Diana Ross and the meaning of ‘I’m Coming Out’
Nile Rodgers, Bernard Edwards and Diana Ross have forged countless iconic tracks between them. Rodgers and Edwards have long been revered as a songwriting powerhouse, the creative masterminds behind disco heroes Chic. Together, they penned many timeless hits that include ‘Everybody Dance’ and ‘Le Freak’, to name just a few. As for Ross, she remains a bonafide Motown legend, breaking through as the lead singer of The Supremes before embarking on a stellar solo career.
Duly, very few were surprised when the trio came together in 1980 to create the classic ‘I’m Coming Out’. A timeless anthem, the song is now hailed as one of the definitive gay anthems, with the defiant message reflected in the title. Adding to the sentiment of sexual and personal emancipation that the track carries, at the time, Ross was leaving Motown Records and “coming out” from under the thumb of the label’s boss and former partner Berry Gordy. It means that the song is one of the headiest testaments to self-determination in existence.
Despite the track being regarded as one of the most significant LGBTQ hits, Nile Rodgers revealed in a 2020 interview that at first, Diana Ross “didn’t understand” that the track “was a gay thing”.
“That was our very first time ever producing a star,” Rodgers explained to The New York Post. “Not only was it a star, it was, like, the star.” He then revealed that he was inspired to write it after coming across a group of Diana Ross impersonators in the bathroom at the prominent Manhattan transgender club, GG’s Barnum Room. “All of a sudden a lightbulb goes off in my head,” he recalled. “I had to go outside and call Bernard from a telephone booth. I said, ‘Bernard, please write down the words: I’m coming out.’ And then I explained the situation to him.”
Ross instantly loved the track and connected with the empowering spirit of the lyrics. Still, ironically, she “didn’t understand that that was a gay thing, that that was a person saying, ‘I’m coming out of the closet,’ the songwriting master disclosed. “She didn’t even get that”.
Following that hilarious recollection of events, Rodgers spoke about another of his and Edwards’s most acclaimed collaborations with Ross, the other 1980 single ‘Upside Down’, and revealed that the title came from the former Motown star herself. “Those were her words, actually,” Rodgers said. “She said that she just wanted to turn her whole career upside down, and that was in our notes. But we thought that it would be more powerful in a romantic setting, so we wrote ‘Upside down, boy you turn me.’ And she flipped when she heard it.”
