Lesley Gore and Her Feminist Anthems
Lesley Gore and Her Feminist Anthems
One of the treasured women of pop music died on Monday: Lesley Gore. A hitmaker at the age of 16 with the indelible “It’s My Party,” she followed that up with what she called “the first truly bitchy song,” “Judy’s Turn to Cry,” and then with one of the first and greatest proto-feminist anthems, “You Don’t Own Me.” Although she didn’t write the latter, its words expressed a young woman’s feistiness in the pre-Second Wave early 1960s:
And don’t tell me what to do
And don’t tell me what to say
And please, when I go out with you
Don’t put me on display
. . . . .
Twenty-five years ago, Gore sat down with another iconoclastic woman musician, k.d. lang, and gabbed away for the pleasure of a Ms. magazine readership. Here are excerpts of Gore’s part of that conversation.
As a child I wanted to sing at Carnegie Hall, so I practiced singing behind the closed bedroom door, in front of the full-length mirror, with a hairbrush as my microphone. Behind that closed door, I slicked my hair back in a fairly credible Elvis imitation. I’m sure many of us did. But when I finally walked out onstage—in the spring of 1963, I was 16—I went dressed like a nice little girl and performed as I was expected to.
. . . . .
When I started out, it certainly was an industry controlled by men. Twenty-seven years later I can’t say it’s very different. And of course they treat a woman differently once she’s established a name and they know she can sell records. I don’t see that many women getting together and saying, Hey, how can we increase women’s work in the industry? I’m not talking about the … people out front. I’m talking about the A&R people, the people in publishing, the people who really run those companies. How can we get women into those positions of power? The longer I’ve been in the business, the more I feel I have a right—and a responsibility—to speak out on matters that most concern me as a woman.
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. . . . .
['Judy's Turn to Cry' was] the first truly bitchy song, you know. Definitely someone getting revenge. I loved singing that. But some of the other songs, like ‘She’s a Fool’ and ‘Maybe I Know’ were about getting jilted by a guy, the old story. And then ‘You Don’t Own Me’ just puts it on another level. That’s the song I close my show with today. You know I did write a song for the film Fame back in 1980—cowrote it with my brother Michael— and in a funny way I consider it a sequel to ‘You Don’t Own Me.’ It’s called ‘Out Here On My Own.’ It has the impact of ‘You Don’t Own Me,’ but it’s even more stark.
Singer, songwriter, feminist and finally an LGBT rights activist—Lesley Gore inspired us for more than 50 years. We were lucky to be invited to her party.
