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A Weird Manilow Digression

 Barry Manilow is a great songwriter, producer, and performer. His most famous songs are ones he didn’t write. “Mandy” and hilariously, “I Write The Songs” are the obvious examples. But he did write “Looks Like Me Made It.” Now, I love that bloody song; the lyrics and chorus just ring somehow. Yet I got to thinking.

That’s the exact song that made me realize Manilow is gay. If he’s got actual sexual experience with women back there somewhere, I stand corrected. But no healthy heterosexual man—if you will forgive the term—would openly say anything like this, and especially not when he’s supposed to marry someone else. Maybe most people are recklessly…active, and I’m naive. But most of his records are kinda heteronormative in a way that isn’t convincing. With all due respect.

Granted, pop singers aren’t known for continence and fidelity. But if say, Lionel Richie had been closeted gay for 40-odd years, I’d be stunned.

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