Plucked her eyebrows on the way,
Shaved her legs and then he was a she
She said “Hey babe, take a walk on the wild side”
Long before stars and models like Hunter Schaffer and Laverne Cox, there was Candy Darling. Appearing in the New York art scene in the 1960s, Darling made a name for herself as one of Andy Warhol’s superstars, acting in multiple of his features such as Flesh and Women in Revolt. However, much like many of Warhol’s favorite subjects, Candy Darling caught the eye of glam singer Lou Reed and became just one of the trans women for whom Reed–and others–dedicated music.
Although Candy Darling is mentioned in the chorus of the Rolling Stones’ “Citadel,” as they sing “Candy and Taffy / Hope you both are well / Please come see me at the Citadel,” it is the Velvet Underground’s “Candy Says” that first addressed Darling’s experiences as a trans woman. In its opening lines, Doug Yule sings “Candy says, ‘I’ve come to hate my body / And all that it requires in this world,” and while the song is based on Darling’s real life, Lou Reed has pointed out that it is simultaneously universal, as it explores themes of self-perception and self-identity.
Candy Darling was not, however, the only transgender woman to catch the attention of Reed. In the 1972 song “Walk on the Wild Side,” she is mentioned alongside Holly Woodlawn, yet another one of Warhol’s transgender superstars. In its opening lines, Reed talks of Holly’s journey to New York City and her transition into Warhol stardom. Additionally, in the middle of the decade, Lou Reed began a relationship with Rachel Humphreys, a member of the Greenwich Village club scene. Although the details of their relationship remain largely private, they lived together for three years, and Humphreys was the inspiration for many songs on Reed’s album Coney Island Baby (1973).
One theory as to why transgender women may have been such an inspiration in this part of rock and roll history is
the rise of glam rock and the aesthetics of androgyny. Although crossdressing and gender identity had begun to be mentioned in songs in the 1960s, such as the throwaway line in the 1968 Beatles song “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,” which states that “Desmond stays at home and does his pretty face / And in the evening she’s a singer with the band,” glam artists like David Bowie and the New York Dolls adopted unconventional blends of masculinity and femininity, wearing makeup, heels, and long hair. As the lines were blurred between transgender women, drag queens, and crossdressers, trans women were frequently seen as an androgynous ideal. However, this meant that they were often objectified or perceived as an other, someone who is not a man yet not quite a woman.
In an article for CREEM, Lester Bangs described Rachel Humphreys as a “grotesque, abject” thing, and while he later apologized for it, the openness with which he dehumanized her is representative of part of the larger way trans women were viewed at the time. While these women, often compared to hermaphrodites, were becoming a hot topic in the New York City art scene, larger public opinion was not so favorable. In 1970, one year after the release of “Candy Says,” the Kinks released “Lola,” yet another song explicitly about someone outside of traditional gender norms. Despite the song receiving critical acclaim, it was banned from many radio stations due to lyrics such as “girls will be boys and boys will be girls” and “I’m glad I’m a man / And so is Lola,” which directly address the titular character’s unconventional gender presentation.
It must be noted that although most of the famous trans women of this era served as muses to musicians, some made art themselves. Jayne County, for example, was the front woman for the punk band The Electric Chairs, and after performing in drag throughout the decade, she publicly came out as a woman in 1979. Although The Electric Chairs eventually broke up, County continues to make music with contemporary queer musicians. Outside of the world of rock and roll, Wendy Carlos made history as the first transgender artist to ever win a Grammy for her album Switched on Bach (1968), and went on to contribute to soundtracks of movies such as A Clockwork Orange, Tron, and The Shining.
Despite their treatment by the media throughout the decade, trans women had an undeniable impact on the 1970s rock and roll industry. Both in and out of the drag and performance scenes, trans women paved the way for unconventional gender expression and an expression of femininity so often forgotten by heterocentric society. Tragically, many of these women found their lives cut short as a result of mistreatment by society and the AIDS crisis in the following decades, but their legacy lives on. Without women like Holly Woodlawn and Candy Darling, there would be no glam rock or David Bowie, nor contemporary artists like Chappell Roan or Lady Gaga.
Written by Micah Petyt
Leave a Reply