telys wrote: Sat 10 Aug 2024, 9:12 am
innerxsanctum wrote: Tue 06 Aug 2024, 4:31 pm
Nickname wrote: Tue 06 Aug 2024, 3:13 pm
It makes sense.
The verses of "Feel" have a moving rythm and a tone that reminds us the young Neil Tennant, it doesn't sound as old as the rest of the album.
That's why it is probably the best song of the album.
Because I enjoy bursting your bubble, it doesn't make sense because the song isn't Feel. I was kind of proud you liked the song because it's openly queer and most definitely sounds like a post-00s PSB song, but then you had to ruin your redeeming quality by saying it sounds like "young Neil Tennant" and that the album "sounds old." But hey, what do you know about queerness and anything post-Imperial phase, I guess.
I hear nothing queer in Feel. Nothing queer at all on Nonetheless unless mentioning the completely unknown Les Petites Bonbon counts as queer.
Well, first of all, Neil has said he views Nonetheless as their queer album. You can have a varying opinion on how much the album aligns with that or to take the word of the artist in your own view or interpretation of the album, but if Neil in looking at the album saw that as a reoccurring theme, then it warrants some merit.
To preface, Neil seems to use queer and gay sometimes interchangeably, but important to note that when Neil in an interview called Will-o-the-wisp a queer song, he said that not just because it depicts a man as the narrator running into a past fling who is also another man, but because it also deals with the mystery and intrigue that Neil likes about queer and hits on the non-normative aspects the word encompasses. For example, the narrator ponders if the other man is living a normal, heteronormative life with a wife, a government job, and renting a flat, rather than his previous lifestyle of partying and being gay. For Neil, queer as a word encompasses its use as an umbrella term, its meaning of something being “weird” or mysterious, living a non-normative life, and queer life and experiences in the past full of mystery, intrigue, and tension.
Back to Nonetheless, before even tackling any of the other songs, New London Boy is undeniably queer??? Neil is recounting his own queer experience of longing to escape to London, live his "invented life" that he himself acknowledges is queer and a common sentiment in the community, and discover himself. Queer works here as an umbrella term and well it works for Neil because at the time this song depicts he identified as bisexual. The song revolves around people playing with gender, exploring their sexualities, and charting out lives that differ from the normative expectations society has, and Neil reminiscing on wondering if he could do it too. That's queer in a nutshell.
Feel is a bit less obvious but not difficult. The song is about the narrator going to see his "friend" who has been put in jail, for reasons unknown to us but Neil hints about in Annually. Contrary to the original inspiration being George Blake and his wife, the narrator visiting is not a wife but another man, which is revealed in the line "Nobody else's man". While the gender of the person in jail isn't stated in the song, it makes sense that the friend is also a man. The narrator is dealing with an intense sense of devotion and yearning for his jailed friend and the imagery within the lyrics and "nobody else's man" itself hint towards it being romantic.
And well if you don't see it that way when I say it, Neil in Annually says the narrator is visiting *his partner*. He also mentions the line "Sometimes a look speaks more than you say" which is a common reoccurring motif in Neil's lyrics when Neil touches on past queer modes of communication and signaling through looks than words (To speak is a sin the most obvious example but Will-o as well). Neil's reference to Wilde in Annually to the song, it taking place possibly in Victorian times he wonders, and the use of partner means we could argue the friend is in jail due to his sexuality or blackmail like Wilde, but that's just an interpretation.
For the rest of Nonetheless, queerness is sprinkled in either in the references within songs or their inspirations — Nureyev in Dancing star seeking to be free to dance and be himself in Europe, Les Petites Bon-Bons and artist communities and collectives that have been lost (that largely were made up of queer people) for A New Bohemia, Love is the law is about Oscar Wilde and comments on how love cannot be regulated or moderated in a legal sense (tying to governments then and now still criminalizing homosexuality) — or the themes that they cover, such as escaping to a better life, looking for a place to belong or a community to belong in, yearning, looking towards the future but the past always being there. In various queer theory circles, a preoccupation with the past has been argued as a notable queer experience many queer people have.
Neil is looking to the past and nostalgia and reminiscing on a queer past that no longer exists or at least no longer exists in the same way, or that he feels he isn't able to find and be a part of. This extends to Chris as well as he's said they are both looking together for that community.
Overall, saying Nonetheless is not queer is very much not true. If you like other fans I have heard about want to just ignore that then fine, whatever makes you feel better listening to it. I understand some of what I touched on is also my interpretation and other people can find universal ways the songs and their themes touch on their own lives and experiences, which is a great thing and sign of a good piece of work, but what I have a problem with is that universality then being upheld as the most important while the obvious queer threads and references and inspirations woven in are pushed aside. Neil highlighting the queerness of the album tells me it's something he is proud of in a sense and something that should be taken into consideration.
