Rainbow Ruckus 10/20: Sug Daniels, Marian Runk, Brandy Clark

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Every week, Rainbow Rodeo brings you the best new queer country music! Listen to this playlist on Tidal! Thanks to Elliott for making a parallel list on Apple Music! Missed a week? TA Inskeep is generously keeping an archive of all music featured on this Spotify playlist.

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• Iris Marlowe tells a true tale of horror: the existential kind. On "I Can't Pay My Bills Without Crying," the Chicago chanteuse channels classic country pathos – and camp. Marlowe's over-the-top weeping brings humor to the tragedy that it is feeling more and more difficult to get ahead. At least Marlowe shows us how to go down swinging.

• On the opposite vein, Sug Daniels and John Faye find peace in knowing they can't take it with them. Instead, we can leave behind something more important: a legacy of liberation, even if we don't get to see it ourselves.

• Marian Runk reminisces about her grandmother's Texas home on "Scorpion's Nest." Runk's reflection isn't uniformly fond: she questions the legacies left behind by elders who weren't necessarily wiser, but with a fondness that suggests we can hold more than two things at once.

• The Cowgays also have thoughts on the Lone Star State. "See You in Texas" is a whirlwhind of a breakup song with biting wordplay, country music references, and a groove that is impossible not to line dance to.

• Meanwhile, Brandy Clark comes out swinging with the deceptively mellow "American Roots." The opening verse presents familiar country music tropes of the land of the free, working hard, land ownership, etc etc but Clark reminds us that we're all part of something deeper and more expansive than what white nationalism wants us to believe.

Find our Tidal playlist here: