William Yang, photographer and artist

William Yang is one of Australia’s most vital storytellers. For over five decades, he's documented queer life in Sydney -- its parades, parties, politics, and people -- through photography, performance, and prose. 

Born in 1943 in Far North Queensland, William came out as gay in the early 1970s during the wave of gay liberation, and later came out again -- this time as Chinese -- after reconnecting with his heritage through Taoism and travel. His landmark exhibitions and live slide shows, like Sydneyphiles, Sadness, and Friends of Dorothy, have cemented his place as a queer cultural archivist.

I've wanted to interview William since beginning Tracks of Our Queers, and have  to thank Benjamin Law for connecting us. This is a special episode, recorded in-person at Forbes Street Studios in Sydney, and William shares five songs that resonate with him, and his life as a queer person.

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 your own queer tracks or guest recommendations at tracksofourqueers@gmail.com
• Our beautiful artwork is illustrated by Luke Tribe.

Transcript

William Yang
===

[00:00:00] 

Andy Gott: hello and welcome to Tracks of our Queers. My name is Anti Gott, and each episode I speak to a fascinating queer person about the songs that have soundtrack their life. This episode's guest is someone whose work once literally stopped me in my tracks. I first encountered William Young's photography emblazoned across construction, hoardings along Oxford Street, the ancient L-G-B-T-Q Thoroughfare of Sydney some years ago.

Larger than life kaleidoscopic imagery of drag queens and performers in Mardi Gras parades. Gone by peaked my interest and I wanted to know more about this name that I continue to see time and time again as I explored more of Australia's recent queer history. Born in 1943 in Marba, Queensland. William is a third generation Chinese Australian and has spent the last five decades documenting Sydney's queer life.

Its joy, its parties, its tragedy, its politics. Originally a playwright William [00:01:00] Breezed out of the closet and into the seventies and started documenting theater, nightlife ~and the me ~and the emerging gay community. Inspired by Stonewall and the photography of Diane Arbus, his 1977 landmark exhibition, Sydney Files chronicled the city's party scene and queer culture at a time when very few others were documenting it.

But with time, his lens widened. Two,~ Two, he was brought up to be more in quotation marks. ~He was brought up in quotation marks to be more Australian than the Australians. And it wasn't until his thirties that he fully acknowledged his Chinese heritage learning. Taoism in the eighties was, in his words, a kind of second coming out this time as Chinese.

His later work reflects that journey, weaving in ancestry, grief, migration, and the Australian landscape, often combining photography, handwritten text and spoken word, his performances, including sadness. Friends of Dorothy, a most recently milestone, a retrospective of his life's work accompanied by the Melbourne Symphony [00:02:00] Orchestra, all blend, image, memory, music, and emotion in deeply powerful ways.

He's exhibited internationally and has an archive of over half a million images since seeing his World Pride show myself back in 2023, I've deeply admired William as a storyteller, a documentarian, and an archivist of a community I find endlessly fascinating and have inserted myself into.

Between us, it took me a year or two of perseverance to track down his contact details. ~So it was, ~so, it was a privilege to sit down in the studio with him. We recorded this chat at Forbes Street Studios here in Sydney, and you may hear the occasional might bleed. William actually shares five individual tracks that speak to his life and his identity, and in perhaps a first for the pod We're treated to some live readings of his favorite lyrics. If you enjoy this episode and want to support the show, the best thing you can do is leave a rating, a review in your podcast app. It helps so much, and if you're feeling especially generous, there's [00:03:00] a link in the show notes to buy me a coffee.

~Every little bit. Every, ~every little bit helps. This one queer band. Keep going over to William.

William Young.

Welcome to Tracks of our Queers.

William Yang: Hi Andy.

Andy Gott: Thank you very much for, um, making the time for this. I would love to begin with what's your earliest musical memory?

William Yang: Possibly singing in school. I can't remember. What exactly, because I lived in a country school. Mm-hmm.

And in terms of a memory, at the end of the year, there'd be a kind of impromptu concert people would get up and sing.

I can remember liking that as an activity. I think I was, I was drawn to the arts from that early age. It meant something to me. Although I wasn't able to realize it until much later in life. I also learned the piano and

that

[00:04:00] was a mixed bag, I think, because I quite liked the music. But I was kind of forced into playing regimented stuff, and if I'd have chosen my own music, I think I might have stuck with it a bit longer.

Andy Gott: Was there anything that you remember wanting to play that you weren't allowed or that you felt like you couldn't?

William Yang: Yes, there was a song from a movie. It was just a, I don't even know the name of it, but the movie was, oh, lucky Man, and I really liked the song, but I didn't even know then that I had my power of choice. It just wasn't in the culture.

