Quote Originally Posted by BobbyC View Post
Guy--Nona admitted to having sex with men and women back in 1975. She didn't think it was a big deal until she had to deal with the reaction she got. She said she didn't "make hassles where none exists" but then said "people's heads get funny when it comes to sex." She was right. Back then admitting you were bi, let alone gay, was a huge issue for a lot of the public. Labelle, even going back to the Bluebelles days, always attracted a big gay following, and Sarah theorized that it was because the three of them did a lot of touching onstage. After the "wear something silver" show at the met, the gay fans got very outrageous and started wearing crazy costumes to their shows and got in fights with straight people in the audience. The vast majority of gay people were not out in those days so I'm sure a lot of the straight people in the audience thought they were seeing gay people for the first time. Today, it's hard to imagine but that's how it was back then. By the time Chameleon came out, people started thinking you had to be gay to be a fan, which really impacted their careers. Patti never "got tired of singing lesbian songs"--none of Nona's songs, according to Nona, were about gay sex. According to Nona, Going Down Makes Me Shiver is about spirituality. "Going down to your river" might be a reference to baptism. It's true, IMO, that Nona wrote a lot of double entedres in her songs, which is why I love them.
Thanks for this exposition, Bobby C. I can certainly understand Labelle's appeal and queer following. I've related to Nona's songs as queer affirmations and expressions since her 80s RCA solo work. I didn't know anything about her personal sexual identity but I felt kinship when jamming to "Keep It Confidential" or "The Heat." At that point, I didn't know any Labelle other than "Lady Marmalade."

When I finally heard "I Believe I Finally Made It Home" it sounded like an anthem of gay liberation. I couldn't believe she wrote that in the early 70s. After that I found queer affirmation in everything she wrote, and they sang -- "Space Children", "Gypsy Moths", "Let Me See You In The Light", "If I Can't Have You", "You Turn Me On" -- although all of those songs are easily susceptible to other interpretations. However, "Going Down..." seems explicitly gay [[lesbian). I had assumed -- perhaps wrongly -- that Patti was fed up with Nona pressing further and further into that territory in her songwriting.