Margaret Cho, entertainer

Margaret Cho. Period.

A groundbreaking comedian, actor, musician, and advocate, Margaret Cho has been smashing barriers and ceilings in entertainment since the early 1990s. She's a massive queero of mine, and I was quite honestly shook to be on a Zoom with the Notorious C.H.O. herself.

Margaret just released her third studio album, Lucky Gift, including punk pop girl group bangers, musings on opioid addiction, and a beautiful tribute to her mentor, Robin Williams.

We discuss music by Erasure, the Hedwig and the Angry Inch soundtrack, and k.d. lang. Follow Margaret online here.

The other bits:

• Tracks of Our Queers is recorded and edited between Gadigal and Ngarigo land in Australia, by me, Andy Gott
• Listen to all of the music discussed in the pod with the Selections from Tracks of Our Queers playlist
• You can email me with your own queer tracks or guest recommendations at tracksofourqueers@gmail.com
• Our beautiful artwork is illustrated by Luke Tribe

Transcript

Margaret Cho
===

Andy Gott: [00:00:00] Hello. Welcome to Tracks of Our Queers. My name is Andy Gott, and each episode I chat to a fascinating queer person about one song, one album, and one artist that have soundtracked their life. 

Born in late 60s San Francisco, Margaret Cho was immersed in queer culture from her earliest years. Thanks in part to her parents gay bookshop staffed by homosexuals, drag queens, and lesbians alike. After moving to LA in the early 90s, her appearances on late night TV catapulted her to a primetime ABC sitcom about a Korean American family.

All American Girl. After a traumatic experience with the inner workings of 90s commercial television, Margaret's stand up career exploded with her shows I'm The One That I Want, Notorious C. H. O., An [00:01:00] Assassin, a special I remember tracking down online as a teenager, possibly illegally, and thinking that I'd found the funniest person on the planet.

And maybe I had. I think what I actually saw on stage was a comedian who understood how to stand in many worlds. A bisexual, Korean American woman, raised by gays and drag queens, consumed by the Hollywood machine, and spat back out, tough as nails, eviscerating and vulnerable in equal measure. As a result, her advocacy spans anti racism, anti bullying, and, of course, LGBTQ rights, earning her numerous accolades, including the First Amendment Award from the ACLU, honors from GLAAD, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from LA Pride for her lasting impact on the community.

Margaret's career has always spread beyond comedy into television and film, and you'd likely recall her iconic roles in Sex and the City, 30 Rock, Drop Dead Diva. Most recently, I loved her appearance as queer den [00:02:00] mother in Fire Island with Bowen Yang and Joel Kim Booster. And then there's her own music. After previous collaborations with the likes of Tegan and Sarah and Fiona Apple, her third studio album, Lucky Gift, is out right now. A collection of songs written over the last decade, it includes tributes to her mentor, Robin Williams, Lost Love, Found Love and gender non conforming anthems.

It's a joy to listen to, and it might just score her another Grammy nomination. The thing is, Margaret Cho has been on my list of queeros for this podcast, who I sort of always thought I'd never actually get. I have this list written down, nonetheless.

It's a queer northern star to aim for but I don't actually believe I'll manage to convince anyone on it to talk to me And then here I suddenly was sitting on a zoom link with margaret cho so forgive me If i'm a little gushy or nervous, it's a big deal for me If you are interested in supporting this one queer band you can absolutely do so by buying me a coffee through the link in the show [00:03:00] notes Every penny goes to supporting the show's production costs But with every podcast out there asking you to do the same I would actually just be over the moon with a rating or a review in your listening app.

It is totally free And massively impactful. So thank you in advance for your support over to margaret 


Margaret Cho, welcome to Tracks of Our Queers.

Margaret Cho: Thank you.

Andy Gott: Tell me about your earliest musical memory.

Margaret Cho: I think my earliest musical memories are well, I was in a band when I was a really little kid. I was about five and I was in a singing group and I remember getting fired because I would always. Wave at the cameras. We were like on television and stuff and I would wave at the cameras and it was not appropriate.

