March 6th, 2007
Shaken Stevens’ ‘Green Door’ and lesbian clubs
For my 7th birthday I got a pair of pink dungarees and my first ever album - Shakin’ Steven’s This Ole House. I had seen the Welsh singer on Top of the Pops and his bendy legs and poppy rock ‘n’ roll had a big impact on my seven-year old self. Friends in later life also confessed to a past Shaky addiciton, with one male friend confessing that he practicing that tippy toes manoeuvre - the one Shaky was famous for - for hours in front of the mirror. He was a watered down Elvis, a non-threatening Teddy Boy and a Denim God all in one; he was the picture of safeness… or so I thought until I read the story behind ‘Green Door’ on the Guardian music blog today in a post about the Top 5 Lesbian songs.
“The prize for the most surprising feel-good girl-on-girl song goes to ‘Green Door’, originally sung by Frankie Vaughan and made famous by Shakin’ Stevens. ‘Don’t know what they’re doin’/ But they laugh a lot behind the green door/ Wish they’d let me in/ So I could find out what’s behind the green door’ refers to 1950s and 60s clandestine lesbian club Gateways (with a green door) off the King’s Road, which was popularised in the movie The Killing of Sister George. Fighting against the cliché of lesbians being miserable and alienated, ‘Green Door’ suggests that Lesbian Land is actually a thrilling place, made all the more so precisely because not everyone is allowed in.”
Ok, so it was a cover of a Frankie Vaughan song but what was Shaky singing songs about Lesbian clubs for? Does this mean there’s a whole subtext to his back catalogue? Is ‘This Ole House’ really about a doing up an old sauna? Is ‘Sea Cruise’ about something else altogether? ‘Lipstick, Powder and Paint’ might even be about drag queens and contains the suggestive line “Is you is, or is you ain’t?”. And come to think of it, there was an overdependence on using girls names in the song titles (’Shirley’, ‘Oh Julie’, ‘Marie Marie’, ‘Hey Mae’, ‘Justine’). Hmmm…
March 6th, 2007 at 4:57 pm
I never knew Shaky was so cutting edge.
Did you know that Love plus one by Haircut 100 was about being sodomised by an elephant while giving a reach around to a Chinese man who was giving head to a panther?
March 6th, 2007 at 5:08 pm
Ok, I nearly fell off my chair laughing there.
March 6th, 2007 at 5:12 pm
Yeah I knew that. And ‘Fantastic Day’ is about fisting…
March 6th, 2007 at 5:24 pm
Oh Martin, must you lower the tone so?
March 7th, 2007 at 1:00 am
I had the Shaky album on cassette. I swapped it for 2 Beatles albums. It’s still the best deal I ever made.
March 7th, 2007 at 9:02 am
Paul, a good deal indeed. Who the hell thought one Shaky album was worth two Beatles ones?
Incidentally, Jailhouse Rock is on TCM this morning. I told my mother this as she’s an Elvis fan and is in bed recovering from an operation) to which she replied: “Did you know there were lots of gay references in the song ‘Jailhouse Rock’? Apparently Elvis knew this and still put out the song?”
I nearly dropped the phone…
March 7th, 2007 at 2:36 pm
What a clued up Mammy! Mark Kermode was on about this the other night..
“Number forty-seven said to number three:
Youre the cutest jailbird I ever did see.
I sure would be delighted with your company,
Come on and do the jailhouse rock with me”
and
“The sad sack was a sittin on a block of stone
Way over in the corner weepin all alone.
The warden said, hey, buddy, dont you be no square.
If you cant find a partner use a wooden chair”