Lanah P has a brand new remix of her hit song Pistol In My Pocket
As a kid growing up in remote Western Australia in the mid-1980’s, music and television were an escape to the wider world beyond our small town. There was no internet, and our only major store was Coles New World. We had just one TV station, the ABC, and only two radio stations, the rather drab ABC radio national and the commercially focused 6NW.
Pop music is where we were first exposed to the reality that not everyone is heterosexual, and concepts of gender were challenged by performers including Boy George, Marilyn, Annie Lennox, Divine, and Pete Burns – fronting the band Dead or Alive.
Every Sunday night Countdown announced the arrival of new music, and in 1986 a new face appeared. Lanah Pellay burst onto our TV screens with the Pistol in My Pocket, a high energy dance tune that was camp and queer. Lanah was bold and forthright.
The record bar at Coles only stocked the most popular mainstream albums on cassettes and vinyl. Singles and twelve inches rarely made it to the far north-west, so you couldn’t buy a copy of the song.
Australia is one of the regions that really embraced the tune, so when Pistol In My Pocket started to head up the charts on Barry Bissell’s Take 40 Australia we sat ready with a tape records primed to capture the song.
Later on a holiday to Perth I got my bands on the real deal, a copy of the 12 inch of this uplifting dance tune on vinyl, and Lanah P’s follow single I Can Make a Man Out Of You.
Lanah’s career has seen her go on to work with Gary Clail on his 1991 hit Human Nature, and a few years ago she teamed up with Erasure’s Andy Bell for the fantastic tune Queercore. She’s also had success acting, appearing in the cult film Eat The Rich and the comedy series The Comic Strip Presents.
The new version of Pistol in My Pocket is remixed by Vince Clarke from Erasure. It was a great pleasure to trade emails with Lanah P and find out more about the longevity of this song 35 years after it was first released, and discuss how Pistol in My Pocket carries greater meaning in the context of the Black Lives Matter movement.
When you first released Pistol in My Pocket back in 1986 did you ever think young queerlings on the other side of the world were discovering, not only Hi NRG, but a world beyond the gender binary through your music?
Absolutely I did, because as you may be aware, I am in this world but not of it. It was because of my own isolation due to my intersections and not being an archetype or possessing the correct social currency (cis white middle class hetero-normative) from the beginning that propelled me to seek beyond my own dismal confines. Also when I was still using the moniker they gave me at birth, “Alan” and starring as a seminal star in channel 4 TV’s groundbreaking The ComicStrip Presents with Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French And Robbie Coltrane.
Alan, by the way is a beautiful name from the old German meaning “Precious” And from the old Gaelic {My grandmother was Irish} “Alin” meaning “little Rock”, And of course I’ve caused quite a few of the Boyz from all ages to get a few of those in my time, And still do! 😂, But i much prefer my current moniker of “LANAH” which actually means Light, World, Rock.
I had people from all over the globe write fan mail to me about the chronic isolation and desperation they were experiencing in their small parochial minded and governed worlds, and gay men would write and say thank you, seeing you as the only out! non-binary person of colour on telly and overtly not giving a toss what any f–ker thinks has instilled so much confidence in me.
Some of their stories made me cry on the quiet they moved me and touched me so deeply, but I am happy that I was able to reciprocate and throw people a life belt in the form of music and comedy,creativity, bravery and inspiration and that applied to the allies too.
How did this song first arrive in your life?
Well I of course was the only non-white-skin screamer in the whole queer showbiz music biz fraternity with one foot in mainstream and the other in the avant-garde over here that was happy and comfortable enough to be out on their own terms. In fact I never had a very stable view of the world as it was, because I am the product of an impoverished and dysfunctional northern working class background that shared the same mother as Satan.
There was Divine, Jimmy Somerville, Boy George, Marilyn, and my dear old deceased friend Pete Burns, who I was often compared to, but then I’ve always been more Alive than Dead, and as a spiritualist I know that death is a fiction and analogous to life, and who I used to have come stay with me to look after when he was having one of his bipolar disorder episodes, I felt that I needed to up the LANA! and redress the balance somewhat in and against the prism of Thatcher’s racist Anti-LGBTIQ England and a right wing racist music and showbiz industry Lanah was determined to bend more than gender.
