Country is a genre built on love songs, but fans probably know that there’s a particular kind of love that gets sung about: the straight kind. There are popular, openly gay artists such as Lil Nas X, Orville Peck, and Brandi Carlile, but the industry still isn’t always welcoming or fair to queer singers, and the successful ones rarely put out songs that are explicitly about gay romance. Orville Peck and Trixie Mattel are notable exceptions who do sing about queer love, but there are few current country artists singing about queer issues. Thankfully, Lavender Country exists.
Released by a group of the same name in 1973, the album is widely considered the first gay country record. Lavender Country’s ballads and protest songs are departures from honky-tonk and bluegrass, and are backed by just fiddles, guitars, and a piano. Lead singer Patrick Haggerty’s reedy, tender vocals are backed by fiddler Eve Morris’s richer vibrato. It features tracks like “Cryin’ These Cocksucking Tears,” about the pain of being used for intimacy by straight men; “Straight White Patterns,” critiquing gender roles and white culture; and “Back in the Closet Again,” lamenting the failure of the civil rights movement to include the queer community.
Lavender Country wouldn’t be produced today despite the fact that queer representation is on the upswing in most mainstream media, including country music. The inclusion of queer artists and subject matter in the mainstream is good, but it also means that their work is being filtered for consumption by a general audience. In music, this means that the amount of space queer artists are given to explore complex issues is dubious, especially in country. It may be easier than ever for artists to say they’re gay, but it doesn’t seem to be easier for them to talk about it. However, Lavender Country was released by Gay Community Social Services of Seattle with just 1,000 copies printed: commercial appeal was not a concern, and it’s a better album for it.
Lavender Country stands alone as a country album about queer political issues, and it also confronts the emotional baggage that can come with being queer. Almost every song on Lavender Country is underpinned by the tension between society’s expectations of men, masculinity, and seeking gay intimacy. And this tension still exists today; in a recent interview with Haggerty, drag queen and country artist Trixie Mattel called “I Can’t Shake the Stranger Out of You” (originally “I Can’t Fuck the Stranger Out of You,” according to Haggerty) “extremely relevant.”
Lavender Country is specifically a gay country album, and that frankness makes the album’s two songs about acceptance, “Come Out Singing” and “Lavender Country,” far more meaningful than more generic country come-as-you-ares like Kacey Musgraves’ “Follow Your Arrow” and Rascal Flatts’ “Love Who You Love,” which wash their hands of what queerness may actually look like when it challenges gender, class, and religious norms. By showing us what queer country music was before it was supposed to exist, Lavender Country shows us what it could be ?— and should have room to be ?— today.