Andy Gott: you grew up in country Queensland, 

William Yang: north Queensland. Di Bula State School and later at Cairns High School. 

my parents were, I've got a brother and a sister older than me, and I [00:05:00] do know that they. Wanted us to learn the piano. They paid for the tuition, every Saturday I'd travel by train from Di Bula, to the neighboring larger town of MEbA for piano lessons.

And that really took up the whole day. And so it's a huge part of my life. My mother wanted me to be a concert pianist, but that. Dream was never fulfilled. Looking back, it was just a dream and we really shouldn't have wasted our dream power on thinking about that. But I do like music and I still use music in my performance pieces, and I've worked with some very good musicians too.

And so I like music.

Andy Gott: When do you recall, seeking out music for yourself, perhaps in your teens, younger or older, when you were, trying to figure out what [00:06:00] your own taste in music was and what delighted you in music.

William Yang: My cousin and his wife they had a collection of, LPs, they lived in the same town and we would visit them I loved their collection. It was classical music and opera I would listen to all these operas and singers and and the very first LP that I brought was actually an opera record of uc Bling Singing 10 Arias.

And I continued to like opera in my teens I remember, there was another girl in our town, we, we'd listened to music, OO opera music and we had we had an opinion,

Who was the better soprano? I [00:07:00] liked re Aldi and she liked Maria call. And this is years later, I'm reading Edmund White's, um, story about New York, about the gay culture there.

And he was saying that to be a gay man, you had to have a, an opinion on Renar bald or Maria Callis. And that really struck me, like Indian Bler. This was happening out, the queer self was playing out before we even knew what the word meant.

Andy Gott: I think this is so fabulous. I sat in this very room. About six months ago with the wonderful, David Paulson, who's just passed actually. He, scored me in that very topic. The world he described was his gay circle in the Sydney of [00:08:00] sixties and seventies was, it was either Maria Callis or Joan Sutherland.

I love that this is a part of queer culture. For time immemorial and we'll continue to go on pick a side, pick a diva, and stick to that diva.

William Yang: But in fact, my tastes have changed now. Yes. Because I prefer Maria callous now I just switched 

Andy Gott: So

you did switch sides?

William Yang: Yeah, I did switch sides when I knew more about art. Maria Callas is a true diva in that she just expresses herself.

She transformed herself, whereas, Renata Aldi had a more beautiful voice. And was a more technical singer. Yes. With a, perhaps a more pleasing voice, but maria Callis drew you into the character, and I think that that was what I'd learned to appreciate in my theater dealings.

Andy Gott: [00:09:00] how did you move from your country town to Brisbane?

First

William Yang: Studied architecture at Queensland University.

Andy Gott: And then, what prompted the big move from Brisbane to Sydney in 1969? As an undergraduate, I directed the architecture review, I've always had theater in my blood and even wrote plays I was in the closet at university and I knew that theater was another world where, I knew I was gay and I thought that somehow.

William Yang: Theater accommodated me in that whole world. And there are other gay people in that world, but I had to leave Brisbane where I had a reputation as a

playwright and theater director. To to go to Sydney. To do a stage set for a puppet theater.

The director had [00:10:00] seen my work at one of the InterVarsity competitions, and that. Led me out of Brisbane once I was in Sydney, coming to a new town, nobody knew my case history and it was fairly easy for me to reinvent myself and come out as a gay man. That was in the early seventies.

Gay liberation had come to Sydney, and I always say I never, consciously came out as a gay man. I was swept out by events at the time and the seventies was a wonderful time.

Andy Gott: I'd just love to get a sense of what your life was like in that time period in the seventies. Obviously Mardi Gras, the first Mardi Gras, the protest was 1978, but before that, what are your recollections now of that time of figuring out yourself? You know, it was your opportunity to reinvent yourself.

What does that, vignette look like in your mind of early seventies Sydney?

William Yang: Well, I'd also dropped out of [00:11:00] architecture, so I was struggling to make a living.

I tried to be a playwright and I was involved with, a small theater company called. Performance syndicate. But I couldn't make money from being a playwright, so I was taking photographs and decided I'd become a photographer and my first customers were actors who needed head shots, and I was able to.

Take their photographs and, pay the rent. And so that's how all the photography started. I knew a few celebrities because of the theater world. I knew so it all started with photography I stopped being a playwright and became a photographer I liked photographing parties and events, and I was quite good at it. People used to ask me to their parties, gay people I'd already come out [00:12:00] and, they'd let me into their lives it was exciting that time, I remember that. It took a long time for gay people to recognize each other as gay.

It was strange. It didn't happen instantly, and there was always this conversation that you'd have, which was always so and so gay, and there'd be some debate but it was kind of, nothing was obvious, and I think it took a long time to recognize each other. And I also think that was the, beginnings of the dress code that, um, gays wanted to recognize each other more.