So one day as a very young Kylie waved to me from her passing limo through the window leaving a meeting at S.A.W Vineyard studios I marched in to Pete Waterman’s office singing a self penned no 1 disco hit titled Surrender Your Gender.
Well Pete pissed himself laughing and almost fell off his chair, and said “I don’t think that will get radio one air play, But just give us two weeks I’ll have something for you.”
And that was Morrison and Washbourn’s Pistol in my Pocket. It was very Dead or Alive sounding, when I wanted a more Diana Ross meets The Fall or N.W.A beat. However beggars cannot be choosers, so I thanked the universe and got on with it.
The rest as we say is history including all the prejudice and expulsion from conservative white religious knutjobs within the establishment industry and outside of it and it came at times from many b.a.m.e peoples as I’ve experienced ostracism, flak, ridicule, violence and oppression from all sides and on all levels throughout my entire life but without one iota of self pity. I always say adversity is vile but it makes us stronger and is the thing that really introduces us to ourselves.
We’re loving this new version remixed by Vince Clarke, what do you think it is about this song that makes it sound just as good in 2021 as it did in 1986?
Well to be remixed by Vince is a great honour indeed. I mean talking of legends, and to have Andy Bell – who I did a play with here in London in 2015 – instigate that was just overwhelming, and to have the acknowledgement of my artistry and worthiness is very humbling.
It’s the familiar BPM of course, and the simplicity of the tune and its original tongue in cheek tribute to a famous Hollywood platinum blonde of dubious sexuality, and I don’t mean Jason Donovan either hahahaha!, But the great Mae West whom I depict in the new video. Pistol In My Pocket is an evergreen which has been covered to the hilt, some really good and others just farking awful.
However they say impersonation is the greatest form of flattery, fine, but I’m often imitated but never duplicated, and besides life is not a competition.
You’ve got a cool new video, but we do have a fondness for the original, it features Aussie Leigh Bowery – what can you tell us about shooting the original clip?
The original video was shot inside the original club Taboo by filmmaker and friend John Maybury (Love is the Devil with Derek Jacobi and Daniel Craig 007, Nothing compares to you video of Sinead Oconnor, The Jacket with Adrien Brody and Kiera Knightly)
All the extras where the actual authentic clubbers it was a very important time of British expressionism and a two finger salute to Tory policy, and we loved the non conformity of the day.
Its not just a phenomenon of this wonderful age of gender transgressions, WE gender fuckers, have always existed, at the start of time itself.
My close friend at the time Leigh Bowery, made pistol the club’s anthem, so it was just automatic that we shot the video in the club. The 60 extras where paid in champagne, vodka cocktails and given gifts of Barbra Huliniki make-up plus £10 on top for their travel expense and we all had a whale of a time.
Leigh was my sickest and most twisted friend back then but redeemed by his artistry, his brilliant piano playing, his immense knowledge of art and fashion, his extreme generosity. I still have many of the special garments he made for me back in the 80s. Although I loved the music in Boy George’s musical Taboo I felt the script was more about the Blitz, the forerunner to Taboo.
Also the truth about the very first kirby grip denim jacket Leigh made in ’86 was made exclusively made for me, and was displayed in the V and A Museum for a period. This was when we thought I was coming over to do Molly Meldrum’s Countdown, but Molly came over to London instead, and said that he was more nervous of meeting me than Prince Charles. I said, “Well you’ve met him and another old English queen so relax, gurlfriend!” And the jacket was bought back off me by Leigh to sell to Holly Johnson, and having seen it on me, both he and Boy George wanted one each – see I’ve always been a trendsetter in my own right…innit.
How was it making the new clip? Getting serious for a moment – It has some really strong messages about ignorance and the deaths of people of colour involving the police, everyone should look up all of the names listed.
