and other commentators have noted a resemblance to a much more secular figure, Kim Kardashian).

Wurst hasn't been the first gender-blurring competitor in Eurovision. Israeli transsexual Dana International won the competition in 1998, with her song, Diva. Wurst isn't even the first bearded woman in the contest: France's 2008 entrant, Sebastian Tellier, had a backing group of five women with false beards (to match his natural one), when he sang his song Divine.

Kim and Conchita. Which is Wurst?

When she won the competition, a delighted and emotional Wurst took the microphone:

Wurst: This night is dedicated to everyone who believes in a future of peace and freedom. You know who you are - we are unity and we are unstoppable.

I dream of a world where we don't have to talk about unnecessary things like sexuality, who you love. I felt like tonight Europe showed that we are a community of respect and tolerance.

Wurst's particular appearance is more in alignment with genderqueer than anything else I can think of. Nonetheless, from her personal website, it seems clear that tolerance is her most deliberate and explicit message. And for this, I think she deserves our congratulation and support. Though her motivations for wearing a frock may differ from my own, I think she is doing positive things to further acceptance of trans people in general.

And I think the reason that Wurst won Eurovision was the combination of those two things. First, that gimmick: an outrageous bearded drag queen, eye-catching and flamboyant, beautiful and proud. This might not have been enough to do it, but set against the background of Russian homophobia, it gave the more progressive Western nations the opportunity to poke one in the eye of those stuffy old Russkies; a chance which they couldn't pass up.

By competition rules, Austria will host the contest next year. At least one commentator is predicting a lot of false beards among the audience!

No sausages were harmed in the writing of this blog post, though some had the Wurst night of their lives. No more puns on the name: I promise!

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Addendum 22nd May 2014

Some of my commentators, including Janice, below, have pointed out that Conchita Wurst's name, although it translates as sausage, was chosen because of the German phrase es ist mir Wurst, meaning it's all the same to me. Whilst I accept this argument, I can't help thinking that sausage is also an excellent drag queen name, because of it's suggestive nature. Mind you, in the context of drag queens, it's hard to find the name of any fruit, vegetable or foodstuff which is free of suggestive connotation!

But taking the name literally, one Austrian butcher has produced an actual Conchita Wurst, a sausage with her face on every slice. How wonderful is that?

Meanwhile, the trans blogosphere has been convulsed with debate about the exact place (if any) that Conchita Wurst occupies, and whether she is doing us good, or harm, by her antics.

One viewpoint seems to be that Conchita Wurst is the female drag persona of a male entertainer, and that therefore Wurst isn't trans at all. A second viewpoint seems to be that, as a man in a dress, Wurst is perceived as being trans by the general public, whoever they might be, and is (whether we like it or not) going to get lumped in alongside the rest of us crossdressers, transsexuals, and so on. A third viewpoint, from the trans community (and expressed by Tasi in the comment to this article) is that, by deliberately mashing together a beard and a beautiful woman, Wurst is doing harm to the trans community by furthering a popular perception that we are all a bunch of weirdos.

I have been struggling with my own feelings about Wurst, but nobody has put it better than my correspondent Janice Lacey. With her agreement, and building on her comment below, I am quoting her here:

Janice: Firstly let me state that I wasn’t at all impressed with the bearded lady thing and deleted nearly all the posts on the social group I follow referencing it. I personally felt threatened by someone dressing as I like to, and also sporting facial hair. That being said, I eventually put aside my own fears of this subject and dived in with both feet.

I read about a boy with a desire to dress as a girl. I can identify with that. He was restricted from doing so and I can identify with that too. He is teased because of his desires and I can identify with that. At some point, when he had gained the confidence and tough skin one needs to be dual-gendered he creates a character that goes beyond the envelopes of discrimination. Not just wearing a dress, but wearing fabulous dresses. And why not? Just add in the beard to really irritate those that hate him and discriminate against him. Conchita was born.

