Josie Cotton - Johnny Are You Queer? [5]

Title: Josie Cotton - Johnny Are You Queer?
Year/Genre/Sub-Genre/City: 1981, New Wave, Power Pop, Dallas, Texas 10/26
Matrix #: Elektra 12-inch single, red label (b/w "(Let's Do) The Blackout"); catalog not legible in photo
Condition: EX (LM) | Members: Josie C (56' - ) | Producer: Bobby Paine, Larson Paine
Cultural Facts: [5]

1. Met in a Bank Line: Cotton drove out to Los Angeles from Texas in the late '70s with her demos, hoping to make it as a songwriter, not a singer. She met Larson Paine in a bank line at Sunset and Vine, and he became her boyfriend, but he was the biggest holdout against letting her sing this song. She had to promise the Warner Bros. publishing demo was a one-time thing until they found the perfect girl, and it was his brother Bobby who finally said to just let her sing it.
2. Won in a Coin Toss: The song started life as a fast, profane chant in the live set of L.A. punk band Fear. The Paine brothers, who had discovered the Go-Go's at their first gig at the Masque, rewrote it, and it became the Go-Go's' show-closer. After a meeting with Fear, the Paines walked away owning the publishing on a coin toss, and when the Go-Go's left to tour with Madness against their wishes, the brothers forbade the band from ever playing it again.
3. "There Is No Josie Cotton": When the record hit on KROQ, the religious right came after it, with protests and counter-protests outside the station. Cotton once turned on the TV to find a pink-haired lady evangelist holding up her record and playing it at half speed, telling viewers Josie Cotton didn't exist and was really a gay man out to convert straight men. Her own reaction was that slowed down she sounded just like Brian Wilson, and she said many gay fans wrote to tell her the song helped them come out.