OT: Gender-Bending Lyrics?

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I'm wondering if anyone else has experienced this. Every so often I'll run across a song that I'd like to perform live, but the original is obviously sung from a woman's perspective with no clear way to reverse the roles. For example, one tune I always wanted to do was Judy Collins' "Someday Soon". I tried several sex-change operations on it - all of which sounded lame - and finally gave up and would just play it once in awhile as an instrumental. Singing it from the male's point of view, "Her parents can not stand me 'cause I ride the rodeo" sounded stilted and contrived. A guy singing about a rodeo queen, "My father says that she will leave me crying" sounds implausible. And singing the original lyrics "Someday soon going with him..." sounds gay (not that there's anything wrong with that - it's just not the message I wanted to convey). I've heard some female vocalists doing male material that sorta works, but never the reverse case.

 

Anyone have a preferred technique for this sort of thing?

[Bill H.]

Pick your songs wisely? "I Kissed A Girl" seems to work when I sing it.

[Dave Pierce]

Pick your songs wisely? "I Kissed A Girl" seems to work when I sing it.

 

So Bill, you "hope your boyfriend don't mind" then?

 

--Dave

[Bill H.]

It's a good line when you're singing in falsetto, which definitely puts it over the top. "Toxic" is another good one.

[wd8dky]

Who cares? Why mess with the original intent of the song...

[Chris Link]

From the title of the thread, I figured you were asking about "Walk On the Wild Side".

[Jeff Klopmeyer]

Or "Lola".

 

I "sex change" songs all the time. I cover joni Mitchell often, and I just flip the gender. It's no big deal, and I'd rather offend the purists than have people giggling while I sing about making sweet love to a man.

 

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

[Mark Zeger]

Lyle Lovett's version of "Stand By Your Man" is a gem.

[jimmymio]

Does anyone really think people even listen to lyrics? lol

I too love "Someday Soon" and obviously some songs lend themselves to a switch more easily than others. As a songwriter myself, I've always been taught to write as gender neutral as possible so that you could double your chance of getting a cut.

And yeah it's always easier for a gal to pull off a guy song. Probably for the same reason a girl might look sexy borrowing one of her guy's shirts but vice-versa... you get the picture.

JP

[DanS]

We're lucky, our female singer will sing anything.

We always kid her that all women are 50% lesbian anyway.