On February 23, 2018, singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer, Mikaela Mullaney Straus (or better known as King Princess) released her debut single 1950. A song meant for queer people across the world to connect to that should actually be connected to by everyone (gay, straight, or whatnot) so they can grasp the meaning that Straus is trying to tell them.

When Harry Styles, in 2018, tweeted out a lyric from Straus’ song: I love it when we play 1950, the song became a smash hit. It reached #17 on the US Alternative Chart, currently has over 10 million views on Youtube, and even went double platinum. Straus would then continue to release her debut EP later that year titled Make My Bed, which would peak #1 on the New Zealandian Heatseeker Albums Chart.

1950 is a tribute to the 1952 novel The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith (pen name: Claire Morgan), who wrote 22+ stories about her sexual relationships with women and how she had to hide it because homophobia was current in the 1950s. Straus had a connection to this story as she not only dedicated this song to the queer love in the 1950s, she wrote this about unrequited love she has faced in her own life and dealt with.

The year 1950, and song, encapsolates more than just queer people hiding their love for someone of the same sex. It’s indirectly showing the hardships of being a homosexual during this time period.

In 1948, sexologist Alfred Kinsey published his book Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. Sexual Behavior in the Human Female was later published in 1953 as a follow up. In his findings, he found a study that around ten percent of men were strictly gay. This small percentage put fear into the American population and saw it as a threat to their society. Kinsey would go on to say: 

Homosexuals were seen as “moral perverts and a threat to national security. Men and women, who were homosexual and served in the military, were dismissed. At a local level, some police would harass homosexuals.

During this time, there was the increasing awareness of U.S Senator Joseph McCarthy investigating homosexuals holding government jobs which outraged writers and federal employees because they felt like an afterthought to the government. They also thought the government wanted to give homosexuals “better treatment”. 

The article goes on to talk about a movement held by Bayard Rustin (Martin Luther King Jr,’s key organizer) to fight for civil rights for homosexuals so they receive fair treatment in mental health, public policy, and employment.

Straus mentions in her interview with Genius.com what the meaning behind 1950 is:

It’s [1950] a metaphor in the sense that I think I was using the idea of the way that queer people had to hide their love in history, throughout our history. Being a parallel to unrequited love. Feeling like somebody’s being cold to you in a public space...I wanted to pay tribute to that point in history, in an empowering way.

Not only did homosexuals receive verbal abuse and were mistreated, they also received physical abuse. Senator Joseph McCarthy took part in the Lavender Scare, which would be the term to get homosexuals that worked for the government out of there. McCarthy thought they were “risks to our security and sympathizers to communism.”

The United States, however, has grown from this tyranny since our country has legalized gay marriage as of 2019. 

So tell me why my Gods look like you. And tell me why it’s wrong. Doesn’t matter who you love, what you’re sexual preference is, if you care for someone so much, dating them, or have sexual relations and treat them as if they were a God, the relationship becomes greater with that person. This lyric is two sentences and says so much.

Straus dedicates this song not only to herself or the LGBTQ+ community, but also to everyone feeling they can’t love someone. It doesn’t matter who they are. If you love someone then you should love them. Not let someone talk you down.

1950 gives the LGBTQ+ community something fresh and unique to listen to. Original lyrics and thought. We’ve had other LGBTQ+ singers like Troye Sivan or Hayley Kiyoko but none of them are like King Princess. They only wrote about their experiences and so did Straus but she at least took one song out of her EP to talk about history that most people don’t uncover or discuss. For that reason, and more, 1950 is an important song for everyone to listen and understand the meaning its trying to convey.