As Conchita, Tom is allowed to wear a dress. The little boy that only wanted to wear a dress is now allowed to dress as he pleases. The beard, in my opinion, represents the male child. Tom is a performer and loves to sing, and as a drag performer is able to earn a living singing while wearing a dress.

Lastly let me summarize my thoughts: Tom Neuwirth and Conchita Wurst are a threat to me as a trans-gendered person. So much is being said about her being “Trans” that people are going to be looking at me and wondering if I am like her.

I AM MOST DEFINITELY NOT! I stand for something deeper, more significant, more important, and more meaningful!

Whoa there! What did I just say? My statement could also be made by my coworkers, my friends, my parents, my wife, or perhaps your parents, friends, co-workers and wife that can’t accept you as you are completely. How can I be who I am, as both Janice and James, and expect the general populace to accept me while I stand in as judge and jury against someone so totally different from myself? Tom/Conchita is unique, but not all that different from me really.

I vote to support his cause, for in doing so I am released from my own fears.

One of my correspondents wrote of Wurst: She makes us look ridiculous. She's neither man nor woman but a half-assed caricature of both. And while I can completely understand this viewpoint, from someone who wants to look as feminine as possible, I can't help thinking that, actually, that same comment could equally be applied to me, or other crossdressers.

Janice's comment has crystallised it for me. I cannot demand acceptance for myself as a crossdresser, and refuse that same acceptance to someone else who has a different way of presenting themselves.

Pete Burns

I've been deliberating over writing a post about Pete Burns for quite a while now. You may know him as the front man of Dead or Alive, and, somewhere along the line, you are sure to have heard their one hit, You Spin Me Round (Like a Record). If you have lived in Britain, you may also know him as an outspoken and sometimes controversial individual, known for his dramatic cosmetic surgery, and for struggling to re-establish his former celebrity on shows such as Celebrity Wife Swap and Celebrity Big Brother.

Pete Burns died in October 2016 of what was reported as a "massive heart attack". He was 57. Although I wrote this article in 2014, I have edited it into the past tense.

Androgynous: Burns in the 80's

What fascinated me about Burns is his deliberate changing of appearance. In the 1980's he was only one of half a dozen popular music artists who used deliberate androgyny as a theme for their appearance. But since then he went further and further down the path of cosmetic surgery, until he was unrecognisable from his former self. This article seeks to explore that a little.

One of the things I like about Graham Norton is that he is fearless in tackling any subject, but he disarms his subjects into revealing things by being funny and quirky and camp. One of the funniest things I have ever seen on TV is Norton's interview with will.i.am sitting beside Miriam Margolyes. Norton just sets the two of them up, and like a master conductor, sits back and lets them strike perfect comic sparks off one another. You can see it all here on YouTube.

Norton's interview with Burns took place sometime before 2006, although I can't quite establish the exact date. Here, Norton broaches the subject of Burns' cosmetic surgery:

Norton: Have you finished?
Burns: Oh no, no.
Norton: What next?
Burns: It depends on the boredom factor. It's very difficult for people to understand something like this, but in the 80's when I became a pop star, I saw myself on the front of so many magazines, on TV all the time, and I got really bored of looking at the same face, and I am sure most people do get bored of looking at the same thing. That's why women bleach their hair, that's why women buy makeup, that's why men grow a beard, that's why they shave the beard off. I just got really bored. And when I'm bored with things, I alter them.
Norton: So there's no attempt on your part-- it's not about masculine, feminine. You're not trying to become a woman in any way.
Burns: I think if I was going to try and become a woman, I know enough about women to be a darn sight better woman than this. I could be a very good woman because I know all the trickery and everything they do to build that image. I have absolutely no intention of being-- in fact, I have an absolutely ginormous knob. I would never dream of getting rid of that. It's Venus with a penis.

Supernatural beauty?

And that seems to be true from a certain perspective. Burns never adopted a fem name. He did not take hormones (and I think we would reasonably know if he had, since he revealed everything else about his appearance and personal life). No breasts, no feminisation of his voice, and by his own admission, no sex reassignment surgery.