They invented a dress code, which was mainly ultra masculine, so that other people could recognize them.

Andy Gott: How did that make you feel? 

William Yang: I felt right out of the picture at all. 'cause I was Chinese and I wasn't, I just didn't fit into that stereotype [00:13:00] and although I, I, I had a flannel shirt

but I didn't really feel quite like that and it it took me a long time to, find myself or my place in the scene. 

Andy Gott: Some of the first photos of yours that I remember seeing Are those really beautiful shots, I presume from the seventies of lovers in bed or, men in bed after a night of partying and dancing.

Those scenes are so magical and evocative of a time. Of course, you are known for, your writing and your recollections and your anecdotes of that time are such a huge part of the photography. How does it feel being, almost like an archivist of this time period?

William Yang: Well, Well, I took photos and it wasn't really until much later when I did performance pieces. Yes. Talking about the photos in theaters that I realized many of the photos had stories to [00:14:00] them.

And that's when I started writing on the photos. I used to write the story, directly onto the photographic print, but that didn't happen till. The nineties and so there was all that going on in the seventies and the eighties I was just taking photographs fairly randomly and not really knowing much what I was doing.

But took a lot of photos and I had a kind of privileged position where people would ask me to their photos and they'd let me into their lives. And I thought that was really great.

Andy Gott: why do you think you were let into these lives? Why do you think that it was so, welcomed your presence?

William Yang: Well, there were two things happening when I was taking photographs. One was that people, especially well-known people would say, no, don't take my photograph. Please don't publish that. I'm a teacher and I could lose my job. But there was also a new breed of people who. [00:15:00] We're in quite compromising situations often, and they'd say, yes, take our photo.

We don't care about being naked. Publish it. those two things were happening. I think that people thought that throughout the past thousands of years, the gay community has been invisible and they thought that, these photographs may not be pretty, but we recognize them and accept them, and we want our stories told.

I think that was quite a strong, voice in the seventies and eighties. More the eighties, I'd say,

Andy Gott: but yearning for visibility.

I've also seen photography of yours, which documents the inside of nightclubs and parties.

The absurd fabulousness of the Mardi Gras parades with the incredible costumes. It's very easy for me now to look back at those photos and think, wow, what a fabulous time. This is so incredible. So outrageous and proud and out, [00:16:00] I'm also conscious of perhaps a bit of rose tinted glasses going on there as well.

I'm very interested in the idea that art photography at the time, you were just taking photos of what was going on in your life and people were welcoming you in, and you were taking photos of people you knew. But it wasn't until the nineties that you realized there were stories here to be shared and that notion of sometimes we just can't appreciate, art or storytelling until we've had a bit of hindsight when you look back at that time period now, is there some rose tinted glasses on display, or was the fabulousness of your photos really as fabulous as it felt in real life?

William Yang: that's hard to answer because, I've got my own spectacles on I think you are seeing a certain thing as you're taking the photos and, that bleeds into, your own vision, your own photographic eye, and you interpret what you see.

when I was a photographer in the early days, I would think [00:17:00] that the role of the documentary photographer was to be impartial and to record in an impartial way what was happening around him. But I quickly moved to the opinion that it's impossible to be impartial and that, you bring your own biases to everything you do.

And I still do have a gay bias. I mean, I'm more intentional about it now. 

Andy Gott: And then I believe in the nineties and two thousands, there was a stronger refocus on your Chinese heritage as you went on a journey of exploring that as well.

I really love the photos. I've seen photos of you going to China and engaging with that part of your heritage. Am I correct in there was a journey that you were exploring in terms of feeling comfortable as a human being? Do you recall that?

William Yang: Oh, oh yes, speaking. because of my own experiences and cultural attitudes, I denied being [00:18:00] Chinese for most of my early adult life until I was about 35.

When I became Daoist I embraced my Chinese heritage and, I describe it, that I'd been politicized as a gay person and, and where my sexuality had been suppressed. And now I could see, this is after I'd come out as a gay man that my. Ethnicity had been suppressed culturally, and so I embraced my ethnicity

some people describe me as a born again Chinese, but I prefer to say I came out as Chinese,

that was in the mid eighties.

Then I went on to do, things with the gay Asian community that's in the nineties, we marched in the Mardi Gras in 1992, which is [00:19:00] 14 years.

After the very first Mardi Gras, that's how long it took the gay Asian community, to come 

Andy Gott: to 

the 

party.

Wow. 

William Yang: And it was a big thing for them too. It wasn't really, something that they took lightly. And, I remember that they had a design to design their 

costumes and so the designs was quite elaborate,

and, and it was, they wore really heavy, disguising makeup and quite, concealing costumes. There was nothing

like the boldness of, Mardi Gras costumes so it, it was, everyone comes out in their own way and in their own time

Andy Gott: absolutely. That was a whistle stop tour of your photography career and that we've barely scratched the surface.

