It's Raining Men (Hallelujah!)

 

Humidity's rising, barometer's getting low
According to all sources, the street's the place to go.
Cause tonight for the first time, just about half past ten
For the first time in history, it's gonna start raining men

"It's Raining Men" was written in 1979, by gay composer Paul Jabara ("Disco Queen," "Last Dance"), and Paul Shaffer, then a member of the house band of Saturday Night Live.  They offered it to many vocalists, including Barbra Streisand, Cher, and Donna Summer, but they all refused.  Even Two Tons O'Fun (Izora Armstead and Martha Walsh), then performing as backup singers for pop star Sylvester, balked, thinking the song too weird to chart.

 Finally they agreed and released "It's Raining Men" on their third album, Success, in 1982.  They also released it as a single, and performed in the music video as the Weather Girls.

In October 1982, "It's Raining Men" hit #1 on the U.S. Dance Club Chart.  It also charted well in Europe.

There have been covers from everyone from RuPaul to Geri Halliwell to the Vamps to Miss Piggy.

In 2014, after a British politician blamed the UK's recent floods on gay marriage, a Facebook campaign was launched to get the song on the British charts again.  It hit #21.

Why is this a gay anthem?  It has nothing to do with liberation, and it's strictly heteronormative.  The men are raining down upon women.

God bless Mother Nature -- she's a single woman too
She took over heaven, and she did what she had to do
She taught every angel to rearrange the sky
So that each and every woman could find the perfect guy

Maybe because it's fun for gay men to think of being deluged by men, especially after growing up in a desert where gay romance was assumed not to exist.

It's raining men, hallelujah!

It's raining men, amen! 
I'm gonna go out, I'm I'm gonna let myself get
Absolutely...soaking....

See also: Ocho Rios

Jimmy Olsen's Secret Life, Part 2: Keefe singing, Jimmy (censored), and Gideon (censored)

How "I'm Coming Out" Became a Gay Anthem

"Let's Hear it for the Boy"

What's It All About, Alfie? Cute/Cool Photos of Alfie Williams, with a Cher song and n*de twinks

Link to the n*de dudes

Alfie Williams is not a usual candidate for cute/cool photos, since he has only four acting credits on the IMDB, and as of this writing he's only 14, too young for beefcake. But he is quite photogenic, and he and his dad Alfie Dobson maintain quite an active presence on social media, with a lot of photos to choose from.  So why not?

 

Don't worry, I posted some hunkoid beefcake photos, and some n*de photos of twinks (over age 18) on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.

I'm dyiing to match Alfie with the song "What's It All About, Alfie?" by Burt Bacharach and Hal David. It was sung by Cher for the movie Alfie (1966), starring Michael Caine as a guy who has several affairs but refuses to commit, and ends up alone.

What's it all about, Alfie?
Is it just for the moment we live
What's it all about, when you sort it out, Alfie?

Are we meant to take more than we give
Or are we meant to be kind?

And if, if only fools are kind, Alfie

Then I guess it is wise to be cruel

More after the break

How "I'm Coming Out" Became a Gay Anthem

I'm coming out
I want the world to know
Got to let it show

How can this not be a gay anthem?

You're leaving behind the years of darkness and despair, the big lie that your parents, friends, teachers, and the media have told you, that you do not exist, or if you do, you are a dangerous, deviant sinner.

You exist.  You are not a dangerous, deviant sinner. You have survived.  And now you want the world to know.

There's a new me coming out
And I just had to live, and I want to give
I'm completely positive
That I am coming out!

"I'm Coming Out" was written in 1979 by Bernard Edwards and Nile Rogers of the disco group Chic ("Le Freak").  They were actually straight, but often went to gay clubs, and one night at the GG Barnum Room they saw some drag queens impersonating Diana Ross.  They thought a song about the gay community would be a positive addition to her new album, Diana.

Disco queen Diana Ross was already a legend, with ten albums, a string of hit singles, and starring roles in Mahogany and The Wiz.  But she was also a conservative Christian who thought gay people were all evil and going to hell.

During a 1983 concert, she reportedly complained: "I have seen the evils of homosexuality; AIDS is the result of your sins."  Later she denied making the statement, blaming it on a misquote by a reporter.

But in 1979 she balked at the idea of a song about gay people.  "People will think I'm gay!  Why are you trying to ruin my career"?

So Edwards and Rogers told her it was about the "coming out" tradition of young girls who are ready to enter adult society.  And that's what she believed.

"I'm Coming Out" premiered in September 1980, and quickly moved up the charts to the #5 position on pop charts in the U.S..  Meanwhile, the gay community embraced the song.  What gay person in the 1980s didn't use it as a coming out anthem?

Diana Ross continues to be oblivious, insisting that the song is about "coming out" into society, although she has become more tolerant of her gay fans.  She says "I don't judge."

In 2007, her son Evan Ross landed a role in the movie Life Support as a HIV+ gay man, and was worried that his mother would be upset -- but only because the character smoked.