Every Sea Wolf Song, Ranked in Order of Gayness
Do you ever spend an entire afternoon investing huge amounts of focus and emotional energy on a vitally important project that you know will matter to literally no one in the universe besides you? Hi. My name is Ari and I’m very gay about Sea Wolf.
But honestly, what else could be more important for me to do during this weird and stressful time? This is *checks watch* day 25 of quarantine, and the only thing that’s been holding me together is THROUGH A DARK WOOD. Not just because this album is the perfect piece of art for Right Now — harrowing and emotional but resolutely hopeful despite every hardship — but also because it is, in my professional opinion, a HIGHLY queer album. And I am here to prove it… by ranking not just those eleven songs, but the full Sea Wolf discography in order of gayness.
So if you’re gay & depressed like me, or just have nothing better to do, pull up a chair and join me for this journey. I can’t promise a good time, but I can promise a long time. You’re welcome in advance for this in-depth and almost scholarly analysis that, again, absolutely nobody has asked for. COOL. LET’S DO THIS.*
(*I should probably specify before I dive in that I am not in any way trying to imply that any members of this band are or ever have been gay, queer, or otherwise. I don’t believe in speculating upon others’ sexuality (certainly not publicly…), so this essay is about The Songs Only. OKAY. NOW LET’S DO THIS.)
63–61: Instrumentals
Okay, to be clear, I absolutely do believe instrumentals can be gay AF, and these ones definitely add to the overall gayness of their respective albums; however, I had to put some parameters in place for this research, and opted to prioritize songs with lyrics for the sake of analysis. Sorry, buds. I love you so much.
63. Intro / 62. Forward / 61. Cedarsmoke
60–47: Pretty Much Straight
Not a ton to write home about here. They’re all perfectly good songs, but are either too reliant on the “male gaze” (centering gilded, metaphorical descriptions of women) or lack enough romantic content to be true contenders here.
60. Kasper / 59. Leaves in the River / 58. Black Leaf Falls / 57. Blue Stockings / 56. The Rose Captain / 55. Fighting Bull / 54. Under the Spell Again / 53. Middle Distance Runner / 52. The Traitor / 51. Song for the Dead / 50. You’re a Wolf / 49. Winter’s Heir / 48. The Promise / 47. Bavarian Porcelain
46–40: There’s More To Life Than Romance
These songs get Deep in a way that shouldn’t necessarily be reduced to the queer agenda; they’re more centered on other intense and raw aspects of life. That being said, you definitely *could* view them through a queer lens and add even more angst to the listening experience.
46. Visions / 45. Song of the Magpie / 44. Fear of Failure / 43. I Went Up, I Went Down / 42. Moving Colors / 41. In Nothing / 40. I Don’t Know If I’ll Be Back This Time
39–29: Could Still Be Gayer
Another batch that’s not particularly queer, but also not especially straight. These ones run through a range of emotions and experiences, though there’s a particular emphasis on aimlessness, restlessness, uncertainty, isolation… interesting. Let’s keep thinking about that.
39. Winter Windows / 38. Spirit Horse / 37. Turn the Dirt Over / 36. Neutral Ground / 35. Saint Catherine St. / 34. Changing Seasons / 33. I Made A Resolution / 32. Miracle Cure / 31. Bergamot Morning / 30. Priscilla / 29. Dew in the Grass
28–23: Now We’re Getting Queer
Okay, here we go! There’s something in the water, and it’s starting to feel pretty gay. I’ll start taking a closer look at the individual songs now.
28. Stanislaus — I mean, a love song to a river? Classic queer content.
27. Old World Romance — Confession, I can no longer find this song on Youtube but I can clearly remember that a) it bops and b) it’s centered on wilderness and the disconnect between belonging in it & feeling lost in it, which is pretty much the central thesis of my Sea Wolf Is Gay dissertation. This fraught + comforting + humbling relationship with nature is a veryyyy strong part of their whole discography, and is also arguably a very strong metaphor for queerness.
26. Where The Wind Blows —oh to be a rugged creature speaking through the wind and being completely at its mercy. See above thesis.
25. Orion & Dog — IDK, astrology is gay, right?
24. The Garden You Planted — the queers do love gardening to cope.
23. Forever Nevermore — this is when you break up with your straight partner in order to finally explore your own identity. ‘Didn’t know what I wanted before / wasn’t sure I could say it’… yup.
22–18: Sad Gay Hours
22. Whirlpool — I am gay and depressed. Thank you.
21. Black Dirt — When they try to #BuryYourGays but the gays say ABSOLUTELY NOT.
20. The Cold, The Dark, & The Silence — Again, depression, but maybe this time you have a boyfriend to be sad with you.
19. The Water’s Wide — Oh god. That absolutely bittersweet feeling of finally figuring out some of who you are, only to realize that in order to grow you need to do something brave and scary and leave behind another part of you. RT if you cry every time.
18. Two Strangers — This song is like when you run into your first queer ex after years apart & get sent into an existential spiral about how simple & scary & wild your life used to be. No? Just me? Cool.
17–11: Tender Yearning
17. O Maria! — This is… dare I say it… sapphic? Actually a bunch of the White Water tracks feel that way to me: you’ve got those gilded metaphorical women again, but they‘re not as much grounded in that tragic, unattainable beauty we find in some other tracks (i.e. Leaves in the River). They’re more like, oh shit here is this woman who is going to literally destroy me and I will thank her. Which, honestly, big wlw vibes. O Maria, break my bones inDEED.
