Country music, especially post-9/11 country music, has a reputation for being right-wing, traditional, and, well … really, really fucking straight. But as anyone who has a real love for country music knows, it wasn’t always this way. Even NASCAR got its start because hillbilly moonshiners got real good at driving real fast to get illegal liquor across state lines. There’s always been a thread of outlaw behavior at the heart of country and “Americana” music, even if the “mainstream” Nashville apparatus would rather you forget. And what’s more outlaw to a bunch of good ol’ boys and church ladies than pure, unabashed queer country? (Spotify playlist HERE or at the end of the article).
And queer country isn’t new. Lavender Country released their first and only self-titled album in 1973. Featuring songs like “Crying These Cocksucking Tears” and “Back In The Closet,” there was nothing subtle about what they were doing. They didn’t reach much further than the PNW until decades later, when a documentary, These Cocksucking Tears, debuted at SXSW. Now, they’re known and beloved by any queer kid with a pair of shitkickers.
Lavender Country may have started it, but queer country keeps moving forward. If you haven’t heard of Orville Peck by now, you might be living under a rock. The masked country singer has a hardcore fanbase, hosts a yearly music festival (Editor’s Note: RA and I have gone to this festival twice together, and she’s gone once without me, for which I’ll never forgive her -Nicole), played the Emcee in Cabaret on Broadway, and is in the new Street Fighter movie. And he and his music have always been unabashedly queer.
Perhaps the best thing about Peck is his support of queer and otherwise marginalized country artists. I saw this next band, Palmyra, at his 5th Annual Rodeo in Pioneertown, California, and was an instant fan. Palmyra blends old traditional Virginia sound with issues like gender dysphoria, mental health, and more country themes like hard luck and lack of funds.
Next up is The Highwomen. Featuring the reigning queen of queer country, Brandi Carlisle, this band is just killer. “If She Ever Leaves Me” is a song more beautiful than it has any right to be. Sung to a misguided man about to hit on the narrator’s girlfriend, the line, “I’ve loved her in secret, I’ve loved her out loud, the sky hasn’t always been blue,” always chokes me up. They have another song that absolutely slaughters me every time I hear it, so obviously, as a glutton for emotional terrorism, I love them more than life.
Going a little more bluegrass, we have The Ratskin Family Band. If you didn’t know you needed a drag-country band doing a Woodie Guthrie cover, now you know. The good news is, they’re here, they’re queer, and this cover is fucking amazing.
Another artist I found through the Orville Peck pipeline is Jaime Wyatt. She had the character-building (read that as a euphemism for “fucked up” or “not very fun”) experience of coming out as a lesbian after she started her country music career. Artists like Melissa Etheridge, Mary Gauthier, and Chely Clark paved the way for Jaime, but it’s still not an easy road. She sings about the toughness required to live her life in this song, “Rattlesnake Girl.”
And last but not least (and not last, if you head on over to our Spotify), there’s this absolute blast of a song, “Going To Hell,” by Adeem the Artist. Adeem’s joy is palpable, and the song is pure fun, but it isn’t missing teeth. They refer to the mythology around the legendary Robert Johnson, claiming that the Devil himself told Adeem, “None of that shit’s real. It’s true, I met Robert Johnson, and he showed me how the blues could work. But white men would rather give the devil praise than acknowledge a black man’s worth.”
That’s only half of the queer country songs we rounded up for your listening pleasure – head over to our Spotify playlist “I’ll Take My Country Queer” to hear the rest! And don’t stop there. The queer country movement is massive, varied, and full of cool shit. Don’t let a bunch of shitheads like Morgan Wallen define anything* for you, let alone a genre.
*Okay, guys like Wallen are allowed to define “boring ass white guys who maintain the status quo and drop racial slurs.”
