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Sunday, February 19, 2012

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. 

Click on Songs to Listen

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



4 comments:

  1. I swear I went to high school with the boys in the first cover... No, I didn't? Damn...

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  2. That certainly is a nice cover! Showing a little bush! I loved 45's as a kid but they were already on the way out by then. I've been collecting them in used record stores ever since.

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  3. Original lyrics in swedish:
    https://youtu.be/qMqeQN-Yli4

    ReplyDelete
  4. Original lyrics in swedish:
    https://youtu.be/qMqeQN-Yli4

    ReplyDelete