Lavender Country, Cryin’ These Cocksucking Tears | Beaming with Pride 🏳️‍🌈

In the 52nd edition of Beaming with Pride 🏳️‍🌈 (2025), we highlight “Cryin’ These Cocksucking Tears” performed by Lavender Country. 

Prepare to beam with P-R-I-D-E 🏳️‍🌈! Beaming with Pride 🏳️‍🌈 celebrates, embraces, and spotlights songs by LGBTQ musicians or allies.  Here, we provide background and insight into musicians, analyze, plus go gaga over the decadent bops served up.  When songs dictate deeper and more transcendent discussion, we ensure the point is fully articulated.  All styles of music are welcome, whether the songs are classics or brand-new. So, without further ado, in the 52^nd edition of Beaming with Pride 🏳️‍🌈 (2025), we highlight “Cryin’ These Cocksucking Tears” performed by Lavender Country.

“I’m fighting for when there won’t be no straight men / ‘Cause you all have a common disease.” Straight men are very straight, Lavender Country. No further explanation necessary 😏! Please, continue singing, Patrick Haggerty (1944–2022). “Can’t give very much for loving and such / But you take it wherever you please.” That deserves an amen.  Better yet, it deserves a resounding hallelujah. Haggerty, the rare older queer country musician, isn’t easily deceived by heterosexual men.  He understands how they move, hence why he asserts, “But your lies can’t deceive me / I know that you’ll leave me / Cryin’ these cocksucking tears.” Wait, did he really sing what I thought he sang? Yep, and “Cryin’ These Cocksucking Tears” is the fifth track from the historic, 1973 gay country album, Lavender Country.  With country music in the 2020s still struggling to accept diversity and queer musicians, it is shocking that “Cryin’ These Cocksucking Tears,” let alone Lavender Country, the album, arrived in the early 1970s.  Haggerty composed a must-hear classic.

There are some brilliant, unapologetically queer lyrics that grace “Cryin’ These Cocksucking Tears”.  The innuendo of “You build up your steeple and rivet more people / To keep it erect in the air” is quite loud – fortissimo! Contextually, Haggerty is still critiquing the straight man… yuck! It is hard to examine lines like, “Spread your pollen about, then you bug out / When there’s railing and wailing to do” without hearing double entendre.  Even if the queerness is exaggerated by the queerer minds of the 21^st century, there is no doubt that Haggerty cries foul regarding the heterosexual male.  What a menace! “Your victories ain’t wanted as long as I’m haunted,” he’s sings, later adding, “How long you been thinking your shit ain’t stinking? / Well Mama’s done wiping your rear.” One of the best takedowns of this flawed yet prevalent creature: “Your sexism’s a broken record, record, record / It’s been screeching for ten thousand years.” My, my, my! Haggerty wasn’t crying foul at every straight man, of course, but he criticizes the things that they do that harm so many, particularly the LGBTQ+ community. Ultimately, “Cryin’ These Cocksucking Tears” is a queer masterpiece. It is not the most high-quality, expensive-sounding recording, but its importance and significance transcend the engineering. Patrick Haggerty sings with conviction and ample twang, assisted by backing vocals, and supported by a traditional, countrified backdrop (guitar, fiddle, piano, etc.). Still, it is the activism, history, and the song’s message that most make you beam with pride.