Notes from a Composer

A Pride Month Special Look at “I Will Survive” and Some of its Many Covers

with particular ruminations on what we will survive, or not

The Original – Gloria Gaynor

If one were to choose one song to stand as the anthem for the modern LGBTQ movement – and for the purposes of this post I’ll sidestep the question whether any one song can really fairly take that mantle –  Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” would surely be the obvious choice.  The 1970’s divalicious disco anthem of defiance and self-worth may literally be about telling a feckless ex-lover to “walk out the door”, but with lines like “I have all my life to live, and I have all my love to give”, “I Will Survive” has always also stood for a maligned minority standing up for themselves, to live, to love, and to survive, sentiments that have only deepened with time, from Gay Liberation to the AIDS crisis to Marriage Equality and on.

The above recording is the original, or at least as close to the original as I’ve recently found.  Back in 1993, before Itunes, I couldn’t find the original in Tower Records, only an “updated” version I purchased on a disco compilation cd in order to include this essential number for Ed and my wedding music cassette (remember mix tapes, that tangible limited edition forerunner of playlists?).  This remix, posted below, was very much influenced by the recent success of Madonna’s “Vogue” (you can hear it in those piano riffs):

The “Vogue” – inflected 1990’s Remix – Gloria Gaynor

We will survive … Bishop Torbin, Pride Flag burners, the Administration’s assault on transgender healthcare and right to serve, and all the verbal, physical, social and political gay bashing that is still out there even after all the exponential progress for the LGBTQ community in recent years.  They are still trying to turn the clock back, and the fight is still very much on, but we will survive… we will thrive.

The original Gloria Gaynor record reigns supreme.  But my personal favorite cover is also the version that is the most different from the original.  Recorded by the Danish trio Funky Nashville, it is very, well, funky and Nashville, replete with a spaghetti western electric guitar taking on the original’s famous string obligatos.  It especially earns its Gay Pride of Place through its prominent inclusion in the German Gay soccer comedy “Männer Wie Wir” (“Guys and Balls”).

The Out West Version for Men – Funky Nashville

Another personal favorite is The Puppini Sisters doing what the Andrews Sisters would have done to “I Will Survive” if they had recorded 1970s disco standards, and had a wicked, winking sense of humor.  I especially love their classical vocal take on those famous disco string obligatos.

The Andrews Sisters Revival – The Puppini Sisters

And while we’re listening to jazzy stylings, we better include Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox take, with Sara Niemitz slaying the vocals and the brass section hot-jazzing those obligatos.  Their studio recording is slick, but the live version is smokin’:

Jazz Hot Cover – Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox featuring Sara Niemitz

We will survive … Trump.  If we rid ourselves of him and his minions in/by 2020.  Otherwise, well, we’ll probably still survive him, but American Democracy may not survive.  Along with the toll of immigrant children dead in detention centers, citizens murdered by emboldened white supremacist terrorism, unregulated guns, diminished health care access, the inevitable escalating outrages of Trumpian fascism. 

As Pete Buttigieg, one of so many excellent choices running for president on the Democratic side, said, this next round is not merely about winning an election, it is about winning an era.  Will we in the U.S. – and in the world – usher in a new era where we turn away from division and deviousness and destruction?  Or will we succumb to the antidemocratic, kleptocratic, fearful, hateful, truth rotting disease Trump exemplifies?

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