January 4, 2019

L Devine’s Message to a Homophobic Mom Perfectly Captures One Key Part of the Queer Experience

Sometimes a piece of art hits the heart hard.

L Devine/Twitter

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This week: “Daughter” by L Devine (Warner Bros. Records UK, 2018)

Why we’re into it: Part confession and part love letter, this track is vulnerable and honest, evoking an inner and outer world of character and conflict.

Coming out is one of the most sacred and personal experiences for queer people. It can require conquering your darkest fears and immense vulnerability, while demanding unprecedented blind trust and leaps of faith. It’s a deeply personal moment that differs for everybody, but also holds some universal truths that all queer people can relate to. Those truths are all expressed in L Devine’s “Daughter.”

First, it’s a love letter about her girlfriend: “I love her soft lips and rosy cheeks/Only secret that she would keep.” But it’s not addressed to her girlfriend, but to her girlfriend’s homophobic mom. “It goes against everything that you taught her/But I’m sorry miss, I’m in love with your daughter,” she confesses as her voice soars with relief, lyrical honesty supercharged by elation. The point of view then shifts into a look at the mother’s hurt, and in doing so it reveals the pain felt by L. “Said, ‘What about kids? All the hopes I had for her.'”

Behind the lyrics are powerful instrumentals that intensify the emotional power of the song. As L weaves from love to anxiety, relief to fear, the electric guitar rises and falls, the beat follows suit, but never becomes melodramatic. Sometimes a piece of art hits the heart hard, and that’s the case with this track. With her rare ability to capture the complexities of emotions with precision and craft a complex and relatable story, L Devine is a standout.

Take a listen to the whole EP and you’ll see her formidable talent in all the songs, but this one is the perfect way to begin 2019—and the perfect way to leave the homophobia of 2018 back where it belongs.

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

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