I Feel Love

Sam Sweetie, Smith Dahlin’,

We gotta talk. You just released a cover version of I Feel Love, Donna Summer’s utterly transcendental disco anthem, that is so faithful a clone that it lacks anything and everything a good song let alone a great cover should have. I am talking about human emotions, feelings, a soul. Your cover version has none. It’s devoid of anything even remotely resembling the qualities that make music so central to our lives, that drive us onto the dance floor, and that let us dance the night away. In the words of Resident Advisor’s Andrew Ryce, it’s a “transparent, disrespectful cash grab.” He wisely recommends the 1985 cover by Bronski Beat and Marc Almond as a much better alternative. In fact, I have been listening to both the original and the Bronski Beat/Almond cover while writing this open letter. (There also is Patrick Cowley’s magnificent remix of the song, which for many a connoisseur is the song.) I just hope they cleanse my palate and help forget ever having listened to your version.

Now Sam Sweetie, there’s nothing wrong with being in business with Target. They may even pay you well, Smith Dahlin’. That’s ok. Me, myself, and I, we love shopping at Target. They are across the street from my home and have most everyday supplies at good prices. Unlike the unrepentant blasphemers, heretics, and idolators at CBN, who like to scream “Target at It Again, Pushing Pro-LGBT Agenda,” I am aok with Target’s support for the community. Frankly, all corporations should. It’s smart business. But therein also lies the rub. Target is nothing but a smart capitalist enterprise, hawking its wares to all paying customers, including us LGBT folk.

Worse, Sam Sweetie, you are not content to release this utterly hollow, utterly insincere cover of I Feel Love in support of Target’s latest and greatest advertising blitz and thereafter be done with that. No, Smith Dahlin’. You have the audacity to declare: “As a queer person, I Feel Love has followed me to every dance floor in every queer space from the minute I started clubbing.” Really? So how come your cover version is so shitty, vocal acrobatics notwithstanding? Given your stories about coming out as gay aged 10, about wearing make-up to school — not just any school, Catholic school — given your more recent declarations of being a feminist and genderqueer, I would have hoped that you have a better sense for what it means to be LGBTQ — see, I even added the Q so that you feel more welcome — and would have more respect for the community, not taking us for patsies.

But fret not, Sam Sweetie. You picking I Feel Love also provides a great learning opportunity about love and respect, Smith Dahlin’. See, many of the men who originally danced the night away to Donna Summer’s sublime tunes are dead, not from old age but from the plague. They died horrible deaths during the 1980s and polite society very impolitely chose to look away, pretending that this was just desserts or something. Around that time, Donna Summer had become a born-again Christian and hung out with a few too many of the above-mentioned blasphemers, heretics, and idolators. Then in 1983, at a performance in Atlantic City, she said things that either were terribly put or terribly misunderstood. I’m guessing it was a little bit of both. Many in the LGBTQ community turned from her and thereafter disavowed the reigning queen of the dance floor. Her career never recovered.

After her death in 2012, POZ Magazine published a letter in full that Donna Summer had written to apologize in 1989 and sent to ACT UP, since they were protesting outside her performances all over the East Cost. It is sincere, heartfelt, full of pain, and full of love. You’d do well to read it in its entirety and take it to heart. Because despite all the moaning and groaning and all the sultry lyrics, knowing pain and making it go away, if only for a song, is at the very core of Donna Summer’s glorious artistry. So don’t you dare sully it again with such a cheap stunt. Got that Sam Sweetie, Smith Dahlin’?!

In closing, here then is Donna Summer in her own words — may she rest in love:

We have too many good memories together to live in this state of unforgiveness. I never denied you or turned away, but in fact you turned away from me. If I have caused you pain, forgive me. It was never my intention to reject you but to extend myself in love. I know that some of you really need me now because you’ve written and told me so. Can’t we just forgive each other for this past confusion?

As far as I am concerned, the good memories together are what matters indeed. You are forgiven!

With love,

Robert