You referenced earlier that in your, performance art with your slideshows, there is a strong musical element, and I've [00:20:00] seen your art myself with a musical accompaniment and your most recent show milestones featured original composed music, how strong is your relationship with the composer in those shows?

Do you give them a brief and let them create their art or do you collaborate more closely than that?

William Yang: I tend to collaborate 'cause I know what I want. It's a matter of getting them to give me what I want

Kind of minimalist music that I want because the music is usually played with slides or images, and I usually don't talk through most of those audio visual sections. I want the music to, convey an emotion

usually the composers want to fill it all out. But I'm saying leave holes in your music because the images are telling a story too, and you don't want to fill out the music too [00:21:00] much ~because the slides, a chance to breathe, ~I'd worked, for example, with Elena Katz Churnin.

My most recent and most celebrated composer I, I, I not noticed I could be more demanding of her and trying to get what I wanted.

And I could say things to her like, too many notes, Elena, and things 

Andy Gott: that.

because you've built a relationship.

William Yang: Yeah, that's right. I felt him bold and that 

I

Say things 

like that. Did~ Did ~

~Yeah, she is, because she's quite prolific. And so, just come up with something else and it, that wasn't a big deal. Like the discarded piece wasn't precious to her. I do know some composers who'd be affronted by that, course.~

Andy Gott: ~course. ~

William Yang: ~right. ~

Andy Gott: ~There's always, yeah, an element of ego in the room. ~ We're about to move into the selections that you've picked for this interview. We are mixing up the format a little bit because instead of going with a track and album and an artist, you've actually selected five tracks, which in some way speak to different parts of your life or, journey as a queer person.

~I can't wait to get stuck in, but I'd just love to know. One last question before we do.~ What role is music in your life right now as an artist, but also just as a human? How often do you listen to [00:22:00] music? In what scenarios?

William Yang: I have, classical FM playing as, a background quite often I don't listen to anything new or challenging. That much. But I do hear the new music 'cause they on the radio, they're always playing at least half the stuff I hear I've never heard before. So that is really good. 'cause you know, I'm hearing my old favorites. And, also some new music as well.

So that's why I prefer listening to the radio and yeah. So. Music's so available now, it's almost become music really. And I think, you know, I, I'll put this on and, I only half listened to it and I think that's a shame. It's more background than actually paying attention.

It's to this part where, I don't. Stretch myself too much about listening to [00:23:00] new music.

I, quite like to listen to more Mala, for example, but I never get round to it. And I think that's indicative of the whole, availability of media in the world,

i'm kind of addicted to YouTube

Andy Gott: Yes.

William Yang: ~I'm addicted to YouTube~ and I find that, YouTube gives it all to you. There are commentaries and it's short I'm reluctant now to read things even on whatever, 'cause it just requires a bit more attention and my attention span's got much shorter.

It's about, I. 10 minutes. Whereas I might watch something on television that was an hour or an hour and a half, now, half an hour is my, maximum amount of time that I'd give. And I hardly ever read my reading skills have gone down, but I'm addressing that at the moment where I'm consciously, trying to [00:24:00] read more, read a book.

I feel that, my attention span is slipping away and I've gotta address that.

Andy Gott: I don't think you're alone there. 

William Yang: Yeah, I know.

I think that's just the way of the 

Andy Gott: I think we are all interacting with that kind of challenge. ~It's an interesting sensation to feel your attention span, shrinking.~

~It's very unusual. Okay.~ I reckon we should jump into your selections 'cause there's so much to talk about. So I'd love you to tell me the first track that you picked and why.

William Yang: Well, The first track that I've picked, is Quiet Please. There's a lady on stage by Peter Allen, and I'll preface this by saying I have seen Peter Allen perform this live in Sydney in the eighties.

We all knew Peter Allen was gay, so he didn't really have to say, I'm gay or, or something in his songs, [00:25:00] although. He did it in a way without verbally expressing it, say like, come to Rio. That song with all his flamboyant dancing and, piano playing it was a camp act so he didn't have to spell it out.

But this song here. There's a lady on stage is about Judy Garland, and I'll read you two of the first two standards. Quiet pleased. There's a lady on stage. She may not be the latest rage, but she's singing and she means it. And she deserves a little silence. Quiet please. There's a woman up there and she's been honest through her songs long before your consciousness was raised.

Now doesn't that deserve a little [00:26:00] praise? So it's about Judy Garland and we all knew as gay people that Julie Garland had drug issues and she was quite famous for storming out of concerts when the crowd would heckle her. She's very sensitive to that, and I knew that, Peter had met. Judy Garland in Hong Kong.