And yet, his appearance was all woman: long hair, huge glossy lips, long sparkly nails, outrageous dresses and high heels. And it was this curious dichotomy which prompted me to write this blog post. At the time of the Graham Norton interview, Burns had been married to his wife, Lynne Corlett, for over 25 years, and gave every indication of being still happy; he even recommended to Norton (who is gay) that he should try marriage.

Then, in 2006, Burns separated from his wife, and began a relationship with male partner Michael Simpson. In in interview with talk show hosts Richard and Judy, he announced their engagement. (Wikipedia says they underwent a civil partnership later that year, split, and later reunited. Simpson and Corlett released a joint statement after Burns' death, implying at least that he remained on good terms with both).

Judy: You had a perfectly normal heterosexual marriage for a long time, very happily in love, now you're with Michael, with whom you're very much in love--
Burns: That's, I guess, my first homosexual relationship, and we only have sex at home. So there you go. (Richard and Judy laugh) And I'm not bisexual because I don't pay for it.
Richard: So how long have you two been together now?
Burns: We've been together in former lives. I lost him a lifetime ago and I've been looking for him ever since.
Judy: That's how it came across in Big Brother, you missed him very much.
Burns: I don't care how anyone else felt in there. This is a different thing. He's a physical part of me. (...) We're just in love.

Overcooked?

Burns is making jokes: Home-osexual, Buy-sexual. I didn't get either of those on my first run through. Later in the interview, Richard goes on to talk about Burns' appearance:

Richard: How does it make you feel if I tell you that quite a few, 100% heterosexual guys in our office of varying ages, find your physical appearance very attractive? They describe you as sexy.
Burns: You know, the first time I've ever seen myself objectively was when I left the Big Brother house, when they showed [me] on the eviction screen, so I'd never seen myself, this is just the way it needed to be, so I don't need to look at it very often.
Richard: And what do you think? What do you think of the way you look?
Burns: What do I think? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I behold myself, and I'm exactly what I've always needed to be.
Richard: But the fact that heterosexual men find you attractive?
Burns: They always have. Gay men don't. But it's been since a child that heterosexual men have found me attractive. It's usually, unfortunately, and it's not a misogynistic statement, but most of the hatred that I've encountered on the street and in nightclubs has been from girls. And you know, I love girls. But I couldn't eat a whole one. (...) We live in an age of supernatural beauty, where nothing that we see is real. Even the young girls in pop videos, they've all been tweaked and nipped. It's mandatory now.

I found this interesting: "I'm exactly what I've always needed to be". Not wanted to be. Not felt like being. But needed to be. It's plain that Burns was driven to do this. Perhaps driven in the same way some of us are driven to express femininity? Perhaps not. But driven by what? Was he driven towards something, to become something? Or was he driven away from something? And in either case, what might that something be? I cannot possibly tell, and I wonder if even Burns was aware of it on a conscious level.

HolyMoly.com writes this of Burns in its most recent interview of him in 2012:

HolyMoly: Interviewing Pete Burns is difficult. Not because the Dead Or Alive frontman and Big Brother’s Bit On The Side star isn’t at all times charming, engaging and forthcoming. He really is. But because he clearly subscribes to the Quentin Crisp philosophy of interviews: say what you have come to say. So here’s Pete Burns answering almost none of our questions but being incredibly fascinating and entertaining all the same. Enjoy.

I think there is a leeeetle bit of manipulation here.

This observation is absolutely spot-on. In all the interviews I have seen with Burns (in research for this post), he had done exactly that. That makes it very difficult for me to try to interpret Burns' motivations and true character.

First, Pete Burns was a very quirky and interesting individual. He was indisputably talented, confident and forthright, occasionally abrasive. However, he seemed to be a deeply fractured individual. As a man who spent a lot of money and time cultivating a female appearance, he is undoubtedly fair game for this blog.

