The Wild Reed’s 2022 Queer Appreciation series continues with a celebration of actor Tian Richards and the show in which he stars, Tom Swift. What’s there to celebrate, you may be asking. Well, Tian, in taking on the title role in The CW’s latest new series, is making history as the first gay, Black lead on network television.
Based on the main character of over 100 young adult science fiction and adventure novels dating back to 1910, Tom Swift is also a spin-off of The CW’s Nancy Drew series. As such, it's set in the “Drew-niverse.” It premiered on May 31, 2022.
Speaking with TV Line last year during the filming of the new adaptation, Tian Richards shared the following.
The original Tom Swift was great for his time and what he represented. At the time, that was the face of young boys, All-American kids full of possibilities.
But [today], that can look so different. It can look like someone like me – a Black guy who is chocolate, who is queer, who is all those things that we’re told aren’t the normal or the status quo. We’re going to dive into so many sectors of identity. We’re going to talk about Blackness – and a different kind of Blackness than we’re used to seeing, which is the Black elite, the 1 percent, the billionaires. Were also going to talk about a queer boy’s journey into becoming a queer man. Not only self-acceptance, but acceptance as a whole, having the community and people around you.
If I had an opportunity to see someone like this exist when I was younger, just think of how much sooner I would have felt [more confident] in my skin and welcomed by the world. I had representation here and there, but it was usually a secondary character, or you felt like they were being stereotyped. Tom gets to exist in all of his beauty and pride. He gets to grow up in a family with a legacy, to have endless possibilities in education and tech and inventing. He gets to realize himself for himself, and that’s beautiful for anyone to see.
Above: Tian Richards and Hayward Leach in Tom Swift (2022).
More recently, Tian spoke with JustJaredJr.com and shared the following.
Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine someone who looks like me and shows up in the world as I do, could be the hero! I am immensely proud to be the first Black gay lead on network TV.
I am thankful for the shoulders I stand on that have allowed me to get to this place, and for you be next generations to come that will be inspired by what we have created. For those young queer kids, those young Black kids who didn’t think they could lead, it’s POSSIBLE. And every part of your identity is a superpower! Keep dreaming, keep pushing, your time is coming! Happy Pride Month!
Following are some more quotes from Tian Richards. Enjoy!
What I love about the show is that we get to show-up in a very human, very celebatory way. It’s not about being tolerated, but being celebrated. It’s not about being preachy or beating anyone over the head with a message, but showing up, telling human stories, being ourselves, having fun. And I just love that aspect of being carefree, being Black, being queer, without carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders.
There [was a] level of pride and it was feeling that beauty and that triumph going into it. And not only that, but to see us as in the sci-fi world, to see us intelligent, to know little queer boys will watch this – or girls or whoever – and feel inspired, seeing somebody that looks like them. Because that was always a void for me growing up, not seeing anybody I typically related to.
When I first got the role and was preparing everything, I was like “Well maybe I should read the source material to see what it’s about,” knowing that he came out in the early 1910s and twenties and what-not. But then once I got through some of it, I’m like, “Oh, this language is not only really dated, it’s really offensive.” And I understand it was written for and of the times, but the biggest takeaway that I got from it was their version, the first version, of Tom Swift—this young, all-American, blonde hair, blue-eyed kid—that was the idea of having endless possibility in this country.
Today, that looks so different. It can be somebody that’s black, that’s LGBT, and queer, and all the beautiful intersections that I represent and that Tom represents. And you know what, we can also be very empowered in that. And it’s not a victimization and it’s not feeling ashamed of it, but it’s having full pride and it’s having full capability. And I think that’s the beautiful thing.
Tom’s into aerospace engineering and AI [voiced by LeVar Burton], all these cool things. So you will see a lot of his inventions, what readers fell in love with in the first series of books. Things like the taser and the electric rifle and all the things that we got to see before, but in a 2021 version. Where technology is now and how much we’ve progressed, we’re able to see that.
