can we all agree that christmas music is pretty gay?
can we all agree that christmas music is pretty gay?
I spoke with North Aurora singer-songwriter Katie Bogle about Wham!, Sinatra and more ahead of her upcoming holiday gig.
Queering the Burbs is a weekly-ish distillation of pop culture, politics and queerness written by Joe Erbentraut. If you like what you see, please consider subscribing (it’s free!), liking or sharing this piece.
I need to make a confession: I have a bit of a thing for holiday music.
And I always have. Some of my earliest holiday memories are of belting out carols at church services. I was especially drawn to the deep melodrama of “O Holy Night” and the manic grandeur of “Joy to the World.” On of my first cassettes I ever purchased was a compilation of R&B covers of Christmas songs — I remember being drawn to the soulfulness and, yes, even the underpinnings of melancholy and extra that many of these songs are built upon. Let’s be real: Even if it takes the Mariah Carey version for you to realize it, these are bops that have stood the test of time with good reason.
And that brings me to my next point: Christmas music is gay. It was tailor-made for divas. It’s overindulgence, it’s excess, it’s the Wall of Sound on A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector. It spreads joy, it brings drama and can be irritating in large doses. Christmas is queer canon, whether it wants to be or not.
But don’t just take my word for it — Katie Bogle is the Fox Valley’s favorite roving queer singer-songwriter you may have spotted popping up over the summer at her regular shows at the Batavia Popcorn Depot and at various markets and other events around town.
The St. Charles native’s next show is coming up Thursday at the Joyful Night Holiday Market, and I thought the occasion marked the perfect excuse to get Bogle on the record about the state of the queering of the burbs, the gayest Christmas songs and more. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
How did you start playing music and getting into writing songs? Do you do it from a really young age?
My elementary school was like one of those schools that had us do the recorder when we were in first or second grade. And then in third grade, they were like, “Pick a stringed instrument.” And then in fifth grade, they were like, “Pick a band instrument.” And because it was always all boys on the drum line, I was like, I'm going to be the bitch in percussion, like, that's what I'm gonna do. If you said you want to play percussion, you had to take two years of piano, but that was good for me to learn how to read music. Between third and fifth grade, I took piano lessons weekly and I continued with piano for a few years after that and I got bored with it. I wanted to pick up guitar.
The thing that made me want to play guitar, actually, I think, was around fifth grade or whenever School of Rock came out. At that time, I was like, “I want to be Jack Black.” And my grandpa played ukulele and he sang in a quartet. He was very musical, and he always donated his ukuleles to me. I had one ukulele that just had one string on it. And after I watched School of Rock, I learned how to play “Smoke on the Water” on that one string. One day I got home and my parents had a Fender Telecaster there for me with an amp. And I think I played it for, like, six hours straight. They were like, “Are you coming like to dinner?” I just got carried away with it.
And then I was, like, always trying to get my friends to be in a band with me. I was like just making up music and I taught myself guitar. I would just figure out things that sounded good and be, like, OK, that's a song. Fast forward to high school or maybe eighth grade and I was in a band called 90 Pieces with a couple of other girls and a guy. And we were playing festivals, and we were little kids that knew how to play instruments. My parents were so impressed and it was really cool. Them and all their friends would come and just get drunk and watch us play, and they paid for us to do a little recording of a four-track EP that we could sell and it was pretty legit. 90 Pieces for life! It was just fun rock music. And then Borrowed Bicycle happened, and that was kind of all of us writing songs together, because we all had different musical backgrounds. A lot of those guys liked Grateful Dead, Phish and stuff like that and I was more into Tycho or like The 1975 — a little more alternative. We just kind of meshed all of those things together, and there was just a nice mix until the guitarist moved away.
And then I was like, you know what, I am here, it's just me, and I'm gonna write, you know, songs with three chords that are easy for people to sing along to, easy for people to jam along to. I was just, like, I just want to make pop music. And so that's what I started doing. In 2019. Right before Covid hit, I stopped working with my producer at that point, but we released two tracks. And that was like, damn, I can't believe I've been playing music for like 20 years and I just finally got something on Spotify. But I'm glad that it happened because it's just opened so many doors for me. I actually have a single — “Studio Apartment” — that is going to be featured in an independent film called Ahyoka River. It was filmed in the West Dundee, Aurora area.
I feel like whenever I was opening Facebook this summer, you were popping up with shows at the Popcorn Depot and all over town. How was that experience? Especially, you know, after the pandemic and the extended time of not being around a ton of people and not putting a ton of shows.
That was really awesome. I was so nervous the first time that I had to play at the Popcorn Depot, mostly because it had been so long right? During the pandemic, when I would livestream a show from my living room, I would still get this adrenaline rush when people would start to come in and you'd see the numbers going up, because there's no background noise. You're not in a bar or anything like that, right? So it’s so much more focused on you. But also, like, this is a historic Batavia staple that I'm about to play at. I was just like, that's so huge to me. The Depot has been around for decades.
So, I was really, really stoked about that, and nervous, but it went really well. And obviously Talitha is, like, an angel on Earth, so she was so sweet about everything and everybody was so nice about me playing. They all had requests for me to learn for the next week, which was good because I'm always like looking for songs to add to my set that people would enjoy to hear. That was cool and it was really casual. My friends would just come and like sit on the grass and, you know, chow down on some popcorn and maybe have a six pack of beer or something with them. So many opportunities have also come because of that.
