美国国家公共电台 NPR Bigger Than Disco, 'You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)' Is A Celebration Of Self

 

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Forty years ago this month, a gender¹-bending singer named Sylvester was enjoying his first spell on the pop charts with his song "Dance (Disco Heat)."

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DANCE (DISCO HEAT)")

SYLVESTER: (Singing) Cooking on my feet in the disco heat.

GREENE: But it was the follow-up single that would become an LGBTQ anthem². "You Make Me Feel (Mighty³ Real)" made it to No. 1 on Billboard's dance chart, and it remains⁴ a testament⁵ to the power of coming out. As part of our series American Anthem, Rick Karr has this profile.

RICK KARR, BYLINE⁶: If you want to understand why "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)" became an anthem for LGBTQ people, Joshua Gamson says you need to imagine what it was like to have been one of them when the song came out in 1978.

(SOUNDBITE OF SYLVESTER SONG, "YOU MAKE ME FEEL (MIGHTY REAL)")

JOSHUA GAMSON: You've come out of the closet. It's been difficult. Many people have moved out of their homes of origin, their families of origin with great pain and moved to a more liberated⁷ place like San Francisco.

(SOUNDBITE OF SYLVESTER SONG, "YOU MAKE ME FEEL (MIGHTY REAL)")

KARR: Gamson's the author of "The Fabulous⁸ Sylvester: The Legend, The Music, The '70s In San Francisco." He says Sylvester was a kind of folk hero for many of those young people. He was one of them, up there on stage being fabulous. And with "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)," he was celebrating their freedom.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "YOU MAKE ME FEEL (MIGHTY REAL)")

SYLVESTER: (Singing) When we're out there dancing on the floor, darling - and I feel like I need some more. And I feel your body close to mine, and I move on love. It's about that time. Make me feel mighty real.

GAMSON: You've got the words of a person who is just matter-of-fact about their sexual desires, about the freedom to do with their bodies and their desires - whatever they want to do and a freedom from gender in a way. And you can dance to it.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "YOU MAKE ME FEEL (MIGHTY REAL)")

SYLVESTER: (Singing) You make me feel mighty real.

KARR: Sylvester James was 31 when "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)" came out. He'd grown up singing in a Pentecostal church in the Watts⁹ neighborhood of Los Angeles. His mother was a devout¹⁰ churchgoer, and she could not accept the early signs of her son's sexuality, as Sylvester told Joan Rivers on "The Tonight Show" in 1986.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE TONIGHT SHOW")

SYLVESTER: When I was little, I used to dress up, right?

JOAN RIVERS: Yeah. OK.

SYLVESTER: And my mother said you can't dress up; you got to wear these pants and these shoes, and you have to, like, drink beer and play football.

(LAUGHTER)

SYLVESTER: And I said, no, I don't. And she said you're very strange, and I said that's OK.

KARR: He left the church when he was 13 and left home not too long afterwards. He stayed with friends and his grandmother who accepted him as he was. In his early 20s, he fled to San Francisco to join an avant garde theater troupe¹¹ called the Cockettes, whose fans included Truman Capote and Gloria Vanderbilt. But he left pretty quickly to front his own act. Singer Jeanie Tracy became Sylvester's friend and collaborator¹² and remembers when she was introduced to him by friends.

JEANIE TRACY: They said oh, Jeanie, this is Sylvester. And I said, Sylvester? I thought you were a woman. And then I said, oops, I'm sorry. He goes, oh no, girl. That's OK (laughter).

KARR: When guitarist and songwriter James Wirrick saw the singer for the first time, Sylvester was backed by a tight three-piece band and flanked by two drag queens.

JAMES WIRRICK: In full drag with full neck beards (laughter).

KARR: Wirrick and Sylvester became bandmates and collaborators a few months later. By then, the backup singers were Izora Rhodes and Martha Wash. At the time, they were known as Two Tons O' Fun. But they went on to release an anthem of their own as the Weather Girls.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "IT'S RAINING MEN")

THE WEATHER GIRLS: (Singing) It's raining men. Hallelujah, it's raining men. Amen.