In preparing, I was looking at a lot of things with this amazing, amazing young, black inventor, Iddris Sandu. He’s most known for being one of the youngest people to work at Google, and at Uber, he helped develop their algorithms. So in the same way that Robert Downey Jr. used Elon Musk to prepare for Tony Stark, Iddris Sandu was that for me in this. I just so admire it. And then a little bit of Jaden Smith. Those are the people I feel like are young, in tech, and are definitely aware of their privilege, but they get the job done, you know?
Not only is it great to be a part of this and to play this character, but this is something young Tian would have wanted and needed to see for so many reasons. And it just goes to show the evolution that we’re moving towards and the work that was done before. We had shows like Noah’s Arc and Looking back before us to really embody that world. But to show that we can be more than just our identities? That our identities are just a part of who we are and they don’t make the entire story? That we’re people just like everybody else? That’s the beautiful part.
And about the sex scene between Tom and Justin (Hayward Leach) in Episode 3, executive producer Cameron Johnson had this to say to TVLine:
I think in Episode 3 we probably have one of the most groundbreaking, sexiest gay scenes I’ve ever seen on network TV. . . . I looked at the cut and I thought, “There’s no way the network is going to let us get away with this.” And they said, “Of course you can!” So, kudos to The CW.
Following is a scene from episode 3 of the first (and, sadly, last) season of Tom Swift. It shows a confrontation between Tom (Tian Richards) and Rowan (Albert Mwangi, right), one that ends in a way that’s not altogether unexpected.
In fact I was hoping for just such a connection between these two characters, more so than the supposedly “sexiest gay scene” between Tom and Justin (pictured above).
You know, as a longtime admirer of Kate Bush, I’ve always thought there was something of the elemental, the archtypal, the mythic in “Running Up That Hill.” I mean, it’s in the very sound of it, as well as conveyed in its haunting lyrics. So Kate’s choice of words to describe how the song is taking the music world by storm is very appropriate.
Tonight I have some wonderful news to add to this story, and I do so by sharing the following from Nadia Khomami’s Guardianarticle published earlier today.
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Kate Bush has scored an improbable and inspiring No 1 in the UK singles chart, with “Running Up That Hill” reaching the top 37 years after the song was released.
The 1985 track has stormed domestic and global charts after its inclusion in the hit Netflix series Stranger Things last month, introducing it to a new generation of fans.
Bush has broken three UK chart records with her No 1 placing. She is the oldest woman to top the chart, while 37 years is the longest time a song has taken to get to No 1, beating Wham!, whose “Last Christmas” finally made it in January 2021.
Bush also has the longest gap between No 1 singles, with 44 years elapsed since her debut, “Wuthering Heights” (Tom Jones was the previous record holder at 42 years). “Running Up That Hill” reached No 3 when it was originally released.
“It’s hard to take in the speed at which this has all been happening,” Bush, 63, said in a statement on her website earlier this week. “So many young people who love the show [are] discovering the song for the first time.
“The response to ‘Running Up That Hill’ is something that has had its own energy and volition. A direct relationship between the shows and their audience and one that has stood completely outside of the music business. We’ve all been astounded to watch the track explode!” The song is currently at No 4 in the US, her highest-ever placing there.
The UK chart success of “Running Up That Hill” – currently achieving about 575,000 plays a day on Spotify in the UK and more than 6 million a day on the platform globally – was aided by the waiver last weekend of a rule that determines how streams for older songs are tallied, sparking speculation that Bush has opened the gates for more vintage songs to return.
“‘Running Up That Hill’ has itself changed things as we know it,” pop chart analyst James Masterton told The Guardian. “This is the first time in the streaming era that a back-catalogue track has not only been spontaneously resurrected but has maintained its popularity over an extended period.”
While football anthem “Three Lions” hit No 1 again during 2018’s European Championship, “it was gone from our lives a week later as a passing fad,” Masterton added.