On the one hand, Burns craved the oxygen of celebrity. He needed it for his income, but in addition he was willing, almost desperate, to put himself in front of any sort of camera, and there was a period where he seemed to be on every single celebrity reality TV show imaginable, including one where he selects his new Personal Assistant. On the other hand, he seemed to loathe celebrity and its emptiness and falsehood. This from HolyMoly:

Burns: It’s like now. My partner, my husband of nine years, he has a 16-year-old daughter and I get to hear what’s current in passing, through his daughter. And you know what, I wouldn’t fucking know one of Girls Aloud if they came up and spat in my face, but I know if I hear their records that it’s Girls Aloud. I have no interest in celebrity culture; I’ve never suffered from media sickness. It’s not me being rude, I genuinely don’t know who most people are.

Second, he seemed to be desperately in search of beauty. I agree with Graham Norton's assessment, that for Burns, it wasn't about seeking femininity. But for most of us, beauty equates with femininity: we are deluged with images of female beauty, and far fewer of male beauty. If you want adornments (nails, shoes, jewels, cosmetics) then you go for female beauty, and Burns seemed to have gone for all those things in abundance.

Burns: seriously?

For Burns, that search for beauty involved a lot of surgery, and he achieved a period where he really did look beautiful (and there is a reasonable argument about which point along the line was the peak). His comments above (about emerging from the Big Brother house) suggest that he had never really seen his own appearance until he saw himself on television, like catching a glimpse of himself in a mirror. This remark seems, at best, hopelessly disingenuous; at worst, complete nonsense. Burns was obsessed with his appearance for all of his public life. He knew exactly how he looked, right down to the smallest eyelash, and he was completely unwilling to reveal his feelings about that to the rest of us.

Wherever he was at his most beautiful, he didn't stop there, and went further and further down the route of cosmetic surgery, until he looked hopelessly grotesque. Although he described it as getting "bored" with his face, I suspect that he was using surgery as a means to fix something deeper down; the fact that he pursued more and more surgery tells me that surgery was not the answer to what Burns was looking for; that wasn't where the problem lay. And where, I wonder, do you find a doctor who says "Sure, Pete! No problem. I can do even more surgery on you."?

Oh Pete, you poor thing.

When I think of other people who have taken cosmetic surgery beyond the attractive and into the grotesque, I think of Michael Jackson, and Jocelyn Wildenstein. What they (and Burns) seemed to have in common is deep insecurities, which they seemed to think could be fixed by surgery. I wondered if he would eventually reach a point where he looked in the mirror and thought: Aargh! What have I done? But this last picture of him suggests not.

Ironically, he was reported as saying "I hope God doesn't recognise me when I get to heaven".

So what I saw in Pete Burns was a man of deep inner conflicts: he wanted to remain a man, but look like a woman. He wanted to look beautiful, but he had so much surgery he looked awful. He was married to a woman, then married to a man. He wanted to be famous and adored, but he hated the culture of celebrity and professed no interest in it. And he came across as being bold and confident and abrasive, but I think this was a façade behind which hid someone who was lonely, profoundly insecure, and desperate to be loved.

Of course, this is only my personal view, and alternative viewpoints are always welcome!

Crossdressing Lyrics

In 1972, Lou Reed sang this:

Holly came from Miami, F.L.A.
Hitch-hiked her way across the U.S.A.
Plucked her eyebrows on the way
Shaved her legs and then he was a she
She says, "Hey babe, take a walk on the wild side"
He said, "Hey honey, take a walk on the wild side"

Wild: Lou Reed

Well, if only it was that easy for he to become she! But I suppose there is a bit of poetic licence involved. The song, of course, is Walk on the Wild Side, which has gone on to become a classic. Wikipedia suggests the song was written about characters from Reed's own life.

My theme today is crossdressing lyrics. I'm not talking about crossdressing anthems, the songs we sing (or wish we were singing) every time it's karaoke night. Examples here are legion; my personal recommendations are obviously Man! I Feel like a woman! by Shania Twain, or even better, All woman by Lisa Stansfield (which contains the unforgettable statement: I may not be a lady, but I'm all woman). Of course, you know at least a dozen more in this vein. Sing it with Aretha: You make me feel like a natural woman!

