Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl

by Andrea Lawlor

“Some covers are queerer than others, approach jouissance, like the Raincoats’ mesmerizing cover of the Kinks’ ‘Lola’ in which a tranny-chaser’s admirably bold declaration of desire pales in its subversion next to the Raincoats’ queer-on-queer fantasia of a slightly neurotic but fairly confident British butch picking up a sexy and significantly taller femme. In Suzi Quatro’s bouncy ‘Born to Run,’ Springsteen’s working-class lament becomes a queer kid’s lusty paean to the joy of getting out of town with a dollop of conquest, persuading the closeted Wendy to come out. But more rarely, a man-type person might cover a song made famous by a woman-type person. Sometimes metal guys—like Megadeth’s ‘These Boots Are Made for Walkin’ ’—or grunge bands—like Nirvana’s ‘Molly’s Lips’—do covers of girl songs, but mostly these man-type people are super-queer countertenors, you know, Klaus Nomi, Neil Tennant, Jimmy Somerville, Marc Almond, who channel Motown divas or bubblegum pop stars. In these songs, the payoff is always in the uncanny, the repetition-with-a-difference, the photorealism, the trompe l’oeil.” Paul