Jewish Feminist Singer Lesley Gore: From the ‘60s to Today

By Benjamin Ivry April 20, 2010

Fans of feminist Jewish pop song will not want to miss Lesley Gore (born Lesley Sue Goldstein in 1946) at New York’s Joe’s Pub on April 22 or at one of her upcoming concerts around the country. From her earliest hits, like 1964’s defiant “You Don’t Own Me,” Gore was at once independent, self-assured, and linguistically gifted, as evidenced by her recordings of the same hit in French and Italian.

Gore expressed dissatisfaction with social conventions of her day (cf. “It’s My Party and I’ll Cry if I Want To,” expressing open scorn for insensitive machismo. She even sang about her overt desire to be male, so some fans were not astonished in 2005, when Gore officially came out as a lesbian.

Yet Gore’s Jewish roots from growing up in Tenafly NJ have been equally influential, and add to the delight of her ongoing creativity.

Incidentally, the concept of misery amid festivities, as heard in “It’s My Party” seems to be a curiously Jewish concept. Written in 1962 by John Gluck, Wally Gold and Herb Weiner, three humble staff songwriters for a music agency, “It’s My Party” was first recorded by the majestically sonorous British Jewish songstress Helen Shapiro, the Dame Clara Butt of Britpop.

Yet the notion of “I sing about tsoris while everyone has fun around me” dates back even earlier, to 1949’s “Bal dans ma rue” (Party in my street) penned by the great French-Russian Jewish songwriter Michel Emer and immortalized with wailing grief by Edith Piaf.

Watch Lesley Gore in concert in 2007.

Watch a 2009 TV interview with Lesley Gore.

Benjamin Ivry is a frequent Forward contributor.

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