“The Kate Bush song has become a genuine sustained smash hit, and for that reason it is appropriate that the rules are waived so it joins contemporary releases on a level playing field. That’s the true game-changer, as it lays down a precedent for other classics to do the same if circumstances merit.”
And here (with added links) is Kate’s response to the latest news about “Running Up That Hill” . . .
The Duffer Brothers have created four extraordinary [seasons] of Stranger Things in which the child actors have grown into young adults. In this latest [season] the characters are facing many of the same challenges that exist in reality right now. I believe the Duffer Brothers have touched people’s hearts in a special way, at a time that’s incredibly difficult for everyone, especially younger people.
By featuring “Running Up That Hill” in such a positive light – as a talisman for Max (one of the main female characters) – the song has been brought into the emotional arena of her story. Fear, conflict and the power of love are all around her and her friends.
I salute the Duffer Brothers for their courage – taking this new [season] into a much more adult and darker place. I want to thank them so much for bringing the song into so many people’s lives.
I’m overwhelmed by the scale of affection and support the song is receiving and it’s all happening really fast, as if it’s being driven along by a kind of elemental force.
I have to admit I feel really moved by it all.
Thank you so very much for making the song a No 1 in such an unexpected way.
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders has a powerful op-ed in today’s Guardian newspaper in which he expresses the concerns of many regarding the upcoming mid-term elections.
Progressive policies that help working Americans are very popular with voters, Sanders reminds us. Why, then, he asks, is the Democratic party allowing Republicans and corporate Democrats to dictate an agenda that fails to advance such progressive policies?
Following, with added links, is an excerpt from Bernie’s op-ed, one titled “Democrats Risk a Crushing Defeat This Year. They Must Change Course Now.”
Amid grotesque and widening income and wealth inequality and decades of wage stagnation, the existential threat of the climate crisis, a rigged tax system and crises in healthcare, childcare and housing, the American people wanted Congress to finally stand up and represent their interests, not just the greed of wealthy campaign contributors. And that’s what the Build Back Better Act was about. Poll after poll showed overwhelming support for virtually every provision in that legislation.
Yes. The American people want the rich to pay their fair share of taxes. They want to lower the outrageous cost of prescription drugs, expand Medicare to cover dental, hearing aids and vision, address the crisis in home and healthcare, make childcare, pre-K and higher education affordable, establish a paid family and medical leave program and build the millions of units of affordable housing we need. Yes. The American people want us to invest heavily in combating global heating by transforming our energy system away from fossil fuels.
Unfortunately, despite strong support from the American people, despite the support of the president, despite passage in the House of Representatives, despite the support of 48 members of the Senate, two corporate Democrats – Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema – both of whom received millions of dollars in campaign contributions from billionaires and corporate interests – decided to sabotage that legislation. We needed 50 votes to pass Build Back Better. We had 48.
And it has been downhill ever since for the Democrats. After nine months of fruitless “negotiations” with Manchin and Sinema, the time is long overdue to realize that this is a path that leads to nowhere except defeat at the ballot box and the growing perception that the Democrats have turned their backs on working families. We need a new strategy. We need to take on Republicans. We need to fight back.
In an extremely difficult and unsettling time – inflation, the pandemic, the heating of the planet, gun violence, attacks on abortion rights, the war in Ukraine – the American people want their elected officials to stand up to powerful special interests and fight for them. Well. The Democrats control the White House, the Senate and the House – and yet that is not happening. They are being held accountable for their inaction, and they’re losing.
Is the situation hopeless? I don’t think so. But in order to turn the situation around, Democrats need a significant course correction. And, in doing that, they can learn a lesson from the 1948 campaign of Harry Truman. In 1948, nobody believed Truman had a chance to win that election. Strom Thurmond and the segregationists had bolted the party and Henry Wallace, a third-party candidate, was taking progressive votes away from Truman. Truman responded with a simple and straightforward strategy. Unlike today’s Democrats, he took the fight to the Republicans. He didn’t let them hide behind their whining and “do-nothingism.” He exposed them for what they were – tools of special interests. He made them vote on critical issues. And, time and again, they voted against the interests of working families. Truman showed the very clear difference between the parties – and he won.