I don't quite remember the exact circumstances, but he may have been playing an accompaniment for her, and she was about to storm out he played over the rainbow on the piano and that brought her back. And so he saved a concert, right?

And then later he went on to. Marry, Judy's daughter, Lisa Minnelli. Sure did.

And so there was all that, that we kind of knew that gave that performance a bit of frisson, that he's a true gay icon and he's, [00:27:00] been there with Judy Garland and this is his song. And it's a nice song too.

Andy Gott: It's a beautiful song. And I've gotta say, I am a little bit embarrassed that before you sent it over, I'd never heard this song and I fell in love almost immediately. My knowledge of Peter Allen is quite limited. I know who he is. I know his significance. I know that there was a famous musical starring Hugh Jackman.

But I don't know too much about his life story or his body of work really. But this is a gay performer, performing a brilliant song, a tribute to the icons and the legends and the divas who we as gay people, worship. It can be very earnest at times. Yes, it's like a camp fabulous track, but there's those very real please for silence and respect and [00:28:00] awe

~yeah, I was really, grateful to be hearing this for the first time.~ I believe you photographed Peter, is that correct?

William Yang: Not on stage, but I've got photographs of Peter. Just from around the traps. 

Andy Gott: What do you recall about your friendship with him and what it was like as a person off the stage?

William Yang: He was very bold actually. I was living at this place called Wean, which belonged to Martin Sharp. This is in the eighties. Peter Allen came to visit one day with his boyfriend Greg, he didn't know Martin, but he just, showed up 'cause he heard that it was a place that he should visit.

Andy Gott: why was it a place 

William Yang: visit? Oh. 'cause it was kind of like one of those. Art institutions in a mansion. Sure. Because Martin lived in a mansion which he inherited from his grandmother, and it was surrounded by art. And also Martin was like music, tiny Tim, for example. Yes, yes. He was totally obsessed with Tiny Tim.

Andy Gott: because he'd lived in, London. 

William Yang: had spent time in London [00:29:00] and that was, a huge, status symbol for people in Australia if you'd lived in London or been to Europe. He was, fascinated by tiny Tim's voice.

He was making a film of him and he would record his songs. He'd put on concerts and things for Tiny. But, there was one song there that, street of Dreams, actually. peter described that as a gay ballad. 

Andy Gott: ~Did you ever, keep in touch or did it just kind of, you remember when you last spoke to Peter before you.~

~He passed away. ~

William Yang: ~No,~

~No, we didn't. We didn't have that relationship. Sure. That's a friendship. It's more a relationship. Yes.~

Andy Gott: ~Yeah. Okay. ~ The next track that you've picked

William Yang: Night swimming by REM the lead singer is Michael Sti, who's gay. So we knew he was gay and when I first heard [00:30:00] this song, I thought that they were English, but they actually American from a regional area. And it's got a kind of closeted ness about it.

This song in that nothing is discreet. And also there's a video that goes with this song, and I love this video 'cause it's like documentary photography. It's nothing slick about it. It's just really daggy streets and a really daggy, atmosphere that it evokes and people swimming and it's a bit of nudity in the video, just discrete nudity and so I think that it's kind of

It's a beautiful song. The way it's structured. I'll read you the first verse. Night swimming deserves a quiet night. The photograph on the dashboard taken long ago turned around [00:31:00] backwards. So the windscreen shows every streetlight revealed the picture in reverse.

Still, it's so much clearer. I forgot my shirt at the water's edge.

The moon is low tonight. That's evocative to me. It's painting this picture. And I forgot my shirt at the water's edge. That's kind of sexy in a way. And he goes on at the last verse. He sings a few stances and then he says, you, I thought I knew you, you, I cannot judge you.

I thought you knew me. This one laughing quietly underneath my breath. Not swimming. And so that's like, addressing a person. The [00:32:00] gender is kind of undisclosed so you can make it up. It's quite evocative I found that really appealing because it goes from describing a scene to suddenly putting yourself in it and addressing someone, and it almost, blurts it out, but it's still held back a 

bit. 

I thought I knew you and things like that.~ That's it.~ 

Andy Gott: There's quite a rush there. It is evocative, like you say, and the beautiful strings that come in, in the second half of the song. And who doesn't love skinny dipping at night? ~It's hard. ~I also found there was a bit of a tender yearning for perhaps innocence or a time pass that I couldn't quite put my finger on. Beyond that, a bit of, secrecy and beauty in the song. Is this a song that you recall falling in love with when [00:33:00] it came out, or did you discover it perhaps after its release?

William Yang: No, I liked it from the very first minute I heard it actually.

' it's got a nice, rhythm to it. It goes along and there's the musical interlude and the piano and yeah, I think it's probably, the most perfect of all the songs that I've chosen, just in terms of its form and its overall. 

