We're All Just Pink

Crimson and Clover by Joan Jett & the Blackhearts

It’s 2010, and Kristen Stewart is starring in The Runaways, a biopic about the eponymous all-female rock band from the late seventies. You’re a preteen, the Twilight franchise has awakened the rabid fangirl within you, and you’ve been following Stewart’s career because she’s got such a cool, mysterious vibe, I just think she’s really interesting. You research the band behind the film and discover Joan Jett, the real-life rock star inspiring Stewart’s on-screen role.

Her signature black leather, heavily-lined eyes, and shag haircut strike you as electric, the personification of rock ‘n’ roll if you’ve ever seen it. Her voice sounds like smoke in a dimly lit room, and the way she plays guitar makes you want to pick one up. She’s added to the list of women you’re inexplicably drawn to, an interest your younger self rationalizes as artistic appreciation.

She didn’t write “Crimson and Clover,” but she sings it like a love letter to the woman she’s been wanting from afar. Something about that strikes you.

… my, my such a sweet thing

I wanna do everything

What a beautiful feeling

Girls Like Girls by Hayley Kiyoko

Fast forward a few years—you’re in high school, you mess around with words for your sexual identity constantly, and it’s mostly a question mark hovering in the back of your mind. Sometimes, you think you know the answer, but your tongue gets tied up in saying it. The soundtrack to summer 2015 is what finally loosens it up.

You’ve been seeing screencaps, GIF sets, and lyric edits floating around Tumblr for a new song and its corresponding music video. People are raving over the gay romance, and it’s not just vague subtext this time. Girls are kissing girls in a music video for a song about girls liking girls. Love stories can play out between two teenage girls, and they can kiss each other on screen without it being a joke or something they do to please a boy. That summer, you listen to the song a hundred times, you watch the music video about a hundred more, and yes, you cry while doing it.

It’s confession and catharsis all at once.

We will be everything that we'd ever need

Don't tell me, tell me what I feel

I'm real and I don't feel like boys

Girls by Beatrice Eli

You’re riding the bus home from school, listening to a playlist called “GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS” on 8tracks. You close your eyes and rest your head back against the seat, a feedback loop of imagined scenarios playing in tandem with every new song that comes on. There are snapshots of half-baked crushes, friendships turned love affairs, set to bubblegum beats and pop vocals.

When the next song comes on, the mood is a bit edgier, a sense of anticipation in the electronic sounds of the opening. The lyrics are blatantly horny, your face caught somewhere between a blush and a smile as you listen. You’ve never heard a girl sing about another girl like this. You used to be convinced that all girls ever did with each other was kiss and hold hands, but this song says different. This song captures the warmth in your gut when you notice a girl’s hair brushing her collarbone, the deep breath you hold in when you smell her perfume, the imprint you want to leave on her neck, and the mark you hope she leaves on yours.

No, you’ve never heard another girl say it before this, but it’s been living in your head for years.

I've seen this girl on the TV

See this girl in the mall

I see pictures in my head

Of my head between their legs

I see girls in my building

I see girls on the train

I see pictures in my head

I can't make go away

Electric Love by BØRNS

It’s the night of Homecoming your senior year of high school, and your friend is driving you home. The street lights flash by in fluorescent pops of yellow and the occasional purple-tinged white. A song plays on the radio, humming into the spaces between your voices as you recount the best parts of the night. You’re a little drunk on the memory of sweaty kids packed into a neon dance floor and the IHOP binge that came after. You feel pretty in your new dress and dark lipstick, but the song is making you think about how you didn’t have a date.

The singer is actually a straight man, but you won’t find that out until later. For now, you think it’s a velvet-voiced woman singing about her girl who’s sweet like candy. You want one of your own, so you tell your friend guiding the wheel next to you.

You don’t know it, but she’s going to be the first girl you ever kiss (just not tonight). You’ll think of her every time you hear this song.

And every night my mind is running around her

Thunder's getting louder and louder

Pynk (feat. Grimes) by Janelle Monáe

It’s 2018, and Janelle Monáe has just released Dirty Computer, a short film to go along with her third studio album. The sci-fi inspired narrative is driven by the romance between two women, shown in snippets of vivid color and newfound intimacy.

You’ve been waiting for this release, and there’s no surprise at the romantic elements and vibrant celebrations of femininity in its varying degrees. There’s only the simple joy of listening to gay songs without revelation or fanfare. Here’s a cheeky yet intimate song about how the color pink manifests in love, sex, and self-actualization. It reminds you why pink has always been one of your favorite colors, and it invites you to look at a woman’s body and fall in love with it.

You’re 20 years old, you haven’t kissed any other girls, you’ve still never kissed a boy, but you know what’s in your heart.

Pink where it's deepest inside, crazy

Pink beyond forest and thighs

Pink like the secrets you hide, maybe

Pink like the lid of your eye, baby

Pink is where all of it starts, crazy

Pink like the halls of your heart