A few songs (more or less) about AIDS
It’s World AIDS Day. Since nobody seems to talk about AIDS anymore (b/c it’s not so much a problem for privileged men anymore, and more of a subaltern women’s problem), I thought I’d post some of my favorite songs more or less about AIDS.
First off is Peter Murphy’s cover of Pere Ubu’s “Final Solution”:
While this song is not obviously about AIDS, situating it in its early 80s context makes it pretty indubitably about aids. In the early 80s, in the height of the AIDS panic, it’s hard not to hear lines like “Girls won’t touch me cause I’ve got a missed erection” or “Don’t need a cure, need a final solution” as about HIV/AIDS (and not, as they were originally, about late 1970s deindustrialized Cleveland).
And, La Tour’s “People are Still Having Sex”:
Note the line, “People are still having sex, this AIDS thing’s not working”
I welcome other song suggestions in the comments.
in a similar vein to Peter Murphy’s version of Final Solution, there’s Coil’s reworking of Tainted Love, which according to Wikipedia was the “first AIDS benefit music release”: http://youtu.be/eo3TUtRnZi4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2ISD9Kt3qo
England’s Sister George, about a decade after the 80’s outbreak/awareness, in response to backlash against HIV prevention in the Lesbians community. It functions as a time capsule into early 90’s internal queer politics.