Most Homoerotic 45 rpm Picture Sleeve of the 70’s

When I was a kid, it was in the years when the 45 rpm record was king, and they often got extra promotion by having a “picture sleeve.” Records with those sleeves can be quite collectible, in the cases of Elvis, the Beatles, and on and on. But I’m nominating this German pic sleeve as the most homoerotic of the 1970’s, and perhaps other decades. 

The year 1970 was early for such a gay supportive song, but Johnny Delgada, pseudonym of Johnny Bode, had a long career of provocative recordings, going back to the 1930’s. 

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Wir zwei, wir sind nicht wie die Anderen

Achilles Klage    

A listener of my show in Germany years ago sent me these loose translations of these two songs.

We Two, We Are Not Like the Others

We two, we are not like the others

We have drunk a right to a little happiness

We must wander alone

While others dally

Going through life

With loving glance

We have the same feelings

We love the other happiness and pain

Indeed we must, there is nothing so warm

You alone know what I’m feeling

And long for me with tenderness.

Everything in the world is incomplete, from the beginning

Two halves first produce a whole.

Accompanying the other side life makes sense,

They are the rocks in the storm of desires.

Man needs man, and woman needs woman, can be,

Who of you, will throw then the first stone

We cannot change ourselves, how we only once sing.

Indeed, we must take nothing as lukewarm

You alone know what I’m feeling

And long for me with tenderness.

******************

 Achilles’ Grief

A shield cut to pieces and sword smashed to bits

In the land from which no one comes back

You went and left me alone

Screaming by your bier

I kiss the lips that inflamed me so

And the eyes that lovingly looked back

We will see each other again at the soul’s death

There before them shadows at the eternal way.

We, in spite of the destiny that was so intended for us

The holy love goes hidden for us.

Darkened woods evening-soft

Play at cooling rashness 

At the call, under the lime-tree

On the smashed bottle

The last drops’ worth run 

And certain clods of soil are thirsty 

In the west, loses itself in whirling smoke

The sun, evening fire

And cold remains the ground ripped from the earth

And that burns the money and that tears the shirt

And that grabs at nothing 

That once was so dear to me

I kiss the lips that inflamed me so

And the eyes that lovingly looked back

We will see each other again at the soul’s death

There before them shadows at the eternal way.

We, in spite of the destiny that was so intended for us

The holy love goes hidden for us.

Here’s a translation of the German text in the small boxes of the back of the sleeve.

Oh, and my second choice for "Most Homoerotic 45 rpm Picture Sleeve of the 70's" goes to Sonny Costa, for his 1970 release "Er," the flip side of "Homo Joe."

And I've done a whole show on German language GLBT Songs, Find it Here