Here in Australia we’re asking why 30 years after we had a royal commission into Black Deaths in Custody – there’s still no solutions. What do you think needs to change?
I have been performing Pistol for thirty five years what started out as a fickle feckless campy disco classic has been politicised over the years out of necessity.
And because of Black Lives Matter, which automatically means that all lives matter, and because racism and violent curiosity routinely being part of my own daily life experience based on anecdotal evidence it is entirely of importance to make my work current and a comment on the current abusive and twisted climate.
You should also checkout my video Human Race too. I think racism is a system, just look at the systematic abuse of of the Aboriginal peoples, a sacred people on their own sacred land, and we know that all cultures have their internal dysfunctions and issues, but capitalism for instance cannot exist without racism, misogyny and LGBTIQ-phobia.
I see that there are several reasons for the maintenance of racism such as, maintaining the status quo the self interest of the ruling class, and big business, and poisonous media representation, and living in an echo chamber discriminatory policies and failing to see racism within oneself.
Scientific racism has played a huge part in all of this shite, While many might say ignorance breeds racism some of history’s most intelligent minds (usually Nazi) supported racist beliefs, Around the end of the 18th century science replaced religion (You can shove that where the son of God don’t shine for all I care too!) and superstition as the intellectual authority, it was right wing science, then, that justified many racist beliefs, like that of mixed raced children having more health issues and shorter life spans.
I think its important to note that scientific racism is junk science as it relies on physical anthropology, craniometry and other discredited methods so we get the well developed device of casting blame for many people. Casting blame on others is a reflex, we always hear it in ill-informed statements like “Illegal Immigrants are stealing our jobs” even if they are legal, and the accuser actually has a good job or a home, because in truth no human is illegal.
Society always looks for a scapegoat whenever things aren’t going very well historically racial, religious and very often LGBTQ minorities are put into a role deliberately to justify this scapegoating, and racist HATEFUL beliefs are deployed automatically. This fuels resentment and bitterness making already vulnerable people even more vulnerable and traumatized.
What do you actually always have in your pocket?
I don’t do pockets, I do nice bags. It’s Donna Karan at the moment, it was given to me as a gift by a man called Adrian when I was working out at Jubilee Hall Gym in Covent Garden. He couldn’t believe his eyes that he saw his idol sweating like a contestant on Strictly Come Dancing, so he ran out bought me this gift and asked if he could actually touch me, So I sez “Sure, BUT WHAT PART! BECAUSE SOME ARE MORE PRICEY THAN OTHERS, hahaha!”
In my handbag/shoulder bag I keep my Mac and Bare Minerals make-up and brushes, tissues and purse, reusable shopping bags, hand sanitizer, Listerine mouth wash and mints, umbrella, iPhone, an attack alarm (mind you id pity any fucker that wanted to try it on with a middle weight boxer, you’d be feeling sorry for those twats more than I…innit), a pashmina, perfume and some Buddhist reading books and song lyrics note book and pens.
What new projects do you have coming up that we should look out for?
Well I’m quite excited as I’ve started to write my autobiography but its really tough going, and I’m going to re record “Winter Of Love” with a live orchestra assemble. It’s a song I wrote with rock musician David Ryder Prangley. You must check out his new album (transcendental medication) its stunning!
So it will be crowd funded as my royalties go to homeless charities, which is a disgraceful situation in the fifth richest country in the world – along with food banks. Are you fucking joking! It’s really not that we can’t afford to feed the poor and take care of the weakest in society, its just that we cant afford to keep on satisfying the rich.
Also we are talking about my own YouTube channel, and Id like to be able to leverage the same resources and opportunities as the Cis A-listers in television and film, So Baz Lurhmann (Who I bumped into once in the West End theatre district over here, and he was gorgeous to meet) if you are watching, I’m waiting for the call, and from Nick Cave too. So until then lets all continue to do whatever good we can from wherever we are with whatever we’ve got. All love and light.
Download the new Vince Clarke Erasure Remix of Pistol in My Pocket from iTunes.Â
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