GIRLS WHO ARE BOYS WHO LIKE BOYS TO BE GIRLS
Feb 6
One of my favorite things, almost as much as returning to an old idol flame, is finding a new one out of time. Picking up the threads of where they’ve been in my life, almost visible to me, but somehow, still, a missed connection. It makes it feel as though, when they finally reach me, when I finally discover them, the universe was simply waiting to unite us when I needed them most.
How did it start?
Two years ago: a pretty beaded necklace I saw on twitter of seemingly random earth toned glass beads. I wanted to copy it and make one for myself, not knowing, til years later, it was commissioned to look like that belonging to a certain britpop star.
Earlier last year: I finally got around to making a pretty glass bead necklace like that for myself, still unknowing of its origin.
Then, in late summer: a piece of art of a strikingly cute anime boy, which when I translated the caption, simply read:
But it was further back than that, wasn’t it? As a preteen: my closest friend from church, returning from a trip to London with her family, bringing back a CD of Now That’s What I Call Music 48 (48?! in the US we were barely getting started!!). She let me borrow it, and I didn’t give a shit about any song on there other than Clint Eastwood by the Gorillaz. I’d never heard anything like it. I listened to on repeat until she scolded me to return her CD. Then, in high school: the characters I made as a teenager with their rectangle crotches, inspired, however inadvertently, by Jamie Hewlett’s art. And, somehow, in college: the Gorillaz Plastic Beach Tour I went to, where, high in the bleachers, I saw Damon himself with my own eyes. Though to me then, he was simply the voice of 2D, my Gorillaz bias.
I’m someone who likes annoying things. I like theatrics. I like things that are over-the-top, overly sincere, overly kitschy. When it comes to music, I love the wall of sound. I love being overwhelmed by harmonies, complex layers of music, sudden changes, bright intense melodies. It simultaneously grounds me & also overwhelms me to the point where I can’t think. No thoughts, only music.
You know, the kind of thing you need when an election goes wrong. When a confusing petty miscommunication spreads an anxious mistrust in you like an infection. When you’re consumed with self-loathing about presenting yourself as queer & doubting that anyone really sees you that way.
Then, the only thing to make it go away is being overwhelmed by music. All the better when it’s mixed with my other favorite thing: horniness.
Girls & Boys starts off with a cloying, annoying, relentless synth riff reminiscent of disco or Devo, depending on which direction you’re coming from. Damon’s equally annoying XTC- or Madness-esque vocals are only cut by Alex’s smooth, grooving bass and Dave’s heavy steady drums. But, of course, Graham Coxon, though always so awkward and small and shy on the outside, rips through the synth and bass and drums and vocals with his shrill guitar riffs and out-of-this-world flanger pedal. He single-handedly drags the entire song out of simply annoying & wraps it back in a complete 180 to intense, overwhelming Britpop perfection.
It’s hard to ignore Damon’s bratty twinkish demeanor in the music video. The close-up lingering shaky shots of his plump coral pink lips. The close-up lingering shaky shots of his heavy-lidded and thickly lashed piercing blue eyes. His head tilted down; he’s looking defiantly up at you though his thin bangs. His head tilted up; he’s looking arrogantly down his elfish nose at you. The casual lolling of his head. The slight smirks. The playful tilts of his shoulder. The way he sticks a single finger against his tongue and down into his throat, gagging himself as he lipsyncs “you get nasty blisters~”
As I’ve heard said on blurtwit, 90s Damon was dangerous precisely because 90s Damon knew how pretty he was. And he knew how to use it.
Then you’ve got the inverted triangle of Alex’s shoulders, emphasized by that little white tee and the sunset color stripes measuring the width of his chest & shoulder blades. Alex bops his head side to side as he keeps the beating groovy heart of the song on his big, big, big, big, big bass guitar. His floppy bangs hide his eyes, but they’re hardly long enough to conceal his sharp cheekbones, his fawnlike nose & his huge beautiful mouth twisted into a tight pretty pout.
It’s so easy to be distracted by these two and their intense sexual energy for me it took me watching lightheadedly on repeat for five straight days to even notice Dave and Graham. I finally got the appeal of Graham, too — sorry to leave you out, Dave. It’s in the first stanza, a shot where Graham’s playing guitar next to the intense, annoying Damon. Damon’s completely unfazed by the camera, welcoming it, beckoning you, begging you to gaze at him. But Graham, behind him, shrinks at the approaching camera — you’re imposing on him. His dark eyes glance awkwardly down at first, then briefly at you, the camera, then away again, then back to you, just past you. That shy look, in contrast to the confident, arrogant, adorable Damon. That shy look, in contrast to his own loud, bombastic guitar playing...I get it.