Andy Gott: Yeah. What

Sounded English about it to you

William Yang: The restraint of something, 

you cannot 

see me naked. And so that's kind of,

that's, that's a bit closeted.

Whereas Americans, I associated with being much more brash. Mm. 

Andy Gott: The next track, ~which is Rufuss, by the way.~

William Yang: Okay. Rufuss Rain. Right. Well, first of all, we know he's gay.

I like his songs. He does a Judy Garland song, 

Andy Gott: so he did, a recreation of her concert at Carnegie Hall? 

Yes.

William Yang: Oh gosh. Very gay.

Andy Gott: It's, talking about, um, he probably just out ~Peter,~

peter Allen. Peter Allen. [00:34:00] Yeah.

William Yang: So, okay. I, I'll just read you this thing. I'm going to a town that has already been burnt down. I am going to a place that has already been disgraced.

I'm

gonna see some folks who have already been let down. I'm so tired of America I think says it all.

The songs are all a repeat of that. And ~I've read since I've heard that,~ when I first heard that I thought that he's going to a town that's already been burnt down. I thought that's another town in America but I've read that he was actually going to Paris, I think it's better, my interpretation, like an America in Decay and I think this song's a couple of decades long.

Although I didn't actually hear it two decades ago, it only came to my attention recently so much like America now it's the Fall of America is the way I read it.

[00:35:00] 

Andy Gott: This song came out in 2007, so yeah, just under 20 years ago. So disillusioned and a very potent political song. I was actually familiar first with, George Michael did a cover of this

William Yang: song. That's

Andy Gott: Right.

And, he did it on his live album where he performs with an orchestra.

That was the first time I heard this song. Really? I've, spoken to your very good friend, Benjamin Law on this podcast, who is a massive Rufuss wa Wright fan. Have you seen Rufuss wa Wright live

William Yang: No. I missed him, this Sydney festival 'cause I was performing myself 

and so I couldn't see 

Andy Gott: That's a flex.

Yes. 

William Yang: I wouldn't say I was a huge, massive fan, but I do like him and I wanted to see [00:36:00] his, concert. But, no, I wouldn't say I'm a huge Rufus Way not, but I've liked a lot of his songs. 

~And I like that he sings the cover songs, you know, like Across the Universe that, Beatles song, he sings, I like his selection of songs.~

Andy Gott: He's certainly a man of taste and he stated that this song, going to a town is an emotional reaction to a lover that you had a fight with.

is about mourning and moving on to bigger and better things. Which wasn't your interpretation, but I think that's brilliant.

William Yang: No, No, it wasn't. 

~ ~

Andy Gott: ~That's one of the best things about music~

William Yang: ~Yeah, that's right.~ And I think that's probably the art of the song is not to spell it all out so that people can give their own interpretations to it. I do think that you should not give it all away in a single sentence but keep your audience wondering about what it means

Andy Gott: is that a sensibility you weave through your art?

William Yang: Because I'm a documentary photographer, I tend to be a bit more upfront withholding, information.

It's all a style, I think in the end. But I do think [00:37:00] that telling a story is about information and giving it out and putting it in a certain order. This is in my storytelling and making it short is my style. But I like my things for the meaning to be clear. Clarity is very important

for me. Absolutely.

It's all a matter of taste, whether you spell it out or you don't.

Andy Gott: The fourth track that you picked, 

William Yang: It seemed so long ago, Nancy, by Leonard Cohen, I, I've always been a huge fan of Leonard Cohen, ever since I first heard him way back in the seventies. I think he's a poet,

very poetic person

and [00:38:00] also very emotional he talks about love feelings and relationships with people. And I like all of that about him. I'll just read you this song, the first verse. It seems so long ago, Nancy was alone. Looking at the late, late show through a semi-precious stone in the house of honesty.

Her father was on trial in the House of Mystery. There was no one at all. It seems so long ago. None of us were strong. Nancy Walgreen stockings and she slept with everyone. She never said she'd wait for us, although she was alone. I think she fell in love for us in 1961.

Her father was a [00:39:00] judge. In the House of Mystery. I don't really quite know what that means, but Leonard Cohen's Jewish and I think that's to do with spirituality. Or that's how I read it. she Was bipolar, so she had mental issues in the song she commits suicide when she was 21. It's all got that tragic feel to it. This song to me, is very much of its time and it's that early period of liberation the line that really speaks to me was Nancy Walgreen stockings and she slept with everyone I went through that period of free love in the seventies in Sydney, which I loved probably the best time of my life.