I'm just wasn't, I wasn't built for showbiz at that early age. And then I was playing piano [00:04:00] at 6, 7, 8. I was in recitals and I was very nervous to play. And for me I think, like, it was a long time before I associated. The music that I was playing and singing with music that I was hearing on the radio like they were two totally different entities But my entry pointed to music was as a musician and then later of course as a big fan

Andy Gott: so you have been surrounded by immersed in queerness since you were a young child and I've heard you speak a lot about that, but for listeners who haven't, do you mind taking us back to your parents gay bookstore in the Castro?

Margaret Cho: my parents had a gay book store. It was actually in the Polk District, but in San Francisco. Which was in the 1970s. It was called Paperback Traffic. It was a gay book store that had book signings by authors like Armistead Mopan. And we had a huge gay romance novel section. With these spinning racks with [00:05:00] Novels called Cobalt and it would have like a young man standing by a river in the moonlight like all these like really interesting publications like honcho and blue boy and skin very queer very political the people that work for my father were Early followers of Harvey Milk.

And so, you know, this was my upbringing. I was raised by the people that work there. All, mostly all gay men. A couple of lesbians. And so I've been surrounded by gay culture my entire life.

Andy Gott: And what a potent magical time San Francisco in the 70s what music reminds you of that time

Margaret Cho: I think Psychic TV. Genesis Peorge. She and I became friends later in life. And I was able to sing with her. Really just a couple of years before her death, [00:06:00] and that was a true honor. What an amazing person, just so powerful and so. So incredible and an incredible artist.

She was phenomenal. Also during that era, I think the throwing muses was a very big thing. Lots of punk rock, lots of indie rock, lots of Judy Garland. Lots of in there, you know, Barbra Streisand, Liza, forever. So yeah, I was inundated with all of that. Divine. 


Andy Gott: eternally divine. I think of people like Sylvester, Patrick Cowley, these, like, icons who are defining the music that we listen to today. So, yeah, such a magical time. And then when you were in your teens, and you were kind of forming and discovering your own taste, what music were you gravitating towards then?

Margaret Cho: I [00:07:00] think that I was always really into New Wave. Like, absolutely in love with the Go Go's. I still am. You know, they're so important to me. The Rhythmics Soft Cell. I Went to a Mark Almond signing and I was there like, it's just like in the presence of greatness in the 80s. I got to go see like Berlin, I love an in store, an in store with Berlin.

And recently Terry Nunn came to one of my shows and I was like so excited because it's like come full circle. You know, with Berlin. But yeah, the in store, it's a lost thing now because there's not a lot of record stores. And a lot of artists will do in stores. But, for me those were like such a great, thing because it was like a mini concert.

So you would see people and get [00:08:00] autographs and buy the new album or whatever. And I love that tradition.

Andy Gott: Do you remember having to like compose yourself before you spoke to one of your heroes?

Margaret Cho: Always I still do. I still do. Like I still have to just like check myself and I've been lucky enough to be a long time friends with some of the greats. I toured with Cindy Lauper and Debbie Harry and Joan Jett and the Indigo Girls and, you know and Tegan and Sarah. So Ieven years into friendship, must always check myself because I become completely, like, unhinged, unglued around the people I love.

Andy Gott: I've been trying to not become unhinged in this chat today. So it's really nice to hear you say that about the people that you, yeah, it must be so surreal to like meet a human as a friend. And then you're forming this lovely friendship and then you're like, wait, I've been listening to you for like 30 years.

Margaret Cho: My whole life, like I have to contain it. Like, I really have to do that with Sandra [00:09:00] Bernhardt because I'm a Bernhardt ologist. And so I always, every time I'm with her, I always just don't forget. Like you, this is what you did this and you did that. And I'm pulling out all the rarities and the B sides and, you know, and she's just so generous with listening to everything, giving me Her takes on all of the work that I love that she's done.

So yeah, it's hard because if you're a fan, that never really goes away. Even if you're like, you know, able to interview people or like you meet people, it, it's hard for me to contain my enthusiasm about people's

work. 

Andy Gott: sure, for sure. I've been reflecting a lot in the past couple of weeks about when I first became aware of you, your comedy, your acting, the general Margaret Chonas in the ether. And it's been a real pleasure to return to like your earlier stand up shows, which was so important for me in my teens. and then seeing like the plethora of iconic acting roles in millions of Films and TV shows, your [00:10:00] relentlessly visible activism for Asian Americans, queer people, the list goes on.