KARR: Wirrick says when he and Sylvester brought their song "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)," to the rest of the band, it didn't go over very well.

WIRRICK: At first, the band didn't want to play it as a dance tune¹³. They were kind of snotty about it. You know, it's like, well, we don't really want to do that, you know? And Sylvester and I kept saying, no, you have to do that because that's what's on the radio.

KARR: The song was a bigger hit in discos than it was on the radio. And its falsetto vocals¹⁴, four-on-the-floor beat and bouncing synthesizer influenced the next generation of electronic music producers. Twenty years after the original, Chicago house vocalist Byron Stingily paid tribute with a cover version that also topped the U.S. dance charts.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "YOU MAKE ME FEEL (MIGHTY REAL)")

BYRON STINGILY: (Singing) And I know you love me like you should. You make me feel mighty real.

KARR: The song went on to become the centerpiece of a 2014 off-Broadway musical that tells Sylvester's life story. It's appeared in ads, films and TV shows. So far this year, James Wirrick says he's gotten eight requests for permission to use the song he co-wrote.

WIRRICK: A video game, three television commercials, three movies and an episode of "The Simpsons" (laughter).

KARR: In the mid-to-late '80s, Sylvester used the song's popularity to raise AIDS awareness¹⁵. He played benefit shows and passed safe sex information out to his audiences. He thanked Joan Rivers and fellow "Tonight Show" guest Charles Nelson Reilly for their early support of what was becoming a movement.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE TONIGHT SHOW")

SYLVESTER: People don't remember that it was way back then when no one knew what was going on that you were the first ones and you also - the three of us together...

RIVERS: And you.

SYLVESTER: And yeah, I was there, too - trying to do whatever we could at the time to get it together. And now it's, like, the national thing to do, but I want to thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

KARR: Even though "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)'s" popularity went beyond its LGBTQ roots, Sylvester didn't live to appreciate that. He was never tested for HIV. He told friends there was no point because he knew he had the virus. In 1987, Sylvester's husband died of complications from AIDS. Within a few months, his own health was deteriorating¹⁶. But singer Jeanie Tracy says his senses of style and humor stayed intact even as he was planning his own funeral.

TRACY: He looked at me and he says, I want to be buried in a pearl-colored casket; don't bury me in a white casket 'cause I don't want to look like I'm lying in a white refrigerator (laughter).

KARR: A few months before he died, Sylvester appeared in the 1988 Gay Freedom Parade in San Francisco. He was emaciated¹⁷ and weak and rode in a wheelchair, but he didn't want to hide, according to biographer Joshua Gamson. He wanted the crowds along Castro Street to see him.

GAMSON: It was part of the same almost philosophy of realness. Like, this is being real. This is mighty real to be marching in the Gay Freedom Parade looking like 40 years older than you are and people knowing that they've seen this icon¹⁸ of their freedom - they see him, a symbol of the devastation¹⁹ that AIDS took on the community.

KARR: A community that Sylvester identified with and championed throughout his life. In his will, he left his share of future royalties²⁰ for "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)" to two San Francisco nonprofits, the AIDS Emergency Fund and Project Open Hand. For NPR News, I'm Rick Karr.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "YOU MAKE ME FEEL (MIGHTY REAL)")

SYLVESTER: (Singing) You make me feel mighty real.

1 gender   

n.（生理上的）性，（名词、代词等的）性

参考例句：

• French differs from English in having gender for all nouns.法语不同于英语，所有的名词都有性。
• Women are sometimes denied opportunities solely because of their gender.妇女有时仅仅因为性别而无法获得种种机会。

2 anthem   

n.圣歌，赞美诗，颂歌

参考例句：

• All those present were standing solemnly when the national anthem was played.奏国歌时全场肃立。
• As he stood on the winner's rostrum,he sang the words of the national anthem.他站在冠军领奖台上，唱起了国歌。