And it's just evocative of that time. And so it's a sad story, but I think that he's poetic and, um,~ he talks about relationships ~maybe he hints that [00:40:00] they might have been able to help her more, but, it just didn't work out I don't think that this song is overtly. Queer in any way, but I respond to a kind of poetry and feeling of the song. And that's why I like it. And I've included it in a Queer Almanac, if you want to 

Andy Gott: that. Absolutely. This is your Queer Almanac, and I do wonder if you ever owned a pair of green stockings.

No.

What I did appreciate about the song is that Leonard Cohen, presents Nancy's. Promiscuity not in, a judgmental fashion at all.

It's just kind of part of her personality or part of her lifestyle. Considering the timing that it was written and performed, there could have been a lot more judgment in there, perhaps. Does that resonate with you?

William Yang: Yes. And it was of a time, 'cause now everything's very conservative, but then things were a [00:41:00] lot looser people were

revolting against conservatism and so there were much more liberal times.

Andy Gott: Is that something that you're quite aware of? Do you see the pendulum swinging back to a more 

William Yang: Oh, absolutely. Wow.

Absolutely. In fact, that's one of the reasons why I do my pieces to tell people that times were different then, and that young people now have no idea what it was like in the seventies and the eighties.

They're my two favorite periods, actually, the seventies and the eighties, and that's when I took my best photographs. There was a sense of liberation and a sense of optimism. Free love and all of that. Yeah. And, there's nothing like that now. People now would never consider dropping out, for example, which a lot of us did in the seventies.

Yeah. cause they'd be too scared that they'd never get a job. And so the times are [00:42:00] harder now. Much harder. And so that was just a little, opening I think in, social history that happened where you could get people who, it didn't last long, but there was just that opening of freedom, I guess.

Andy Gott: I've got many follow up questions for you, but I wonder if they might be better asked in the context of your final track that you've selected, 

William Yang: I've chosen, Bohemian Rhapsody by ~Freddie Mercury of~ Queen, and I've got a particular reading of this song. It's quite a rambling song. In various sections. If I just read you the first few lines, this is the main story in it.

Mama

just killed a man. Put a gun against his head. Pull my trigger.

Now he's dead. Mama. My life had just begun, but now I've gone and thrown it all [00:43:00] away. So that's the premise of the song. But what I really think Freddie Mercury was writing about was AIDS and his mortality was looming. The whole song makes more sense if I, substitute Mama, I've got aids.

And really, he couldn't say that in the song, but I can say it, mama, I've got aids Mama. Life had just begun, but now I've gone and thrown it all away.

Mama didn't mean to make you cry. If I'm not back again, this time tomorrow, carry on. Carry on. As if nothing really matters. Too late. My time has come, sends shivers down my spine.

Body's aching all the time. Goodbye everybody. I've got to go. Gotta [00:44:00] leave you all behind and face the truth, mama.

I

don't want to die. I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all.

And so that's an AIDS song. I mean, he's pouring out his heart in a kind of confession. I think that that's a really gritty song, and it's one of their most famous songs, and so it's got all that in it.

I like that about this song.

Andy Gott: I don't really know where to start with Freddie Mercury. Freddie Mercury is as iconic as it gets, but as you've already highlighted, his life and career, especially in the second half dominated by the diagnosis he received and how it was woven through his art

towards the very end of his [00:45:00] life. Songs like the Show must Go On, and these are the days of our lives also speak very explicitly to his diagnosis, He is to be seen, to be believed with Freddie Mercury. I don't think you could. Possibly grasp his stardom until you see a video, which now, is so accessible with YouTube. But I remember my dad endlessly talking about Freddie Mercury and me thinking, great big deal. Another seventies rock band.

But there is something I. astronomically special about his amount of talent and the connection he had with people. To see him on stage at Wembley Stadium holding 70,000 people in the palm of his hand and to know that was a gay man, a queer man doing that is, so magical and I'm so glad we have all this recorded documentation of it.

In the previous song you were talking about that period of free [00:46:00] love and you talked about. Seventies and eighties being perhaps your favorite decades of your life. But we can't talk about the eighties without acknowledging the hiv aids epidemic. And just to go back to some of your own work perhaps your most moving photography is, the series of photos you took of your friend, over a period of his life and.

there's no way on a podcast that I can possibly describe these photos ~to be seen is to be believed. If you~ So if you don't know them, please go and check them out. When Do you feel like that period of free love was over and the specter of HIV aids had taken its place?

Did it ever take its place?

William Yang: I think it gradually, well, we had the seventies which was a time of experimentation and evolving quite slowly. Then there was the eighties where a lot happened because there was the commercialization of the gay scene, the power of the pink dollar. There were all those [00:47:00] demonstrations about, repealing gay laws.