But I've also been listening to you featuring on podcasts and they generally, if there's a homosexual involved, it will begin with a homosexual frothing rabidly about your impact on their lives. So I'm trying to like, not give you what you've constantly had from others. Ha ha

Margaret Cho: I mean, you know, to me, it's really just a privilege. It's just such a wonderful honor to be in that place. And so I'm really grateful for it all the time. So thank you. 

Andy Gott: I think what speaks to me, and I won't speak for all queer people, but The, the career that you've had, the trajectory that you've been on, speaks to this kind of you've been to the Emerald City, but you saw quite early in your career, the man behind the curtain playing the wizard.

So I feel like, not to stretch this metaphor too far, but it's so fascinating for me to see someone who's been at the heart of mainstream US culture, the heart of the heart, but you're [00:11:00] also still incredibly, transgressively alternative. you straddle these different worlds so you're like an in to seeing behind the curtain even though I feel like we all know that you don't take it too seriously.

Does that check 

out? 

Margaret Cho: Yeah, I think so. Well, thank you. But I think also being just the eternal outsider that I am, there's no way that I can be fully in the mainstream. You know, I'm a queer woman, I'm Asian American, I'm politically progressive, I'm a feminist, I'm really like putting like my activism first always. So it's hard to sort of be able to actually stay in the midway, like in the middle all the time.

So I like being on the outside. But also when you're on the outside, it gives you more longevity and more ability to. day. And I think it's just so interesting. A lot of what we see about mainstream art is so disposable and kind of goes away quickly. So I'm grateful that I've been able to be around for a while.

Andy Gott: I saw you [00:12:00] talking on some kind of like big talk show the other day. I don't remember exactly which one, but you made a comment about the international Bjork line in Iceland. And like the gays in the audience were howling and everyone else was a bit like, What's an international Bjork line?

Margaret Cho: Everybody at, let's say Latitude. Where everybody starts to resemble Bjork. They all start to get, like, space knots or top knots. it's like Scandinavia, but also higher up. it's where they see the northern lights, and it's light all the time, or dark all the time, depending on what time of the year you go.

But yeah, to me, it's just a funny descriptor of a place I've actually oddly spent a lot of time in. I worked a lot in Scandinavia, strangely, in my comedy. So, yeah.

Andy Gott: Have you met Bjork?

Margaret Cho: No, I would love to. I mean, she's like one of my favorites. Like, absolute, just icons. She's not even, I don't even consider her like a human.

She's really like the goddess who walks among us. She's so [00:13:00] Interesting. Like, what is even that? Like, I just watched her Apple TV concert. It was so beautiful and just an innovator musically. And just an art and beauty. And, you know, being a woman and aging in this business. Like, she's just taking it in such great stride.

Like, I just, I admire her so

Andy Gott: absolutely. And speaking of art and beauty, by the time this episode airs, your new third album, I believe, your third studio album, Lucky Gift, will be out. So this is a music podcast, not a comedy podcast, but I love speaking to comedians because music and comedy are so intertwined, and quite literally for you, you are a comedian and a musician.

So, do you mind telling me a little bit about the inspiration for this album in particular?

Margaret Cho: Well, there was lots of inspirations and some of the songs are actuallyfrom my archives. You know, there are things that I've done that I recorded many years ago. So about half of the record was done in [00:14:00] 2014. And so those include the song for Robin Williams, Just This Funny Man, and Waterside, and Wheels of Gold, some of those songs, or the cover of Doot Doot, which is a frrr frrrnew wave song, but those songs were recorded in 2013 2014, and then the new sort of acoustic side I wrote in the last couple of years with myself and then also Garrison Starr helped me a lot.

So, there are like two different sides of the record in a way, I almost have like a side A and a side B, it's like a piano side and guitar side. But so yeah, it's just something that I wanted to do, something that I've had in my heart to put out, but finally got to do it.

Andy Gott: I love that. I really love [00:15:00] wheels of gold, so 

Margaret Cho: you. Thank you. That song is about being dope sick. I was addicted to opiates for ten years. And so the song is really about being dope sick and then being high. So it's about experiencing opiate withdrawal, which is like the Very minor chord dramatic side and then the dreamy being high side.

So anybody who's like experienced that will feel it. I wanted to like write a song that was actually what that felt like. And for me, it's really powerful. I really love it, but I know that it's a very odd lyrical and musical creation.