What the Democrats need to do, right now, is to make it clear: they may have 50 votes in the Senate, but they do not have 50 votes to pass the legislation that the American people want and need. They have no Republican support and there are two Democrats who will vote with Republicans on important issues.
Now is the time to make democracy work. Let us bring to the Senate floor the crucial issues affecting working families and vote, vote and vote again. Even if we lost these votes, which is likely, the American people have the right to see where their elected officials stand. Make them vote!
This evening for “music night” at The Wild Reed I honor singer, songwriter and actress Julee Cruise, who died this past Thursday, June 9. Since 2018, she’s been living with systemic lupus, which caused her considerable pain and affected her ability to walk and stand.
On Thursday, her husband, Edward Grinnan, wrote on Facebook: “She left this realm on her own terms. No regrets. She is at peace . . . I played her [B-52’s song] ‘Roam’ during her transition. Now she will roam forever. Rest in peace, my love.”
Julee, who released four albums beginning with 1989’s Floating into the Night, is best known for her collaborations with composer Angelo Badalamenti and film director David Lynch in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Her signature song is the haunting 1989 single “Falling”; an instrumental version of which was used as the theme song for the television series Twin Peaks in which Julee appeared in a recurring role as a roadhouse singer. She reprised the role in the 1992 movie Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (which also featured her music), and in the 2017 revival series Twin Peaks: The Return. She was also featured in Lynch and Badalamenti’s avant-garde 1990 theater production Industrial Symphony No. 1.
In 2010, Pitchfork Media ranked Julee’s “Falling” at No. 146 on its “Top 200 Tracks of the 1990s.” NME listed the song at No. 38 in their ranking of “100 Best Songs of the 1990s” in 2012. Music & Media magazine stated that “anyone who is familiar with the Twin Peaks series is sure to have shivers listening to the theme tune. An ambient and dreamy song; although atmospheric, it is at the same time very down-to-earth, and threatening in its cold-blooded beauty.”
Nick Robinson from Music Weekcommented, “Every now and again a truly beautiful single comes along transfixing everyone that hears it.” He added, "The sparse haunting instrumentation combines with Cruise's dreamy vocals to produce a stunning piece of music.”
According to composer Angelo Badalamenti the characteristic sound of the song was made playing a tuned down electric guitar. “In the ruckus of beers flying through the air at The Roadhouse, we have Julee singing a beautiful, slow-tempo song, and it’s so outrageous,” said Badalamenti in 2016. “You would never have that kind of song in a place like that. . . . The songs with Julee serve a two-fold purpose: They contrast the visuals and they set the tone for the show.”
A music video was produced (below) featuring Julee performing the song through soft curtains and dramatic red lighting. It fades to various scenes from the Twin Peaks television series.
As a long-time admirer of the music of Kate Bush, I’m happy to see one of her songs not only currently the most listened to song on Spotify, i-Tunes, and Apple Music, but also topping charts worldwide. Indeed, it’s Number 1 in Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, and Sweden; Number 2 in the United Kingdom; and Number 8 in the United States.
The song I’m referring to, “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God),” isn’t a new recording by the revered and highly influential British singer-songwriter. Rather, it’s a 37-year-old track (and previous hit) from her 1985 album, Hounds of Love. Both the song and the album are topping charts and the playlists of music streaming platforms worldwide due to “Running Up That Hill” being featured in the current season of Netflix’s popular sci-fi/horror drama, Stranger Things.
Even here at The Wild Reed the Kate Bush resurgence is being felt; as currently, this blog’s most popular post, “The Dancer and the Dance,” is one that features the music video for “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God).” As you’ll see below, this video’s choreography draws upon contemporary dance in a very beautiful and powerful way.