'cause homosexuality was an illegal act. And so there was all that happening. And then. There was Mardi Gras, which was like a public, expression. In the early nineties, Mardi Gras went on television and, got into people's living rooms. I think that was the biggest turning point in people's attitudes

mardi Gras got into people's living rooms and they were kind of forced to talk about it and slowly things changed. The attitudes changed, but I'd put that down as an important part. Then AIDS came in and it gave our enemies a chance to try to destroy us again.

It was a terrible time. I would never want to live through that time again. But the community banded together during aids and that was the, beginning of [00:48:00] a strong. L-G-B-T-I-Q community forming. In the nineties, the eighties to me was a bit separatist actually.

Oh yeah. The lesbians had their own scene and gay men had their own scene and Mardi Gras was one of the gay men seen, but in the late eighties. Kath Phillips was the first, female president or lesbian president of the Mardi Gras, and then the lesbians, came on board and it did become a coalition of gay men and lesbian in the nineties.

And the lesbians were very supportive of gay men in the nineties, especially,

During the AIDS pandemic.

Andy Gott: I've heard stories before of, if anyone is unfamiliar with the Sydney Mardi Gras parade, it opens with the most dramatic beginning of the Dykes on bikes.

Again, to be seen as, to be believed. But, am I correct in thinking that the dikes on bikes in the parade harks back [00:49:00] to, well, it was lesbians protecting gay men on oxford Street,

William Yang: What is history but mythological stories,

Andy Gott: we all love a bit of mythology.

That final resignation of this song, nothing really matters to me, is, a deeply poignant line

William Yang: He gets philosophical there. He's almost, eastern philosophy. You know, nothing really matters anyone can see. Nothing really matters to me any way the wind blows.

That's kind of resignation to his fate.

Andy Gott: I can't believe this is the first time that I've discussed Queen on this podcast. Thank you very much for bringing Bohemian Rhapsody, perhaps one of the gayest songs of all time to this podcast. Very special. ~Are you familiar with the Queen Track? These are the days of our lives.~

William Yang: ~No, I'm not.~

Andy Gott: ~it's really special. I'd like you to listen to it after, I think it was the last song that Queen ~

William Yang: ~released ~

~Oh, go ~

Andy Gott: ~Freddy ~

~before he died.~

William Yang: ~What's it called lives. Okay. ~

Andy Gott: ~Was there anything else that you wanted to say about Bohemian Rhapsody before we wrap that up?~

William Yang: ~Not really. It's the most modern of all the songs I've chosen. 'cause it's very much in my era, the seventies and the eighties, my other choices. So. ~

Andy Gott: ~Is there any music which reminds you of that heady period in the eighties like songs from that period that you were listening to then at the parties or anything like that?~

William Yang: ~The song that always astonishes me that gets played quite a lot is YMCA at the Village people.~

~It's~

~like people don't, children love ~

~it. ~

~It gets played at all sorts of things. And I'm thinking, don't you realize this is a gay song?~

~But it's such a popular jaunty song that's a song that stands out to me actually. YMCA.~

Andy Gott: ~That song has had such a bizarre life journey, even up until recent times when it was performed on stage at a Donald Trump rally, with the last surviving member of the village people. It continues to baffle us all. ~What is something that you are [00:50:00] working on next, William?

William Yang: Well, I've got an archive and what I'm doing is I'm digitizing my archive, which is black and white negatives because no one can look at a black and white negative. But, a digital scan talks to other digital scans and it talks to the world. So I've got quite a lot of black and white negatives that I'm digitizing at the moment.

I've got someone to help me. Yeah. But, it's quite a big job it'll take me till the end of my days to do 

it. 

I'm going through that and discovering new photos. Looking at my collection gives me more sense of what my life was.

It's really quite a nice experience in some ways. If it wasn't so work intensive that's the thing about art there's a lot of, drudgery in art, or at least in my form of photography there's just a lot of drudgery in it.

I have [00:51:00] students who, help me sometimes I. Sometimes take on a student who's got it put in, get some hours of experience with working for someone. And, I feel a bit awful about selling them. Sit down there and scan all these negatives. 'cause I feel, 'cause I feel, you know, like that's just, a horrible.

Task, but my life is full of really repetitive manual tasks. Even if it's the ironing or something like that.

Andy Gott: I'm sure they're honored and privileged to do that work for you, and it's a rite of passage for us all. William Young, you are queer and thank you very much for your tracks.

William Yang: been My pleasure, Andy.

Andy Gott: ~We made it through.~

You can find links to William's work, his Instagram and his photography books, including the beautiful retrospective Seeing and Being Seen. In this episodes show Notes, tracks of our Queer is produced and presented by me, anti Got on Unseated [00:52:00] Gal, and the gag Go Land. You can drop me a line at tracks of our queers@gmail.com ~with your own queer track or reflections ~with your own queer tracks or reflections, and I'll see you next time.