3 mighty   

adj.强有力的；巨大的

参考例句：

• A mighty force was about to break loose.一股巨大的力量即将迸发而出。
• The mighty iceberg came into view.巨大的冰山出现在眼前。

4 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

5 testament   

n.遗嘱；证明

参考例句：

• This is his last will and testament.这是他的遗愿和遗嘱。
• It is a testament to the power of political mythology.这说明，编造政治神话可以产生多大的威力。

6 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

7 liberated   

a.无拘束的，放纵的

参考例句：

• The city was liberated by the advancing army. 军队向前挺进，解放了那座城市。
• The heat brings about a chemical reaction, and oxygen is liberated. 热量引起化学反应，释放出氧气。

8 fabulous   

adj.极好的；极为巨大的；寓言中的，传说中的

参考例句：

• We had a fabulous time at the party.我们在晚会上玩得很痛快。
• This is a fabulous sum of money.这是一笔巨款。

9 watts   

（电力计量单位）瓦，瓦特( watt的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• My lamp uses 60 watts; my toaster uses 600 watts. 我的灯用60瓦，我的烤面包器用600瓦。
• My lamp uses 40 watts. 我的灯40瓦。

10 devout   

adj.虔诚的，虔敬的，衷心的 (n.devoutness)

参考例句：

• His devout Catholicism appeals to ordinary people.他对天主教的虔诚信仰感染了普通民众。
• The devout man prayed daily.那位虔诚的男士每天都祈祷。

11 troupe   

n.剧团，戏班；杂技团；马戏团

参考例句：

• The art troupe is always on the move in frontier guards.文工团常年在边防部队流动。
• The troupe produced a new play last night.剧团昨晚上演了一部新剧。

12 collaborator   

n.合作者，协作者

参考例句：

• I need a collaborator to help me. 我需要个人跟我合作，帮我的忙。
• His collaborator, Hooke, was of a different opinion. 他的合作者霍克持有不同的看法。

13 tune   

n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整

参考例句：

• He'd written a tune,and played it to us on the piano.他写了一段曲子，并在钢琴上弹给我们听。
• The boy beat out a tune on a tin can.那男孩在易拉罐上敲出一首曲子。

14 vocals   

（乐曲中的）歌唱部份，声乐部份( vocal的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Also look out for soaring vocals on The Right Man. 另外，也可留意一下《意中人》中的那高亢的唱腔。
• Lazy bass line, lazier drums, lush violins, great piano and incomparable vocals. 懒惰的低音线，较懒惰的鼓，饮小提琴，棒的钢琴和无比的声音。

15 awareness   

n.意识，觉悟，懂事，明智

参考例句：

• There is a general awareness that smoking is harmful.人们普遍认识到吸烟有害健康。
• Environmental awareness has increased over the years.这些年来人们的环境意识增强了。

16 deteriorating   

恶化，变坏( deteriorate的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• The weather conditions are deteriorating. 天气变得越来越糟。
• I was well aware of the bad morale and the deteriorating factories. 我很清楚，大家情绪低落，各个工厂越搞越坏。

17 emaciated   

adj.衰弱的，消瘦的

参考例句：

• A long time illness made him sallow and emaciated.长期患病使他面黄肌瘦。
• In the light of a single candle,she can see his emaciated face.借着烛光，她能看到他的被憔悴的面孔。

18 icon   

n.偶像，崇拜的对象，画像

参考例句：

• They found an icon in the monastery.他们在修道院中发现了一个圣像。
• Click on this icon to align or justify text.点击这个图标使文本排齐。

19 devastation   

n.毁坏；荒废；极度震惊或悲伤

参考例句：

• The bomb caused widespread devastation. 炸弹造成大面积破坏。
• There was devastation on every side. 到处都是破坏的创伤。 来自《简明英汉词典》

20 royalties   

特许权使用费

参考例句：

• I lived on about £3,000 a year from the royalties on my book. 我靠着写书得来的每年约3，000英镑的版税生活。 来自辞典例句
• Payments shall generally be made in the form of royalties. 一般应采取提成方式支付。 来自经济法规部分