Andy Gott: Yeah. And what a wonderful way to be able to take experiences like that and now create art out of them, and hopefully other people who can relate, can connect through that as well.

Margaret Cho: And also like what I love about music is you can take your own impression of what it feels like and apply it to that. Like, I love that song, the lowly young song messy [00:16:00] because she wrote it about her parents, but then you can clearly hear it. It's like a child talking, but people listen to it and they're like thinking about.

Oh, it's about an abusive relationship with my partner. Oh, it's about me versus society. Oh, it's about me versus myself. And so I think great music does that when you can just 

Andy Gott: Imprint. 

Margaret Cho: Imprint. 

whatever you are feeling onto a song and that's your song. It's a wonderful thing about songwriters. They can actually make something so individual when it's so not.

It's so cool.

Andy Gott: So, speaking of your songwriting practice, does songwriting come fairly naturally to you, or do you have to, like, work quite hard at it?

Margaret Cho: Yes, it's both a challenge and it's also totally effortless. It's really weird. The challenge is putting it down to paper and actually applying it to, cause there, you know, songs are happening [00:17:00] always little bits of things, but it's when I actually capture it, decide to pull it out of the stream and complete all of.

The kind of nuts and bolts of like the pieces that I'm supposed to do and write a bridge which I'm like the worst Like it doesn't need a bridge. It needs a bridge like after Chapel Rowan came through with the good luck babe bridge we have to write a bridge. Everybody has to write a bridge You can't allow it to be just without the bridge.

We need the bridge this is in this day and age We need a bridge. And so I think like the songwriting for me is the work of actually doing it Whereas melody and lyrics are always present in every kind of fashion. I think if you think musically, and I play music every day in some capacity, just to keep my mind going and just to, [00:18:00] you know, keep myself physically limber.

And then if I don't record it, if I don't write it down, if I don't actually make it, I think it's all songwriters have that thing. They don't necessarily, they'll be noodling around, fiddling around with something. They don't finish it or whatever. Lots of masterpieces we'll never hear. Because that's the work of it, so that's the hard part.

No!

Andy Gott: you ever just, like, put your phone on to record just in case, or do you not even bother if you're just playing?

Margaret Cho: No, I, that's the, that's the bad thing. You know, because I'll just play it, and then it's sort of jamming or whatever, and then it's out of my mind, and I don't revisit it again. So now, if I do come across something that, while I'm playing, I will actually record it, and what's good is now my latest thing is I have a drum machine, 

Andy Gott: Aha, it's a very new wave of you, it's very Berlin.

Margaret Cho: very Berlin. It's a very, it's, I'm loving it. I'm loving the feeling of it. So, you know, for me, that's another addition to my arsenal of, you [00:19:00] know, like little bits and weird pieces of music gear.

Andy Gott: Margaret Cho feat Mark Almond on next album, Let's Just

Margaret Cho: Ooh, manifest. I love Mark. I can't believe that we haven't met because I've just been following him since I was a young teen. Hopefully, we will. Like, we have to cross paths at some gay pride. There's not that many gay prides in the world. I mean, there are, but there aren't. So, at some point, we will intersect.

Andy Gott: Yes, absolutely. Apart from Wheels of Gold, is there a particular favorite of yours on the album? Is it like asking you to pick your favorite child?

Margaret Cho: Well, I love Waterside because it's about a closeted gay actor in the 1950s who achieves immediate fame and he has to move to Los Angeles [00:20:00] and needs to figure out how he's going to Go undetected and so he decides to make his realtor his beard so it's basically a Todd Haynes film, but as of the song So hopefully Todd Haynes will make the video I want to make a video for that and I have to figure out exact cuz that's quite a high budget We've got to go to period we've got to find the man Whoever 

that might be.

Andy Gott: yep. 

Margaret Cho: it out, but yeah, like that, I just love that song. I also love Your Boyfriend from China, which I wrote specifically to be played at men's fashion shows in Shanghai, where when the men walk down the runway, and who are so absolutely gorgeous and perfect, and so I wanted that rock and roll [00:21:00] feel maybe it'll be played at a Rick Owens. in Shanghai or you know, somewhere in, in China. I love that.

Andy Gott: I love it. 

Margaret Cho: we're going to chat about your selections. So, I asked you to pick a track, an album, and an artist which have some way resonated with you as a queer person. So, diving right in, the track you picked, what is it and why?

