K.D.Lang just blew my mind, among other things.

" K.D. Lang just blew my mind."

Now admittedly, whenever someone says the above words, you know it hasn't been a very eventful day for them because they had enough low points in the day, that discovering K.D.Lang was female caused them to (and I kid you not) jump with excitement, and google her for over an hour. In my pretty shitty defense, there was a lot of paperwork I went through today, so bear with me while I obsess over her, who not so long ago for me was a him. *squeee* 

You ready for a completely uselessly long story that could be summed up in about two lines. Yes? Yes? Great.

So, a couple years back on a typical summer holiday day in Grade 7, I woke up in the afternoon, turned on the TV to National Geographic and my life changed. As it often happens with channels like Nat Geo, and yes I totally nicknamed it, Discovery and the lot, I was fascinated by whatever they were showing and this particular time, they were showing an exquisitely beautiful, dapper boy, I should say man, in a black vest and an effeminate shirt singing Chelsea Hotel No.2. And as he sang "Well, never mind, we are ugly. But we have the music", I slowly fell in love with  Rufus Wainwright. 

His performance ended and the documentary I was watching faded back into the face of the kindest old man I think exists, Leonard Cohen. I should point out that I was watching a documentary based on the life and music of Leonard Cohen, structured around a 2005 series of Sydney Opera House tribute shows dedicated to him called "Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man". Yeah, so then. Eager to know more about Leonard Cohen than just his songs that I always heard and obviously to watch the man I had just fallen in love with, Rufus Wainwright, sing again, I watched on, and what followed was my favorite 103 minutes ever. I heard some of my now favorite artists perform for the first time, like Beth Orton, Martha Wainwright, Joan Wasser, Perla Batalla and Teddy Thompson among many others. 

Should I come to the point or tangent along a bit longer? Let me tangent, how about it?

Basically remember how the first time, as a child you hear BoyZone, and you knew your life had been changed forever.It was just like that for me but instead of starting a phase of  me choreographing a bunch of boy band dance routines in my own head where Keanu Reeves was the frontman, it started, or rather boosted because I had been listening to a lot of this before, a deep deep appreciation for folk, folk-rock and opera type music. It led me to discover through a long chain of association Il Divo, and  caused me to listen to David Bowie for the first time. I mean, moments like these change people, and discovering this whole different side of music, where it wasn't just about selling records and billboard records, it was about selling talent and touching hearts and moving people and making someone a million miles away feel joy when you chuckle on the tape and cry when your voice quivered as you crooned. The music I discovered through this movie was mind blowing. Ooh, I also was introduced to Freddie Mercury outside of Queen for the first time during this phase. I discovered old time Broadway singers, concert cellist Robert DeMaine, Etta James, Henry Wimmer, Blondie, the poems of Frederico Garcia Lorca, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman and the likes. Just everything can be traced back to that documentary. It either enhanced or created an interest in so many unique things for me. The mindset and the angst was already waiting, this just sought of lit the fire. They were various other things also obviously that lead to me being into the things I am into today, but this was a biggie. And opera, ohmygod, how I begun to adore opera and concert performances after it. I do believe that if I hadn't been into opera that much from before, The Phantom Of The Opera, or rather Phantom - The Las Vegas Spectacular, that I saw at the Venetian would not nearly have had as much emotional impact on me as it. And it was all because I had known to appreciate the power of Andrew Lloyd Webber.


Recovering from tangent now, although I finished seeing that documentary thinking that I wanted to fuck Rufus Wainwright and have Leonard Cohen singing the background music to it. I could not for the life of me place where I had heard his name before. I searched my entire music library for any connection whatsoever to Rufus Wainwright directly enough, and K.D. Lang popped up. And I had only one song called Constant Craving. But K.D.Lang was a quite soulful artist in my mind, won a Juno for that song by the way. And "he" wasn't that bad. to give you a reference this is what the album art looked like and considering the voice, how can you blame me for my mistake? 

Also, as reference here are some other pictures to go by,

Now, come on. That was definitely a man in my mind. In grade 9, I was well into Making The Band, and Donnie J. Klang was a person in that show. Went on to a failed solo career that one. And whenever I searched him on my iTunes, it always turned up K.D. Land also. I ignored that artist as always, I had never really gotten into "him", but had always known of his existence and occasionally Youtube'd "him". The Youtube videos always made me assume this was a very gay man. Fast forward to tonight, actually a few nights back because I am writing everything but the first paragraph of this post much much later than the actual occurrence of this realization, and during that I have re adjusted my affections and that's why a lot more of this post is a shameless excuse for me to talk about Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man, and not actually K.D. Lang, a few months after I got an YouTube account and discovered that I literally waste five hours of my life catching up on the 9 seasons of The Graham Norton Show, trust me this show the funniest thing in the history of existence, probably not but that's the line I'm going to go with, but anyways, I K.D. Lang came on the show with Jennifer Hudson and Bill Bailey. Even when she was talking I thought, just a gay man there, but Graham Norton kept referring to "him" as a her, and while talking about why she was so controversial, he pointed about that SHE was a LESBIAN.And.Like.I.Just.Died.Inside. In the most positive way though, I mean I saw her performing 'Hallelujah at the Winter Olympics and I still thought she was a man. And not only is she's not a man, definitely not a gay man, but she's a girl and that too a out and proud lesbian.

MIND.

FUCKING.

BLOWN

At least I got her sexual orientation right, innit?

Mental Note: Make a blogpost about Rufus Wainwright, Make a blogpost about unf men you felt good about but turned out gay, Make a blogpost about Loudon Wainwright and why you forgive him even though he's a dick (Mention the Roche thing, actually talk about them like they were the partridges and/or music royalty, which if you think about it , they are), Make a blogpost about Hallelujah, Make a blogpost about musicals, Make a blogpost about    
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Flashbacks Of A Fool, and December Boys, individually or separately, and mention why you like Bryan Ferry and the name Roxanne so much while you're at it.