For anyone who knows of Let’s Go Karaoke! or Let’s Go Family Restaurant., I’ve been personally calling Graham’s energy his “Satomi Rizz.” Beautifully awkward, pathetic, & pleading for love but ashamed of it.
Here’s where this blog leaves the realm of reality and starts to dip into the indulgent delusion of any false idolatry worth its salt.
I’ve heard tale that the lyrics of Girls and Boys were meant to mock the vacationing British Damon observed at the clubs in Greece. Sure, ok. Whatever you say. But that chorus...it was so hard for me to believe the first time I heard it. Like: could this be? In the 90s? He was just saying this shit out loud?
girls who are boys
who like boys to be girls
who do boys like they’re girls
who do girls like they’re boys
Yes, in fact, I do like thinking of myself as a boy, especially when I’m fucking a boy like he is a girl, and I absolutely love for him to fuck me like I’m a boy.
It made me insane. I chase these lyrics down the rabbit hole, and then what do I find? Damon Albarn wearing a trans flag while singing this song live and acknowledging how appropriate it is to sing this during pride week. And another! Damon Albarn a few years ago wearing a bi flag while singing this song! I chase the rabbit back further in time. Reports of Damon giving hickeys to Graham and Damon getting hickeys from Graham. Video of Damon kissing Graham on the mouth, biting his ear during performances, kissing him on stage and both looking shy afterwards. Interviews where Damon insists its only ~Homosexual~ if you jack off to guys in private, but making out with them is normal, especially when listening to the Smiths. Interviews where Damon shoots his mouth off and bitchily insists hes More Homosexual than the lead singer of Suede who famously proclaimed to be bisexual with “no homosexual experiences” — wait, Suede, his girlfriend’s band? Oh? He had a public girlfriend who was also a Britpop star? I look up 90s Justine Frischmann and she’s like the hottest futch I’ve ever seen — all masculine, androgynous energy. Short floppy hair, intense scolding eyebrows, fierce brown eyes: exactly my type. I look at pictures of them together. It reminds me of pictures of me and my partner in our mid-twenties: a masculine yet twinkish androgyny next to an adorable twinkish boy who loves to be adored. I am more insane.
I’ve said it before in one of these entries:
when someone tells you who they are, believe them.
My parasocial relationship with Damon Albarn’s sexuality is my business. Especially after the autumn I had. Especially after Trump was elected again. I love finding bisexuality and gender fuckery that hides a bit behind subtlety or cheeky words, even if it’s a little obvious. As if to be difficult on purpose, I’m not someone who likes it when people tell me outwardly with a simple label and expect that to be enough. How boring. What are we doing here, filling out a census?
My bisexuality and weird gender feelings can only truly be conveyed in poetry, in art, in song, in illustration. It’s why I do what I do. So it’s plenty nice when artists from years past have said or acknowledged, in some way, that they’re bisexual or queer — but I love it all the more when their art and actions speak for them. When the lyrics speak for them. When making out with your shy bandmate while having a public relationship with a hot futch speaks for them. When fervent denial of Actual Homosexuality whilst giving hickeys to your lifelong best friend speaks for them. When writing lyrics like
girls who are boys who like boys to be girls who do boys like they’re girls who do girls like they’re boys
speaks for them.
That kind of messiness and confusion: I know it intimately. That’s mine. To me, it speaks far louder than words. And it makes me feel more loved and seen than something simple or straightforward, like a label spoken plainly.
Who among us has a lived experience that is simple or straightfoward?
It’s like blur — no, it’s like Damon Albarn was made for me to love him. Damon’s music has always been in my life, as evidenced by Gorillaz. But it’s been so difficult for me to tie the 00s comix hiphop virtual group to this cute 90s boy made for me. And it’s so hard for me to look at this cute boy made for me singing shit like Parklife, which sounds like it could have been my favorite They Might Be Giants song in middle school. You, you beautiful boy...you wrote that?
Everything about his physique is perfectly my taste. The slight gait; the beautiful little snout; the thick eyebrows that almost form a monobrow; the long dark lashes; the huge, distractingly pretty pink mouth. Every movement he makes is perfect, even — no, especially — when he’s going into full annoying theatrics. How dare you appeal to this theater kid part of me, on top of everything else? Isn’t enough that you’re cute & know how to use it?
How is it that my favorite Ateez music video Guerrilla references your music video for The Universal? Which, in turn, references Kubrik’s adaptation of A Clockwork Orange — such a bad obsession of mine during high school that i would write diary entires half in Nadsat. How many little strings have connected me to you?
Who are you? How have you always been here, in some way, in my life? And why didn’t I notice you before?
But no matter when I finally found you in my life, I know...I would have loved you.
I’m so glad i’ve found you now, Damon. Thank you for being here. And thank you for all the art you’ve made. It brings me comfort; it's brought me comfort. Right here, right now, and for my entire life before this.