No, I am talking about song lyrics which expressly feature crossdressing or something very similar. My interest in this theme was prompted by my hearing today of the song Barbarian by Voice of the Beehive. OK, you've never heard of them, but towards the end of the last century, they were amazing:

He's making all these promises you know he cannot keep
He made me pick him up now he won't pay for gasoline
He's drinking all my beers, he's wearing all my clothes
And if he winks at me again, I think I'll take him home

Actually, the behaviour of the titular protagonist of the song is less than stellar:

He's started all my worries and he's finished all my wine
He's giving me a headache but I still think he's divine
He says he has a question, he starts tugging at my clothes
Would I be good enough to take him to his girlfriend's home?

Who lives in a house like theese?

There are only a couple more I can think of, right off the top of my head. In Space's wonderful song Neighbourhood, a series of bizarre and somewhat distasteful characters (who nonetheless seem to form a tightly-knit community) is described:

In number 69 there lives a transvestite
He’s a man by day but he’s a woman at night
There’s a man in number 4 who swears he’s Saddam Hussein
Says he’s on a chore to start the third world war



And finally, there is an entire song: Dude (Looks like a lady) by Aerosmith. I was going to post a lengthy and meaningful commentary on the lyrics, but unfortunately, in transcription they are close to meaningless. However, the title is plain enough. Wikipedia suggests the song was inspired when Steven Tyler went drinking in New York with Vince Neil of Motley Crue, and they ended up in a bar full of male waiters in drag. On the other hand, a later reference suggests it may have been about Vince Neil himself. Er....no. At least, not without a lot more than plucking his eyebrows and shaving his legs, as Lou Reed might have put it. (By the way, the barmaid isn't me!)

I'm afraid I also don't count mainstream songs which sound almost too good to be true. Here is Lenka, in her beautiful song (one of my favourites) The Show:

Slow it down, make it stop
or else my heart is going to pop,
'Cause it's too much, yeah it's a lot
to be something I'm not,
I'm a fool out of love
'cause I just can't get enough.

Crossdressing lyrics really make me prick up my ears, so these are the ones I have most obviously noted. I hope you will drop by and add your own. Lyrics from the Rocky Horror Show are automatically excluded as being too easy!

All together now: doop, dedoop, dedoop; doop dedoop doop, dedoop, dedoop...

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Addendum 22nd October 2012

How could I forget this one? Fish has always been one of my favourite lyricists, even though his voice is not what it used to be these days. How many lyricists do you know who practically invented a girls' first name? I have several of his albums. One of his lesser known album tracks is called Lady Let it Lie, from the album Yin. Though I have listened closely, the song isn't about crossdressing in any way, but it does feature the following intriguing lyric:

All the boys want to be all the girls,
In this turnaround world,
I don't wanna be me no more.

My thanks also to Ralph for drawing my attention to Lola in his comment below. To my eternal shame, I didn't know this song was about a transvestite. Initially I even thought Ralph was talking about the song which begins Her name was Lola, she was a showgirl..., but no! The lyrics from The Kinks go like this:

Well I'm not dumb but I can't understand
Why she walked like a woman and talked like a man
Oh my Lola, lo-lo-lo-lo Lola, lo-lo-lo-lo Lola.

And I also found a very strange coincidence. Fish recorded a cover version of the song Apeman on his 1993 album Songs from the Mirror. Apeman was originally from the The Kinks' album Lola versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part 1, which was the album from which Lola originally came. Catchy title, though.

Cherry cola, anyone?

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Addendum 3rd January 2013

How could I have forgotten this one? Monty Python's The Lumberjack Song.

I climb up trees, I wear high heels,
Suspenders and a bra.
I wish I'd been a girlie,
Just like my dear Papa!

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Addendum 9th June 2014

My thanks to Melissa Lynn for drawing my attention to this interesting discussion of the stories behind some of the songs I mention in this article, some more fanciful than others.