Olivia Records was conceived as a recording company that would be geared to gay women, but as discussed below, it was more than just that. The title of the label’s very first album, I Know You Know (1974) by Meg Christian is not hard to figure out; nor are the implications of the best-known song from this album, “Ode to a Gym Teacher” (written by Meg and performed live to an enthusiastic audience). However, women’s music is not overtly sexual, or at least I have never heard any that was. For the most part, the romantic songs are addressed to the lover; as with Melissa Etheridge, the gender is beside the point, lending the music appeal to all listeners.
There is a strong feminist stance in women’s music, however; and that was largely absent from the music scene in the mid-1970’s, Helen Reddy’s “I Am Woman” (1972) notwithstanding. Besides her own fine compositions, Meg Christian reinterprets a Rolf Kempf song, “Hello Hooray” as a feminist anthem, with some new lyrics that she added. The song had been included on one of Judy Collins’ best albums, Who Knows Where the Time Goes (1968). Jimmy Webb is not a songwriter where one would expect feminist sensibilities, but Meg reworks his song “The Hive” as a tale of female oppression – not at all the way that Richard Harris performed the song several years earlier. Meg Christian also covers one of Cris Wiliamson’s songs, “Joanna”; a single lyric in “Joanna”, “I need to touch you” was the only hint of lesbianism on the Cris Williamson album.
(January 2014)
