Queerness and fantasy have long been inextricably tied. When you’re discovering who you are and don’t see an outlet for expressing your gender or sexuality, you imagine it — you craft elaborate scenarios where you can feel fully yourself. Fantasies, of course, come with soundtracks. To celebrate Pride Month, four writers paid homage to the songs that invite curiosity, discovery, and fantasy in their lives. In this essay, entertainment writer Iyana Jones honors The Aces’ “Bad Love.”
My first thought upon arriving at Bowery Ballroom is, “Isn’t it too early for the floors to be this sticky?” And then, “Wow, I think I never want to leave this place.” I scan the crowd, a sea of pierced faces and tattooed hands gripping cold drinks, hair dyed electric colors, in search of my friend. The time is 9:42 p.m., and The Aces will be on soon. I wipe a drop of sweat from my forehead and reach for my phone right as it begins to buzz: “A couple of minutes away! Make friends!”
I laugh and look around once again. I spot tiny rainbow flag buttons pinned onto denim jackets, and couples of all kinds mingling, holding hands. A girl with a blue mullet, also alone in the moment, locks eyes with me and smiles. I smile back.
It’s 2018 and I’m a newly minted graduate, suitcases still unpacked in my room, my degree’s ink barely dried. The summer after graduation, I work a temp job, leaving me adequately paid and with an abundance of time to spend with my friends before entering Real Life. At this moment, it feels good, in a way my life hasn’t felt in a long time.
But there is a niggling feeling, one that’s perhaps always been there, but at this moment in time feels louder, more pronounced. I’d felt it in high school when girls on the cheerleading team introduced us to their girlfriends for the first time. I’d felt it one hot day in Prague when my friend and I felt like the only people in the world; her hand in mine the entire day, eliciting stares from peers, but we were too caught up in our glee to care. I’d felt it in kindergarten when I got the prettiest girl in class for Secret Santa and felt excited to get her the best, most perfect gift — a collector’s set of books by her favorite author — I possibly could (I did and she loved it). It was something I’d finally started to acknowledge, giving voice to in small whispers with friends, attempting to label. Queer, or maybe bisexual, or maybe pansexual. It was a winding and confusing path, one that felt lonely until I found The Aces.
Discovered while listening to a Fierce Femmes Spotify playlist, When My Heart Felt Volcanic was an album I played every single day. A comfort album. The one I turned to when these niggling feelings crawled their way to the forefront of my brain and reminded me how lonesome becoming my true self could be. Their music about a genderless love made me feel understood when I didn’t quite understand myself. I admired this all-female band, with its members open and kind, their lyrics nebulous and romantic and lively. It felt like I was a smaller piece of metal in their giant magnetic pull.
Of all the songs, I played “Bad Love” the most. The punchy song questions how others could look down on a love, even call it bad, when it feels so good to them. On the surface, it seems to be about having a secret relationship because others can’t grasp how you work together. But to me, when I hear it, the niggling perceives it in a different way. Perhaps, when Crystal sings that “they don’t really need to know our business”, she means that the gender and/or sexuality of who she wants to date, isn't anyone’s concern but theirs. When she sings, “Got you touching on me all in secret/ Want you lovin on me all four seasons,” maybe she means she’s grown tired of hiding a love because it makes society uncomfortable, and wants the freedom to be with them all the time. “How could they call this bad love when all I want is more?” she asks, recognizing that they could never understand the way that we feel.
I know now that I wasn’t the only one who interpreted “Bad Love” this way. That many queer folks heard the lyrics the way I did, as an anthem for longer caring about being misunderstood or judged for who we want to be with. I imagined time and time again the way this song would feel in person. The way the lights would beam down on Katie and McKenna right before the song began, giving each other a nod to signal the start of the song. Alissa’s hands twisting her drumsticks as she geared up to play, knowing what was coming next. Crystal’s eyes scanning the audience, spotting a PRIDE flag and smiling down at the couple holding it. Then they’d begin, and we’d be singing this song at the top of our lungs, a room full of us, a background choir to Crystal’s voice as we screamed our defiance. Our collective joy in sharing this experience together, a chosen family under the Ace name. I dreamed that in that room, we’d know who’d understood this song, who it was meant for.
But I am not dreaming. I am here right now, and my friend still hasn’t arrived, but that’s okay because the girl with the dyed mullet has come over with her friends to say hello. The lights lower, the crowd explodes into applause, the anticipation is heavy. I let go of a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.
Check out the other essays in this series:
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On The Aces, “Bad Love,” and Feeling Defiantly Queer - Teen Vogue
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