16. White Water, White Bloom — Young and free, flowing water, naked branches, beautiful white blooms. It’s starting to feel like an aesthetic, and I’m here for it.
15. Wicked Blood — Again, very sapphic. And the fur & pearls — don’t even try to tell me that’s not alluding to high camp fashion. Also, ‘wicked blood’? Yup yup yup.
14. Whitewoods — Here we ARE with some more wild forest imagery, from the perspective of an animal. Particular emphasis on running fast and ‘we all do what we should’: feels like a metaphor for queer hunger.
13. Sons & Daughters — This is all about traversing rugged natural landscapes as ‘sons and daughters’, aka kinship between wild things. We sing songs together; we watch the waves; we discover a different world.
12. Back to the Wind — To me, this is the epitome of pushing through struggle to find yourself and being born into the world again as something new. I know it’s not really meant to be a hopeful song, yet the simple chorus (‘so I have become / what I have become’) speaks deeply to me as a trans person who’s always having to re-navigate what I am and what I’ve become.
11. Two of Us — Is there anything more queer than centering love of every kind as a definitive source of faith, happiness, and meaning?
10–1: THE BIG GAY COUNTDOWN
10. Old Friend — This song is the ‘it gets better’ of Sea Wolf. It’s just, like, two queer friends holding hands and getting through the world together and teaching / learning from one another. Sad but hopeful.
9. Ses Monuments — Okay I haven’t seen Call Me By Your Name but doesn’t this feel like Call Me By Your Name? The soundtrack to a passionate, youthful summer off somewhere in Europe with no other cares in the world?
8. Break it Down — Absolute banger of an angsty coming-out anthem. Break down that door! I’ve got no other way to be!
7. Whatever You Say, Say Nothing — softe queer emotion at its finest. This is either the song you play while lying on the floor with your crush at 4am when neither of you can sleep, or a devastatingly beautiful breakup song, but either way it feels inherently gay.
6. Blood Pact — I don’t totally know what it is about the phrase “blood pact” that seems so queer to me, and neither do the three friends I asked, but they all agreed so?? This song just embodies the whole Dark Wood album: it’s all about rebirth, emerging from struggle into uncertainty, with newfound strength from turning inward and coming to terms with repressed emotions... I‘ll just leave it at that for now.
5. The Orchard — This song is the embodiment of the soft and simple faith that comes with love (dare I say queer love), and there’s a ton of nature imagery, though less feral than in Whitewoods. We have stargazing, apple-eating, and serenades from geese; tbh, sounds like the perfect date to me.
4. Dear Fellow Traveler — ‘My love is so wise and so pretty / but some nights I still dream of you…’ interesting!!! Sounds a little like compulsive heterosexuality is squirming in the face of a dramatic gay love affair in an exotic city!! I’m also big into the metaphors of mirrors and clean vs dirty clothes. And, I’m sorry to say it, but the moon plays a significant role in this song and it’s pretty much canon that the moon is a lesbian, so.
3. Ram’s Head — When you’re sitting by the fireplace in midwinter with your head on your lover’s knee, both of you covered with rich blankets and thinking that there’s no place you’d rather be? That you wish you could stop time just so you never had to move? *gay chef’s kiss* That is all.
2. Young Bodies — I had so many queer feelings about this song before I even started to consider any of these other songs as gay. It’s just… I can’t. It’s everything. Just the line ‘I don’t love her like you love her’ is ripe with queer meaning, and then there’s ‘When I look at you I see / the days and the way they move,’ and then there’s the mixtapes and the shadows and the delicate strings and the breathless delivery of every lyric… god. I’m so, so gay and this song is too.
And of course, the gayest song in the Sea Wolf Discography:
1. Frank O’Hara. I don’t think I need to even say anything for this one — it speaks for itself. When I first heard this song I screamed for two hours straight, and then I cried, and then I went to therapy and made my therapist listen to it, because holy heck. SEA. WOLF. SAID. GAY. RIGHTS. Period.
Finally, as bonus content… with all this data compiled, I couldn’t not do some math. So I averaged out the songs in each album/EP to see which ones were overall the gayest. Here’s what I got:
➡Gayest Album: Through A Dark Wood, 36.2 avg gayness. (Unsurprising — see note on Blood Pact. This is basically a coming-out album, or at least it is to me, and here I am always right. So there you go.)
➡2nd Place: White Water, White Bloom, 35.9 avg gayness. (Initially surprising, but it makes sense given the strong sapphic vibes on this album. Much to think about!)
➡3rd Place: Old World Romance, 34.6 avg gayness. (Honestly I think that realistically, Old World and Cedarsmoke would be switched, but Cedarsmoke got proportionally knocked down because of its two instrumental tracks. Okay okay I have regrets.)
️➡4th Place: Cedarsmoke, 33.4 avg gayness. (See above; I do think the subtextual queer vibes are highest on this album.)
➡5th Place: Get To The River Before It Runs Too Low, 33 avg gayness. (Skewed a little just due to the low number of actual songs on here.)
➡Least Gay Album: Leaves in the River, 20 avg gayness. (Not surprised at all by this, given it was their first album.)
