Rod McKuen never identified with a particular sexual orientation, saying, “I can’t imagine choosing one sex over the other, that’s just too limiting. I can’t even honestly say I have a preference.”
The poet, writer and musician was active in the LGBT community, joining the San Francisco chapter of early gay rights organisation the Mattachine Society in the early 1950s.
Throughout his career he often performed to support LGBT organisations, and later to raise funds for AIDS research.
Over his career McKuen published many books of poetry — selling more than 60 million copies — won a Grammy for Best Spoken Word Recording, released more than 200 albums, and wrote over 1,500 songs.
He collaborated with Jacques Brel, translating many of the Belgian songwriter’s works into English, and also worked with Henry Mancini, John Williams and Anita Kerr. His songs have been recorded by Barbra Streisand, Frank Sinatra, Chet Baker, Dusty Springfield, Nana Mouskouri, Cyndi Lauper and many others.
Madonna has sampled his work, and he composed film scores for memorable movies including The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, which starred a young Dame Maggie Smith.
After surviving a tough childhood in California – he was born on this day in 1933 — McKuen left home as a teenager and worked a series of jobs ranging from lumberjack to ranch hand, railroad worker and stuntman. Although he didn’t have a strong formal education, he always loved writing poetry in his journals.
He was born Rodney Woolever but changed his name to what he believed was the closest approximation of his biological father’s name. Later in life he hired private detectives to track down his lost parent, and it has been suggested his father may have been a man from Utah named Rodney Marion McKune.
During the Korean War McKuen worked as a propaganda writer and newspaper columnist. Afterwards he settled in San Francisco, reading his poetry in clubs alongside Beat poets including Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. He later began incorporating folk songs he had written into his act.
In the 1960s he moved to France and met Jacques Brel. McKuen was instrumental in translating the Belgian writer’s songs into English. Ne me quitte pas became If You Go Away, now considered a classic. It has been recorded by Shirley Bassey, Cyndi Lauper, Belinda Carlisle (in the original French), and – although never officially released – Madonna has also recorded a studio version.
Another Brel song, Le Moribond, became Seasons in the Sun, a hit for Terry Jacks in the 1970s and Westlife in the late 1990s.
In the late 1960s McKuen teamed up with Anita Kerr and the San Sebastian Strings for a series of albums featuring ambient mood music and McKuen’s spoken‑word pieces. Madonna sampled Why I Follow the Tigers for her 1998 single Drowned World / Substitute for Love.
In 1969 Frank Sinatra commissioned an entire album written by McKuen and arranged by conductor Don Costa. A Man Alone: The Words and Music of Rod McKuen featured the song Love’s Been Good to Me.
While he made many albums, one of the more memorable and provocative was 1977’s Slide…Easy In. The gatefold cover featured the arm of adult film actor Bruno holding a can of vegetable shortening labelled “Disco”. The pun referenced the real‑life product Crisco, which was known to be used by gay men as a sexual lubricant.
The album also featured the song Don’t Drink the Orange Juice, a reference to anti‑LGBT campaigner and Christian singer Anita Bryant. Bryant was the spokesperson for the Florida Citrus Commission, and at the time gay bars stopped stocking orange juice in protest. Instead of screwdrivers, they introduced the Anita Bryant Cocktail, made from vodka and apple juice.
The closing track on the album is Full Moon Over the Astoria Hotel. Until the previous year the Astoria Hotel had been home to the legendary Continental Baths, a gay bathhouse and club where Bette Midler’s career began.
While he continued writing poetry, later in his career McKuen created larger works including film scores, symphonies and chamber pieces for orchestras. In 1989 he provided the voice for the character Archimedes in Disney’s The Little Mermaid.
McKuen lived for many years in Beverly Hills with his partner Edward Habib. Their large, rambling house featured one of the biggest record collections in the world.
In 2015, at the age of 81, he passed away after contracting pneumonia. While his output was prolific, critics have often labelled his work kitsch and disposable.
Image: Rod McKuen photographed by Parkenings from Wikipedia. Shared via a Creative Commons license CC BY-SA 4.0. This post was first published in 2025.
