LISTEN: This often-forgotten classic by Erasure perfectly captures the heart of queer desire
Brokeback Mountain, the all too familiar experience of longing for an unattainable love was captured in various forms of art.
Among them, music stands out as a powerful medium that can express that powerful feeling of yearning for someone who cannot be had.
Erasure’s 1986 track “Oh L’Amour” is one of the greatest examples of this, an often-forgotten gay classic that captures the heart of queer desire.In 1985, Andy Bell was working in a meat-packing plant in Peterborough when he responded to a newspaper advertisement looking for a singer.
Vince Clarke had been Bell’s hero after Bell was successful in his audition, and together, they formed the group Erasure.Within a matter of months, he was on the way to fame and fortune as one-half of the synth-pop duo, and was openly gay and proud from the start, making a point of neither over- nor under-playing his sexuality.
