#and Adam Raised A Cain (Makes You Trans. cannot emphasise enough how much arac makes you trans)

[redgoldblue]

so @itwoodbeprefect tagged me in what was originally an ask game due to a chronological series of events and i wanna talk about songs so: shuffle your favorite playlist and post the first five songs that come up.

(the playlist i've listened to most is as it often is my on repeat but i'm taking 'favourite' as leave to go to my next most listened, which is:) springsteen songs that make you gay and/or trans

Racing In The Street - this is inherently a butch cassidy & the sundance kid coded song, which i don't mean in the sense that it's necessarily a ship song for butch/sundance/etta (although far be it from me to say it's not), but that it is fundamentally telling the same story. It's also one of the many songs on here that speaks to my thesis that the overlap between working-class and queer experiences is one of the major reasons Springsteen's discography resonates so much with queer people in its simultaneous disenchantment and hope. Also taking Martha & The Vandellas Dancing In The Street and making it into a melancholic ballad on living in transience and recklessness and the effect it has on your relationships and loved ones is just. there’s something gay about that whole concept. tonight my baby and me we're gonna ride to the sea / and wash these sins off our hands

Growin' Up - most of the songs on here I can classify into 'makes you gay', 'makes you lesbian', or 'makes you trans'. this is one of the few that I can only say 'makes you queer'. I do think it's underrated in general as a song, and I also think there's a full low fantasy queer found family story in there. but it's also just something about building a life in private you can't bring yourself to share, until you can. had a jukebox graduate for a first mate / she couldn't sail but she sure could sing

My Lover Man - I mean, i really don't need to say anything about My Lover Man, it says it all itself. it is quite explicitly singing to a male lover who, my interpretation, was trying and failing to perform comphet. come into my arms and fall / my lover man

Thunder Road - this one makes you lesbian. honestly i could just leave it at the Melissa Etheridge video, but the point is. he has songs that are subverting masculinity (Cover Me, also on this playlist, comes to mind, or Because The Night), and he has, somehow, songs that are subverting femininity. this is the latter. (i also wrote a wlw roadtrip romance set to thunder road quite a few years ago. it wasn't good but it is still a vibe). now i'm no hero that's understood / all the redemption i can offer lies beneath this dirty hood

Bobby Jean - oh i love bobby jean's inclusion on this playlist! this also does not fit into the aforementioned three categories, but only because as far as i'm concerned it's very firmly a wlw/mlm solidarity song. just... private but joyful teenage solidarity, and escaping for yourself, and not holding it against someone that they needed to escape for themselves. we liked the same music / we liked the same bands / we liked the same clothes