I think it's Olamore by Erasure. Okay. Olamore by Erasure. First of all, Andy Bell and Vince Clark. What a band. Now Vince Clark, I toured with them. I actually opened for them on a number of shows as rapping. I had my brief rap career with my hit. My puss.
[00:22:00] 

So, I opened up Erasure concerts with that song and I love working with them. But Andy's voice is, it's like the call to arms for queer people. All the more, it soars above everything. his voice, it crosses genres. Like, it's, it's R& B, it's soul, it's new wave.

But ultimately, it's the best gay pride. That song is just phenomenal, and I absolutely love Andy. And I, I mean, as a person, as an artist And you know, and like Vince's musicianship, his incredible work with synthesizers, We've been with him through eons with Depeche Mode, And Yaz, 

Andy Gott: Oh, 

Margaret Cho: Are they Yaz here?

Andy Gott: they're Yaz in the U. S. and Yazoo everywhere else. Yep.

Margaret Cho: [00:23:00] Yes, Yazoo with Alison Moyette and like, you know but Erasure is actually my favorite incarnation of Vince. Where Vince, it's like he goes very male, you know, with the passion, to very female. So it's almost like he's Orlando, you know, he's changing genders and changing perspectives and change.

So he uses another muse, whether that's Dave Gahan or Alison Moyette or Andy Bell to express himself musically.

Andy Gott: That's so interesting. I'd never thought of it like that with all of his different incarnations, and I believe he's in like great terms with all of them. I feel like a few years ago, they did a reunion tour with Alison Moyet in the UK. This is such a special song, and I've got to say, I reckon Eurasia, between Eurasia and Small Town Boy by Bronski Beat, they are the two most Used selections on this show and I never get tired of talking about them But with Erasure they clearly speak to so many different people across so many different generations, but Ola more [00:24:00] specifically It's so yearning.

It's heartbreaking over this brilliantly like plastic dance beat. It is Classically queer melancholy. It's sad. It's happy. It's just beautiful. Yes

Margaret Cho: like queer longing, but it's triumphant longing. Like, it's so, so complicated and beautiful. And Andy's voice is, he's a natural. He doesn't warm up. He doesn't have to. He doesn't do any of the things like the vocal gymnastics that really tremendous vocalists have to go through because it's right there.

It's effortless, it's genius, it's absolutely to himself. he is a singular person with a singular voice and he doesn't have to work at it. You know, it's just absolutely phenomenal. And I worship him. He's so much fun also as a person. So yeah, I love him and I love that song.

Andy Gott: Have you, are you familiar with, they [00:25:00] do like a country cover of it on some live album and it's really beautiful to hear. I, I remember once hearing Jake Shears from the Scissor Sisters, I remember him talking about how he was writing a song once with Kylie Minogue and Jake Shears and Kylie came up with this idea that all of these dance songs they were making had to be performed in the style of Dolly Parton to confirm that they were the right And so I've always loved this relationship between bright, vibrant dance music and kind of traditional country because they share so many of these themes and they're so different as genres initially, but it's like if it works in country it might work in a dance song as well.

Anyway, that's all to say that there's a brilliant country cover of Olamore that they do. It's brilliant.

Margaret Cho: love that. Maybe it's the [00:26:00] honesty that comes through. Like, because Country to me, and especially Dolly's songs, it's all about honesty. It's like an emotional truth that she leads with. That's always there also in really good dance music, is that honesty. So, that might be it. 



Andy Gott: Just before we move on, I do remember, I remember reading about this amazing thing that was happening in the US called the True Colors Tour. And you've already hinted that you went on tour with Cindy and Erasure was one of the many acts on tour. Do you have any fun stories of being on that tour with Erasure and Cindy?

Margaret Cho: Well the best thing was actually who else was on the tour was the B 52s. So, they were, they were so amazing. And so at the end of the show, Cindy wanted us all to come and sing True Colors. she wanted Fred Schneider to sing a [00:27:00] line from True Colors. and Fred was like, Ah, Cindy, I don't think anybody wants me to sing that song.

Which is so funny, like, I want to hear him sing that song. But yeah, I really partied hard with the B 52s. They are just I mean, exactly what you think it's going to be like, that's what they are. They are the best and so much fun, so beautiful and so exciting to be around.

