Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl

by Andrea Lawlor

Poets partied and fiction writers stayed home to work.

The best cover songs fuck with gender—like a woman singing lyrics by a man.”

Usually the gender reversal of the singer deliciously implies queer desire,

Okay, what should the first song be on the second side? You’ve got that moment where the tape reverses, the antici…pation, and so the first song on the second side is the heart of the tape. By that point, you’re committed; you’ve listened to an entire side and you’ve entered the world of the tape—you’ve waited, and what are you waiting for?

What was sex but newness? And sensation and conquest and intrigue and desire and romance and fantasy, and specific people sometimes, sure, but not always.