A “positive totem”
Nora Felder, music supervisor for Stranger Things, said she chose “Running Up That Hill” because it resonated with the pain and loss afflicting one of the show’s young characters, Max (Sadie Sink), and “could be very special for its powerful melodic flow and very poignant themes.”
The Washington Postreports that “after getting approval from series creators Matt and Ross Duffer, referred to collectively as the Duffer Brothers, Felder and her clearance coordinator reached out to Bush for permission to use the track. The singer is known to be picky with how her music is used, but turned out to be a fan of the show.”
Earlier this week, Kate made a rare public statement on her website, explaining how Stranger Things had given her iconic track a new lease of life. The series is set in the 1980s and combines high school coming of age antics with a sinister and violent supernatural plot. Music critic Martin Guttridge-Hewitt also notes that the show is “renowned for its 1980s stylisation, and has introduced new generations to seminal synth music by names including Jean-Michelle Jarre, John Carpenter, Giorgio Moroder, and Vangelis, who sadly passed away last month.”
“When they approached us to use ‘Running Up That Hill,’” said Kate, “you could tell that a lot of care had gone into how it was used in the context of the story and I really liked the fact that the song was a positive totem for the character, Max. I’m really impressed by this latest [season of the show].” Kate also shared that she had watched all previous seasons with her family – husband Danny McIntosh and son Bertie.
A truly great album
I was 19 when Hounds of Love was first released, and I bought the album in a record store in Armidale, New South Wales, Australia. At the time I was in my second year of college and living at St. Albert’s, a residential college on the campus of the University of New England. I remember the album was playing in the store when I went in to buy it. I’d already heard “Running Up That Hill” as it was the lead single from the album and had been released a month or so earlier. To this day I can recollect that the snippet of then-new Kate Bush music I heard as I made my purchase was the haunting “Watching You Without Me” from Side 2 of Hounds of Love.
Above: Celebrating my 20th birthday in October 1985, a month after the release of Hounds of Love. That’s a framed picture of Kate Bush on the shelf behind me! Yes, I was a big fan back in the day.
I didn’t have a record player at uni and so a girl I knew in my building at Albies let me tape the album using her stereo system. I was already a huge fan of Kate and her music, and Hounds of Love didn’t disappoint. Far from it. It was a tremendous commercial success and was and remains a truly great album. I’m elated that a new generation is discovering Kate and her music thanks to “Running Up That Hill” being used so prominently and powerfully in Stranger Things.
To celebrate all of this, I share tonight two pieces about what can only be described as the Kate Bush renaissance of 2022.
The first is an excerpt from an article by Elise Soutar that serves as a guide to Hounds of Love for those just discovering the music of Kate Bush.
The second is a wonderful piece by long-time fan Liam Hess, whose words about the positive impact of Kate Bush in his life could be my own; in fact, they kinda are! . . . Enjoy!
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An ominous opening synth note fades in, followed by an insistent layer of both live drums and a Linn drum machine that sounds like a call to arms, before a brighter, harsher Fairlight synth melody cuts through. Then, a voice once known for its floaty, elastic soprano range reintroduces itself, demanding rather than requesting: “It doesn’t hurt me / Do you wanna feel how it feels?”
In August 1985, those opening 30 seconds of “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)” noted the exact moment that Mark II of British singer Kate Bush’s career began. Though it was the first song written and recorded for Bush’s fifth studio album, Hounds of Love, and had obvious commercial potential while maintaining the haunting quality of her prior output, she had to convince her label, EMI, that it should be the lead single. . . . The song fulfilled Bush’s hopes of reviving interest in her work outside of her home country and devoted cult following elsewhere, peaking at #30 on the Billboard Charts and [thus] earning her her first American hit in seven years. . . . Her mission statement came in the form of a plea for empathy, a desire for gender swap via divine intervention and less of a love song than a call for respect she was due, both from her partner and an industry at large.
