The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #11352   Message #84095
Posted By: dick greenhaus
04-Jun-99 - 09:35 PM
Thread Name: Historical gay/lesbian/bisexual songs?
Subject: RE: Historical gay/lesbian/bisexual songs?
If you want to go back a ways (it says historical, there isn't a hell of a lot. Bessie Ball and Mary Gray (Child 201) were suspected; Willie of Winsbury was unusually attractive to the King; The Handsome Cabin Boy was apparently bisexual, while the heroine in Short Jacket and White Trousers referred to the crew's possible reaction to a (supposed) homosexual affair. The only other reasonably old (prior to 1960 or so) ones are Navy songs like "Backside Rules the Navy".

I suspect that homosexuality disturbed our forebears more than things like rape, murder and incest did.