Flashback
The Triumphant Queer Legacy of Gloria Gaynor’s ‘I Will Survive’
While she didn’t intend for the song to be an LGBTQ anthem, its lyrics were an inspiration amid the AIDS crisis and homophobia
A piano chord forcefully kickstarts the song, followed by quick scales, low to high, high to low. Gloria Gaynor’s voice starts timidly: “First I was afraid/I was petrified.” As she grows certain in her story of survival and strength, her voice starts to boom, claiming space. The guitar riff starts as Gaynor is forced to confront her terrible ex — “And so you’re back/From outer space” — as if it’s giving her momentum to send him away and live a better life without him.
In late 1978, Gloria Gaynor released “I Will Survive” as a B-side disco track, not knowing the song would soon become the definitive single of her career. The track was a hit in the disco scene and quickly became an anthem of survival in the LGBTQ community that would endure until at least the mid-1990s.
The song, a B-side to a song called “Substitute,” was written and produced by Freddie Perren and Dino Fekaris, who wrote “I Will Survive” as an inspiration to overcome their own obstacles. By his account, Fekaris wrote the lyrics after he was fired from Motown Records as an…
