Music Monday #50: Born Naked by RuPaul

With a music career that spans 4 decades and 12 albums at the time of writing, RuPaul has been around the block more times than I can count.  As the world's most famous drag queen, throughout his career RuPaul both in and out of Drag has experimented, never afraid to try new things this is reflected in his discography.  Released in 2014 'Born Naked' was an album that saw Ru depart from his comfort zone and venture into electronic music incorporating gospel music featuring soul singer Clairy Browne, and bounce music featuring Big Freedia this album was by definition experimented for Ru.  To date his best selling album the tracks are positive, upbeat, and uplifting.

The title track 'Born Naked' inspired by one of his catchphrases from RuPaul's Drag Race "We're all born naked and the rest is drag" the lyrics reflect this belief and create a narrative about self discovery and self acceptance.  The lyrics put this question direct to the listener "Who?  Who do you think you are?  Who do you think you are?  I'm tellin' the truth now, We're all born naked and the rest is drag" the message here is that everything you are is a costume, a drag, you are what you make of yourself and who you choose to be, people will try and tell you who you are but they don't get to decide the answer to that question you do.  You can be whoever you want to be, play whatever role you want to play in this life, the opening verse epitomises this belief "Who you waitin' for? Another savior, Always lookin' but you never find, never find, Wakin' up from another night gone, Always lookin' but you never find, never find" these words are telling you that if you forever wait for someone to save you then you'll never find them because we have to save ourselves in life. 

Despite this powerful message that I wanted to open with, this wasn't the first track I fell in love with on this album, that was 'Fly Tonight' a duet with Frankmusik for the lyrics "Daydreams not enough for us, We can't hide behind this feeling, Losers find a place for love, Up above the clouds" which is about letting go of the world in the physical sense and elevating your consciousness to a level above dreams, this touches on something that is conflated a lot with Electronic Dance Music and that is the search for an elevated conscious.  For most people that means drugs, because they see them as a shortcut to that state of mind, this more than anything is why they are associated so heavily with EDM in general.  There are ways to achieve that state of mind without the use of drugs but they require a lot of effort which most people aren't willing to put in.  Fly Tonight is about achieving that state of mind, something that I can do without drugs but I know that comes from decades of exposure to EDM and a deeper understanding of myself and my body.  When I talk about trance music in particular being literally a genre of music intended to induce a trance, this is what I mean.

The other track from this album that instantly resonated with me was 'Dance With U' which again talks about letting go, this time to get lost in music itself and go with the rhythm, to dance and forget about the world.  The lyrics read "Turn the lights down now, Turn the music loud, I wanna dance, Lights down now, Turn the music loud, I wanna dance" this epitomises my relationship with music, but it also epitomises my relationship with sex, for a time sex was an escape for me from reality because in that moment when you devote your entire consciousness to one another you forget about the world and you get to experience euphoria and ecstasy wrapped up in desire and pure self expression.

I like this whole album from start to finish but there's one more track I want to pay particular attention to and that is 'Let The Music Play' a duet between RuPaul and his closest friend Michelle Visage.  The track tells the story of a friendship that was meant to be from the start, but life gets in the way and tears it apart but in the end life brings them back together again and it grows stronger than ever before.  This is something that strikes a chord with me because there have been people in my life that I have been close to, people who were part of my life when I needed them most, people who for one reason or another we parted ways.  With more than a few of these people I would like them back in my life but that's not always possible, sometimes the things that split you apart are things you just can't forget. 

The lyrics are something that I long for rather than something I have experienced first-hand.  The lyrics before the chorus read "But it wasn't for long, cause our love was never broken, Everything that went wrong, went right out into the open, All the words to our song sound like, sounded like a duet, Like a duet, sounded like a duet, sounded like a duet" this speaks of the feeling that I share, of still holding love for the people you lost, that much was never lost.  The idea that you feel as though something is missing because they should have been there is reflected in the lyrics "There are things I learned (There were things I tried), But we still got burned (When the music died), An empty place, never felt like home, (No one by my side, I was out there on my own)" tells a story in parallel of two people living their lives separately who feel the same way despite that separation.

Conflict isn't always easy to resolve, it can be harder still when those of us who shy away from it pre-empt that conflict and bow out of the fight before it ever gets a chance to surface.  This desire to leave on a high before things are ruined forever has led me to walk away from some people in my life because resolution was something that I could never see as a possibility, sometimes that came out of recognition of how stubborn we both were and the belief that this would cause a stand off, but sometimes it came out of recognition that some thoughts and feelings can't be helped and can't be changed, my journey through Cognitive Behavioural Therapy taught me this, when thoughts are always preceded by emotion they are hardest to control because you can't inherently control emotions, they control you.

Born Naked as an album and a concept is accepting yourself for who you are, the naked self and realising that is what you have to work with in life, recognising what is and is not part of you allows you to realise what you are truly capable of achieving.