Yeah, I just sat side of stage every night and got to watch all of them. You know, just incredible. And every once in a while we would get young people like Tegan and Sarah would come through. this wonderful band called The Clicks would come through. Amanda Lepore.

Would do an appearance. You know there just all sorts of amazing artists that came together to be part of this. and Andy Bell and Vince were there every night.

And, you know, they just brought such a different energy. Like, you know, cause it was just, It's a lot of like new wave and then this very sort of, to me, it's a little bit [00:28:00] more R& B and soul, like what I think Glorasia does, even though it's also new wave too, it's synth rock, but it's also very dance. So yeah, I love it.

I love that tour.

Andy Gott: Which album did you pick and tell me why?

Margaret Cho: 

This album. Okay, this show, so this show, I worked in New York, doing my one person show one block away from the theater that had Hedwigplaying, so I would finish my show at around the time of the intermission of Hedwig, and so then I would walk over to their show, I've only seen Hedwig, the first act, once, and I've seen the second act, About 475 times, because the same situation happened in Edinburgh, where I was doing a show, and at the [00:29:00] midway point, at the interval, my show was finished, and I would go over to watch the second act of Hedwig.

Margaret Cho: So I've seen many, many Hedwigs, I've seen many, many different productions of it. It's one of my favorite shows of all time. My favorite record. I love this soundtrack, I love John's voice. I've sung this with him. I've sent the origin of love with John as a duet. And for me, it's just the totality of it.

Like, it's just an amazing work. The show, the movie, the album John, all of it. I absolutely love it.

Andy Gott: I re watched the movie the other day, just to re familiarize myself, and I guess it's hard to navigate a conversation about something like Hedwig without acknowledging the time that we're living in right now. And it's just kind of remarkable to me that this film was produced [00:30:00] just a couple of years after it was originally a theatrical production. Early 2000s, wild you know, gender non conformist musical turns into a film, becomes part of the culture, becomes part of the ether, and it feels so innovative and advanced for its time. watching the film, it made me excited and happy that it did exist when it did, and people are still enjoying it. but I'm nervous and sad about what years lie ahead for us now, and, I don't know, my head's all over the place with this, yeah.

Margaret Cho: Yeah, I mean, it's so hard to know what's gonna happen in the future with this incredibly difficult administration, especially in America, and their mandate of basically trying to legislate trans people out of existence, it's horrifying, and it's really, it's an actual like literal nightmare that we're existing in but that's when it's more important than ever to go back and Really celebrate [00:31:00] the art that we do have and something like this.

I love this musical. It was such a cultural like phenomenon when it happened. And for me, it's still very, very important. It's very much part of my daily sort of playlists all the time. And yeah, I still, I love it. And these are the things that I'll go to to help me get

Andy Gott: Absolutely. And there's songs on the album that are speaking to catharsism that people were feeling. Then, you know, I can't believe that it was just 12 years after the Berlin Wall came down that the film was made. So, to me, 12 years is such a short amount of time, but the 2000s are very different to the 90s in my head.

It's kind of hard to explain. yeah, a remarkable piece of work. So, you already said that you duetted on Origin of Love. What particular tracks do stand out other than that?

Margaret Cho: I think like Midnight Radio, I mean all of them, but Midnight Radio is like, and Wig in a Box is [00:32:00] such a fun one, like there's just so many, I just love it all, like it's just, to me it's like you can't listen to one without listening to the whole thing you know, but yeah, Midnight Radio is one of those ones that's like, lift up your hands, you want to get your lighters out, and that's, to me that is the ultimate, like queer diva worship, you know, it's like how we love our rock women, like how we just, You know, when you're gay, you need that rock diva, that, that singer, that pop diva, whoever it is, you know he name checks a lot of them, but we could also add like Beyonce 

to that. We can add Chappelle Rhone to that. You know, we can add like all of the, the queer divas are like present. So everybody has their own, whether that's Kylie or Mariah,

Andy Gott: Margaret, I don't know if I'll ever get an opportunity to ask you this again. So I'm going for it Margaret Cho Why do you think that queer people need divas?

Margaret Cho: you know, it's almost like a,a [00:33:00] mystical relationship. I think because we suffer so much in the real world. that we have to have a goddess to get us by. So it is a spiritual relationship. You know, you can't do it without Madonna. Like what if we didn't have Madonna? there would be a whole generation that would be lost, like unthinkable.

we need these women to get by. And everybody has their own, it's like. You know, you're given one at birth, at gay birth.

