Hello everyone!
I'm delighted to announce the release of my new single, ‘Marsha’. It's a song that honours the life and legacy of Marsha P. Johnson and commemorates the Stonewall Riots, which ended on this day in 1969.
You can listen to the song on my Bandcamp, where you can also read a bit more about it. Alternatively, you can listen on Spotify, or watch the visualiser on YouTube.
My previous single, ‘Snowdrops’ (and my work-in-progress memoir) both explore the effects of homophobia. Whilst I did experience some trying times, growing up, I'm also very aware that things could have been much, much worse. The relative freedoms I've enjoyed, as someone who came out in the 1990s, exist because people a generation or more before me were willing to stand up and fight—at a time when doing so carried enormous personal risk.
The Stonewall Riots began in New York City at the end of June 1969, following a police raid on the Stonewall Inn. The uprising that unfolded over the following five days became a defining moment in the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement, inspiring decades of activism and helping to transform LGBTQ+ visibility around the world.
Marsha P. Johnson—an activist, performer and community figure affectionately known as the "Saint of Christopher Street"—is widely understood to have taken part in the uprising, although her exact role remains disputed. What isn't in doubt, however, is her extraordinary contribution to the struggle for LGBTQ+ liberation that followed—more than half a century later, her compassion, courage and advocacy continue to inspire people around the world.
When I started working on this piece of music, three years ago, something about it felt very "heroic" to me—I felt there was something stately, dignified, elegiac and proud about it. I wanted words, and a subject, that would match those feelings and amplify them. It didn't take long to realise that Stonewall was what I wanted to write about. In fact, I'd written a handful of lyrics about Stonewall, which I'd never used, in the summer of 2019, Stonewall's fiftieth anniversary.
It's a subject that has fascinated me ever since seeing Nigel Finch's fictionalised film on Channel 4 late one night in 1996. (I think it was probably the first piece of queer television I'd ever seen.) I wasn't drawn to the drag culture depicted in the film, nor to the furtive, self-hating relationships it portrayed (and which were typical of those of the pre-Stonewall period)—but I remember thinking, even then as a rather naïve fifteen-year-old, just how brave those people were.
My favourite writer, Edmund White, was also present during the riots. He wrote that Stonewall transformed queer people's ability to love one another because what it changed was self-esteem—without which, he argued, mutual love cannot exist. I think about that observation often, and ‘Marsha’ is, in many ways, simply my way of saying thank you to the people who made life easier for the generations of queer people who followed.
‘Marsha’ is now the second single I've released from my next album, due in early 2027. Between this song and the recently-released ‘Snowdrops’, I think you can get a sense of what I'm aiming for with this next album. All of my usual ingredients are still there (echoey guitars, rich bass, some nice chords, and lots of layers), but with clearer vocals and some lush acoustic instrumentation that's, perhaps, not typical of the shoegaze genre (in this case, an actual string quartet that I arranged and conducted).
I'm very pleased with this track. It's one of two or three songs that seems to have had the biggest "wow" factor whenever I've played work-in-progress versions to people; I hope you like it too!
As with ‘Snowdrops’, I'll be donating all proceeds from ‘Marsha’ to another LGBTQ+ charity. This time I've chosen the Stonewall Inn Gives Back Initiative (SIGBI), the official non-profit organisation of the historic Stonewall Inn. Its work supporting marginalised communities and advancing equality around the world feels like a fitting way to honour the values that Marsha P. Johnson embodied throughout her life.
Thanks as always,
Daniel