Speaking of opportunities, I understand you're playing some holiday songs this coming Thursday, at the Joyful Night Holiday Market. Do you like Christmas music? Or do you get down with the holidays like that?
I mean, I like it. I really like it because it's not being shoved down my throat. I don't work in retail so I don't have to hear it all the time. I really like the jazzy Christmas music. Um, [my fiancée] Michelle put together all these Christmas playlists for us last winter when we had our Covid Christmas together, and then our Covid New Year’s. They’re all the contemporary stuff that I like, but then all this, like, Frank Sinatra. We have his Christmas album on vinyl. So we cycle through that and then I really like the orchestral Christmas music too.
I'm definitely not a Grinch when it comes to Christmas music, but I need to work on my repertoire for it. I never really covered it before all that much. But I'm actually going to do “Last Christmas” by Wham! because I love the Jimmy Eat World cover of that song. And I'm also trying to do “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” I’m definitely no Mariah when it comes to my vocal cords, but I'm gonna I'm gonna make it happen and it's gonna be fun.
Oh, I love “Last Christmas.” I've never heard a bad version of that song. Carly Rae Jepsen also has one that I really liked too. I love her, and it's right in her wheelhouse of kind of like, retro ‘80s like kind of happy-and-also-sad ballad.
Yeah, the melody is just classic. It's so good. I feel like you could play that song honestly at any time in the year because it's like there's no jingle bells really in it. So it's like, it's still a pop song, but the lyrics are about Christmas.
It’s also funny you mentioned “Last Christmas” because I was trying to think about what the gayest Christmas songs are, and that one shot right to the top of the list.
I mean, George Michael, right? And also the song doesn't really say anything about like “girl” or “boy.” It has like the line that's like “a face of a lover with a fire in his heart / a man under cover, but you tore him apart,” but still it’s not a lot of genders. I was watching a music video too, and I was like, um, I don't know if this is about this girl that this camera is on, can we see somebody else at this party? But also, there’s the Michael Bublé cover of “Santa Baby” that he changed to “Santa Buddy” to try to make it not gay. And it just sounds more gay. He’s like, “Gimme a Rolex, homie!”
Oh my God, but “Santa Baby” is Eartha Kitt, another queer icon. Santa Buddy, really?! Please.
Yes! I hate anybody that tries to cover a song and changes the gender because they don't want to be perceived as some way or another. Just pick a different cover if you're that worried about it.
And I have to mention my other pick for the gayest Christmas song ever: Someone did a mashup of Ariana Grande’s “Santa Tell Me” with Khia’s “My Neck My Back” and it’s still one of my favorite things ever.
Yeah, that’s going right on our Christmas playlist.
Finally, I know you’ve recently put down some roots, you bought a home in the area, and you’ve got your wedding coming up. Congratulations, by the way. How do you think the western suburbs are doing in terms of being welcoming, being the sort of place where a queer person would want to put down some roots?
I don't want to sound like a broken record, but it’s the same thing as what I saw Penelope [Torres] say in your interview with her. It's really cool to see the outward support with the pride flags, you know, and the free libraries, but we need programs and we need tangible resources for people. You can only say so many things, you’ve got to have actions that go with those words of support.
We have our pride flag, and pretty much everybody on our dead-end street has a rainbow flag hanging outside of their house, which is great. But the guy right across from has five flags outside of his house. One of them is the “don’t tread on me” flag. One of them is the 13 colonies flag. One of them is just a regular old American flag. I don’t remember the fourth one, but the fifth one is the “let's go Brandon FJB” flag. It’s just… I don’t know. Those people aren't going to go away as easily as you think they are. The way that the last presidency left everything, it's so polarized. It's so hard to get people who disagree to talk to each other.
I actually had to have conversations with this guy. I’ve seen him on the street and one of our packages mistakenly got delivered to his house. So he called me and I feel like I'm working really hard to see if I can help him make one really good connection with one gay person. Maybe that could help deconstruct that QAnon shit that he has going on in his head. Just one one person at a time. I guess I'm just gonna kill him with kindness, and I hope he's just gonna see that there's no reason for him to feel as as hateful as he does. The outward support is a starting place, but there's just so much more work that has to be done. And the best way you can do that is to just take responsibility as an individual and just put as much love and real information out into the world as you can.
The Joyful Night Holiday Market is taking place from 5-9 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 16, at 525 N. River St. The historic windmill factory (and home to CryBaby CBD) will be showcasing goods from local makes, plus entertainment from the band Sweetie (friend of this newsletter) Annie Hex.
For more of Bogle’s music, you can visit her Spotify and YouTube pages.
For more words from queer folks out here doing the work in the western ‘burbs, read my previous interviews with Batavia artist Annie Hex, Aurora organizer Javi, the organizers of Geneva Pride, Batavia alderman Dan Chanzit, Paramount Theatre artistic director Jim Corti and Aurora trans activist Penelope Torres. As always, please comment, share and subscribe if you like what you read.
No links this week, just this Cameo video that former Real Housewife of New York Carole Radziwill filmed while whispering on the floor of the vitamin aisle of a CVS. Consider her the ghost of Christmas past.
And I couldn’t leave you without one last bop. Here’s Carly Rae Jepsen singing “Last Christmas” on The Late Late Show in 2016. Have a merry merry, everyone.