You're given, and you know, there's some that are very old. There's Eliza ones, there's Barbra Streisand's ones, there's Cher. Cher has multitudes. And there's Adele ones. They're very specific. But you have one, and then you can't really go away from that. You are born with that. Mine, I think, is Cyndi Lauper. We're born with it, and we can't really move. You can't get a new one. You're 

stuck with that

Andy Gott: It's so true. And I do think that, you know, I love hearing different people's interpretations of this. Some people muse on, [00:34:00] you know, we relate to the tragedy that we've seen in their lives. That's often related to people like Judy Garland. You know, she lived such a supposedly tragic life that we see ourselves in her.

Or gay people did, especially then. But to me, it's less about tragedy. It's more about resilience. And I think maybe mine is probably Madonna, for sure. I look at The audacity she had to have, and still has, to just navigate her life and make herself the person she wants to be. That's the salient quality it boils down to me.

Apart from having great music as well, for sure.

Margaret Cho: it's great music being a great artist, but she was a provocateur. So it's almost like your astrological sign. It's like you're born under the sign of Madonna. So you are always going to be that like no matter what happens, you might have a rising Beyonce, you might have a rising Sabrina Carpenter, you know, your ascendant moon might be, yeah, Bjork moon Ariana Grande in your 10th house, you know, there's something [00:35:00] about it, but there is like, we're all born with that one pop diva.

And I think it's even simpler than the idea of like relating to their life as like somebody would relate to like Judy Garland's tragic life. I think it's more like, it's really, you're just born with it.

Andy Gott: yeah. 

Margaret Cho: Like you're born with that diva and you really can't, you can't get another one. I mean, you can have other fandoms, but really you're sort of 

Andy Gott: And maybe some people try to run away from who they're born under and they need to 

Margaret Cho: Yes. They 

have to, you they have, they have to face that Adele, they have to face, they can't, they can't run away. You can't, you know, you can't run away. What if you are an Amy Winehouse? you are that you're born under 

that sign and you can't

Andy Gott: Rest her soul.

Margaret Cho: Yeah. Love her. 

Andy Gott: Speaking of iconic pop divas who you may or may not be born under the sign of, please tell me the artist that you've chosen.

Margaret Cho: Is it Cindy Lauper?

Andy Gott: KD Lang. Mmm. Mmm.

Margaret Cho: Deep. [00:36:00] So Katie Lang and I were neighbors. She lived, I lived above this area that she was in. And I lived in sort of the low rent side and she was of course in the fancy side. And I always just like wanted to like creep over the hedge to see how she was living.

And I've gotten to work with her a number of times. The fact that she knows my name makes me always swoon. Like I will fall down. I sing her version of Roy Orbison's Crying in her key, the way she does a little key change in the middle, a very subtle key change in the middle of the song that makes it possible for me to sing it.

And I feel like she did that for me specifically so I could sing the song. And when Katie Lang emerged, this was like a really conservative time in American [00:37:00] pop music in the 80s and the 90s. Yet, she defied gender norms, she defied the idea of what people had around country music because she was just so excellent.

Her excellence made people unable to be homophobic, like, you know, her talent was so prodigious they had to like, do away

Their homophobia and their fear and their hatred and all this and she was able to collaborate with the true greats, you know, people like Laura Orbison. we're honored to be there with her, so, you know, I love Katie Lang, I think that there's not enough talk about her, and there's I think also, like, when we're talking about just like, gender, and everything, that there is a wonderful way to address it, this has always been there, this idea of being gender fluid and gender nonconforming, she was really, for me, a marker of how you can [00:38:00] be who you are and be stunning and be tremendous and yet be totally different from what society would think of as a country singer, what they would think of as a rock star.

Andy Gott: that pure distillation of what she means to you in terms of she, her talent was so enormous and prodigious that people had simply no choice but to acknowledge her and to profess their love for her and that in that particularly conservative industry in a conservative time, that wasn't super clear to me until you spelled it out like that, but I'm sure, you know, And maybe she's even told you this, but I'm sure she has faced her own share of adversity still along the way, despite having the voice of a literal angel.

but her trajectory over her career from, like, Canadian cowgirl to then this songbook extraordinaire to being this, like, butch icon. It's so transgressive by just existing in those conservative spaces. I remember a few years ago, [00:39:00] I decided to make a specific effort to explore this part of my queer heritage by just getting into K.