. . . Hounds of Love marked a creative rebirth for Bush, striking the most successful balance between experimentation and accessibility in her entire discography. That goes both figuratively and literally, as Bush packed one side with career-defining art-pop hits and the other with a conceptual suite following a drowning woman, chronicling her inner turmoil while she decides whether she wants to fight for her life or just let herself sink. Since that second half might have made you think twice about reading the rest of this (conversely, if it just completely sold you, you’re my kind of person), let’s start with Side A: “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)” is followed by the title track, “The Big Sky,” “Mother Stands for Comfort,” and “Cloudbusting,” the album’s other most enduring hit, inspired by philosopher Wilhelm Reich’s relationship with his son Peter and bolstered by a stirring string march that builds to a sing-along crescendo for the ages.
In contrast to “Running Up That Hill”’s last-ditch effort to make a relationship work, “Cloudbusting” remains a transcendent anthem of optimism in even the most hopeless situations, sounding like the beginning of a new world after this one inevitably ends and Bush (singing as the younger Reich, facing his father’s imprisonment) insists that she “just know[s] that something good is gonna happen / I don’t know when / But just saying it could even make it happen.”
Four of the five tracks received elaborate videos, incorporating Bush’s love of dance and visual storytelling that she had honed over the course of her career and sharing the spoils with fans both new and old. It sounds like a product of its time, yet never comes off as dated. Combining masterful arrangements, booming percussion, quirky instrumental choices and career-best vocal performances (all on a self-produced album), Hounds of Love’s first side reintroduced Bush to pop listeners and proved she was a creative force to be reckoned with, something fans and most critics knew all along.
Now that she has your attention, why not turn the record over?
Pulling from styles across European music history, including samples of Gregorian chants and traditional Irish music, The Ninth Wave takes up the entirety of the album’s second side. It marked the first (but not last) time Bush attempted to create a cohesive musical story, its own purely auditory theatrical production with a guide to the action written out on the album’s original inner sleeve, made up of diverse songs that could also stand on their own. In her own words, Bush envisioned The Ninth Wave as “a film, that’s how I thought of it . . . the idea is that they’ve been on a ship and they’ve been washed over the side so they’re alone in this water. And I find that horrific imagery.” Once Bush’s narrator is knocked over the edge and left to freeze (“And Dream of Sheep,” “Under Ice”), she’s forced to reckon with her past mistakes, watch her loved ones in the present worry about her disappearance and argue with her future self, who demands she give herself a chance to live (“Waking the Witch,” “Watching You Without Me” and “Jig Of Life,” respectively), which she eventually does, vowing to be a better person going forward (“Hello Earth,” “The Morning Fog”). It’s a perfect culmination of the bold musical styles Bush had embraced up to that point, marrying her artsy oddball tendencies to a talent for moving storytelling. Can you imagine any of her contemporaries pulling off something similar?
W’ve all been there. It might be a book you read at a formative time in your life, or a film you hold especially close to your heart. Then, whether due to a social media trend or a mention in a hit TV show, that same cultural artifact is suddenly everywhere, with many professing their surprise at just how brilliant the artist who made it truly is. And even though you know it isn’t the nicest thing to feel, your first instinct is: Where have you all been?
So it was for many over the past few days as they realized one of their most beloved musicians – the iconic British singer-songwriter Kate Bush – had become a Gen Z sensation after her 1985 track “Running Up That Hill” was featured on a recent episode of the hit Netflix show Stranger Things. (The needle drop comes in after one of the show’s main characters, Sadie Sink’s Max, realizes that playing your favorite song will ward off one of the Upside Down’s most nefarious monsters.)
Over the weekend, the song shot to the top of the U.S. iTunes charts, with the show’s largely teenage fanbase taking to Twitter and TikTok to post about their new musical discovery from decades past. Others, however – notably long-time Bush fans of a certain generation, who have patiently sat through many decades of radio silence from a musician notorious for taking long hiatuses and doing minimal press – rolled their eyes. “How could you not know about the genius of Kate Bush already?” appeared to be theconsensus from many on Twitter.
