“God, how did I not think of that?” – Andrew Seward (former Against Me! Bassist, 6/19/12 in an MTV interview)
Author: Craig Shayowitz
When Against Me!’s 2007 album “New Wave” came out, despite mixed feelings on the album as a whole (all of their albums debut to mixed feelings), I remember the song “The Ocean” as the fan favorite. It was slow, raw, gritty, dirty. It sounded unlike previous Against Me! songs, but gushed the same passion for which the band was known. And my friend Dan suggested Tom Gabel (the band’s singer and songwriter) would come out as a woman one day, because that song literally had the lyrics “If I could have chosen I would have been born a woman,” and that there were other song lyrics throughout their career that pointed to this. Five years later I bought an issue of Rolling Stone for the interview where Against Me!’s lead singer came out as Laura Jane Grace, where she shares what it was like to live with an identity and never telling anyone, and her surprise when no one picked up on it after releasing “The Ocean,” in 2007. I thought of Dan’s prediction, and mused on whether or not Laura had left a trail of subtle confessions across years of song lyrics.
The title track from their 2002 EP “The Disco Before The Breakdown,” has a chorus that is haunting and ambiguous, and it’s that appeal that makes it a popular encore choice at live shows. “I know they’re going to laugh at us when they see us out together holding hands like this. They wouldn’t understand it if we told them all the reasons, not that I think this deserves any kind of explanation.” A lot of Against Me! choruses read less like choruses and more like sentences. These lyrics could mean the people you know not understanding why you’re out with an ex, or someone of the same gender, or maybe, in this case, you’re presenting as a different gender than people would expect. It’s about the expectations of others getting in the way with what you want, and understanding that what you want is more important. Is this lyric definitely about Laura Jane Grace’s secret struggles with gender identity? No, not on its own, but the next track on the EP has similar concerns and admissions.
The second track on the same EP, “Tonight We’re Gonna Give It 35%,” another popular encore request, has the lyrics “Can you live with what you know about yourself when you’re all alone behind closed doors? The things we never said, but we always knew were right.” Again, there’s a lot of appeal to this line because everyone feels misunderstood, that we harbor something irreconcilable inside us, like Laura had to for so much of her life.
2005’s “Searching For A Former Clarity,” has more possible professions. The catchy track “Pretty Girls” has the line “Sometimes at night I pray to wake a different person in a different place,” later followed by “There are truths you must learn to confront. You can pray all night and day. You’ll always wake the same person in the same place.” Similar to “Tonight We’re Gonna Give It 35%” the track seems to be about something not working out romantically, conceding self-doubt as the cause, and then a profound line about accepting and realizing who you are. This album ends with the title track “Searching For A Former Clarity,” which starts off simple and builds and builds until its ending lines. The song is about dying, but tucked in that theme are the lines “Confessing childhood secrets of dressing up in women’s clothes. Compulsions you never knew the reasons to.” Though the song is a fictional account, I think that line came from real experience.
As previously mentioned, 2007’s “New Wave” ends with “The Ocean”, a track with the line “If I could I chosen I would have been born a woman. My mother once told me she would have named me Laura.” Nothing elusive, a straightforward emission, she even says her name, but in the pretense of a song her identity still remained a secret. My initial thought on the line was that it was an affront to the importance of masculinity or being male. Rebellion towards any type of authority is a prominent theme in many, many of their songs, so though the topic was singular it didn’t stand out enough for me (or anyone else) to think it meant anything more than it did in a song. In the Rolling Stone article Laura expressed she was sure she was outing herself with this song.
Another concluding track, “Bamboo Bones” off their 2010 album “White Crosses” contains the lyrics “What god doesn’t give to you, you’ve got to go and get for yourself.” A facet of Laura Jane Grace’s songwriting I admire is the ability of a lyric to have a specific meaning, and the ability to take on any meaning. Anyone could have written that line about anything. But the next verse is “I’m embarrassed to admit it. I’ve got no grip. I’m leading with my jaw. Can you see it from a distance? Does it look ridiculous? I guess that’s just what I have to live with.” She doesn’t like her male jaw (or appearance), it looks wrong to her because it isn’t how she feels. So, given the context of this verse, the earlier line is a desire to change her body into what she wants, and I think the line is so abstract because (at the time of writing this song) she doesn’t know how to actually go about such a transition.
Now it’s 2013, and amongst the collection of Against Me! in my iTunes library is the True Trans EP, which is two acoustic versions of songs off their forthcoming album “Transgender Dysphoria Blues,” an album that is sure to deal heavily with her past gender dysphoria and her experience transitioning. And though the lyrics will be more direct towards the meaning behind them, I think it would have been impossible for Laura not to put pieces of her struggle throughout the Against Me! catalogue.