D. Lang. And it's been such a joy because her albums are actually all so different. she's explored so many different genres. Her first album is so country and fabulous. and there's a literal album called Drag, where each song is about cigarettes or breathing. That is camp.


Margaret Cho: So camp, and just, but everything that she applies herself to, the vocal talent that she possesses, the musicality, everything, I mean it's just, if I could have a voice it would be like hers, you know, she's just phenomenal, and you know I just love the imagery, I think my favorite is the one where she's being shaved by Cindy Crawford.

It's like the butch [00:40:00] fantasy of that, the butch femme truth of that. I love. So, yeah, I love Katie Lang and I absolutely worship her. I really look forward to any time that I get to see her because I just really fan out and 

go crazy. 

Andy Gott: Top three queer things about KD Lang. The Cindy Crawford cover the album called Drag, and the fact that her name is always in lowercase.

Margaret Cho: It's so cute. 

Andy Gott: Hehehe. Hehehe.

Margaret Cho: cute. She's the 

Andy Gott: so you of course did make an exceptional cameo in the show Hacks, the episode with the lesbian Cruz, which I had written down here actually before I even put two and two together there because that episode ends with an incredible KD Lang remix of Constant Craving by Tracy Young.

Are you familiar with this? 

Margaret Cho: Yes. It's so beautiful. 

I [00:41:00] love

Andy Gott: So good! So I loved that you were actually in that episode, that was a nice connection for me. And, drag name, 

Constance Craving. What do you think?

Margaret Cho: I think that's a good one. I think that's, it's quite, you know, it's like a, almost like a young day medna. So it's very like Earl Grey tea, kind of like tea and scones, kind of like you know, mumsy drag, which I think would be really beautiful. Classy.

Andy Gott: What's your desert island track from this artist?

Margaret Cho: I mean I think it has to be crying. You know, and it's a cover, but it also includes Roy too, because he was there and singing part of it. So it's almost like they did it together. But her version of crying, it's the transgressive nature of it, because she's doing like this traditional, sad man song, you know, it is gay longing again almost the other side.

It's like the inversion of Ola Moore. You know, it's that same, gay longing, but from, it's like the, it's like if the movie Carol was a song, like, 

crying. 

Andy Gott: we've come full [00:42:00] circle. that was absolutely wonderful. Thank you so much for sharing. So we've talked briefly about your album, but what is next in the immediate future for Margaret Cho? Are you going to tour the album, perhaps?

Margaret Cho: I'm doing a couple of live shows with musicians, like, here in Los Angeles, and I have to sort of see what the touring looks like. But I'm touring on stand up comedy for sure, always, with my live and livid show all over the place. And trying to fight all of this homophobia and transphobia and hatred.

Comedy, with humor, because the thing that, that they hate to be made fun of. this horrible oligarchy, they hate to be made fun of. And so, we have to make sure they get it with jokes. We're gonna make them pay with jokes. 

Like, that's my motto. 

Andy Gott: I guess that they're constantly making it harder for comedians though, right? Because what is now reality was a joke maybe five or ten years ago.

Margaret Cho: Right. So it's also like, you know, actually like putting us at risk, you know, as well, like [00:43:00] here, like Trump is trying to shut down the FCC. He's trying to control the way that we hear information or the, cause he's basically trying to control comedians making jokes about him as everybody does on light night television.

All of the comedians, all they do is make fun of him. And so, well, we're just going to have to do it all over the place and, 

you know, make sure it keeps going. 

Andy Gott: Absolutely. Margaret Cho, you are queer and thank you very much for your tracks.

Margaret Cho: Thank 

you.

Andy Gott: That was wonderful. Thank you very much.



AT2020USB+: You can find Margaret online, including links to her upcoming tour dates and her brand new album Lucky Day, all in this episode's show notes. And if you found yourself nodding along to Margaret's thoughts on why we all need a queer diva, I would love to hear from you!

You can drop me a line at tracksofourqueers at gmail with your thoughts. This episode of Tracks of Our Queers was produced, presented, and edited by me, Andy Gott, entirely on unceded Gadigal and Ngarigo Aboriginal land. See you next time.