A disclaimer: Anyone who knows me knows that I have a borderline pathological obsession with Bush and her music. An important memory for me was seeing the video for her breakout 1978 track “Wuthering Heights,” the piano-led ballad with its allusions to Emily Brontë, bonkers key changes, and infamously acrobatic vocals, while watching a music video channel (remember those?) as a kid. Seeing Bush, who trained in contemporary dance, twirl and wave her arms through a spectral white mist in a floaty batwing dress, her eyes wide with urgency, I was mesmerized.
I would go on to discover the entirety of Bush’s eclectic catalog, from the lyrically complex vignettes of her early albums Lionheart and Never for Ever, to what is arguably her masterpiece, the thrillingly experimental 1982 record The Dreaming. When Bush would deliver one of her rare missives, or announce a new release, I’d scour online message boards to join the conversation and share my excitement. One of my greatest regrets in life – no exaggeration here – was missing the Before the Dawn concert residency at the Hammersmith Apollo in 2014, her first live performances since 1979, and very possibly her last.
All of this is to say, I’d probably be a prime candidate to turn my nose up at the fact Gen Z has discovered the music of one of my heroes through a teen drama – but on the contrary, I’m delighted. We all have to make those discoveries sometime and somewhere, even if that is through a show on Netflix, and gatekeeping our favorite artists serves nothing but our own egos. Plus, where better to start than with one of her greatest songs (and videos) of all, “Running Up That Hill”?
Part of the wonder of discovering Bush is the sense that her various oddities validate your own experiences as an outsider. Given the feelings of recognition I’ve found in Bush’s music over the years – from her tribute to the love of the gay couple living in secret in her apartment building that is 1978’s “Kashka From Baghdad”; to the sheer euphoric rush I feel listening to 1989’s “The Sensual World,” an ode to sybaritic pleasure inspired by Molly Bloom’s soliloquy in James Joyce’s Ulysses; to the dulcet vocals of “This Woman’s Work,” which never fail to bring a tear to my eye – why would I want to deny that to others?
As a teenager who always felt a little different (although, then again, what teenager doesn’t), I found a sense of refuge in Bush’s music; a reminder not just that it was okay not to conform, but that non-conformity is something that could be celebrated, or elevated to the highest levels of art. Even if I loathe the phrase entirely, Bush really did make me feel seen.
So, I’m happy for the Gen Z-ers discovering Bush for the first time. I’m excited for them to dive into all of the richly realized worlds she’s crafted over the years, across 10 records, dozens of music videos, a film, and songs that tell stories of accidentally dancing with Hitler, having sex with a snowman, or pay homage to her washing machine. And may it inspire them too: Lord knows we could use a little more of Bush’s strain of weird and wonderful creative magic in the world right now.
I established The Wild Reed in 2006 as a sign of solidarity with all who are dedicated to living lives of integrity – though, in particular, with gay people seeking to be true to both the gift of their sexuality and their Catholic faith. The Wild Reed's original by-line read, “Thoughts and reflections from a progressive, gay, Catholic perspective.” As you can see, it reads differently now. This is because my journey has, in many ways, taken me beyond, or perhaps better still, deeper into the realities that the words “progressive,” “gay,” and “Catholic” seek to describe.
Even though reeds can symbolize frailty, they may also represent the strength found in flexibility. Popular wisdom says that the green reed which bends in the wind is stronger than the mighty oak which breaks in a storm. Tall green reeds are associated with water, fertility, abundance, wealth, and rebirth. The sound of a reed pipe is often considered the voice of a soul pining for God or a lost love.
On September 24, 2012,Michael BaylyofCatholics for Marriage Equality MNwas interviewed by Suzanne Linton of Our World Today about same-sex relationships and why Catholics can vote 'no' on the proposed Minnesota anti-marriage equality amendment.
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