This Sunday is the 94th Academy Awards where the film West Side Story is up for an impressive seven nominations, including Best Picture. The movie, based on the musical by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, centers around a pair of star-crossed lovers and includes one of the most beloved songs in musical theater history, “Maria.” Of course, there have been countless other tunes that share the same title. Here are five of the gayest songs about a chick named Maria…
Ricky Martin‘s “María”
“!Un, dos, tres! ¡Un pasito pa’lante, Maria!” Before coming out as gay in 2010, Ricky Martin released this absolute banger off his 1995 album A Medio Vivir. The Spanish language flamenco/dance/salsa track is about a “sexy angel fallen from heaven” named María and topped the charts in several different countries. A remix version was later released that was even more popular than the original. ¡Wepa!
Blondie’s “Maria”
“Maria! You’ve got to see her!” Gay icon Debbie Harry and her Blondie bandmates reunited to record this bop in 1999. It was their first new song in almost 18 years and proved to be a major hit in the UK and Europe, selling over 1.5 million copies worldwide. It has since earned a place in the band’s canon and was included on all of its subsequent greatest hits albums.
Christina Aguilera’s “Searching for Maria” and “Maria”
The longtime LGBTQ ally’s 2018 album Liberation opened with dual tracks “Searching For Maria” and “Maria”, which were inspired by The Sound of Music and included a sample from Michael Jackson’s 1972 song “Maria (You Were the Only One).”
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“Searching For Maria” is a reference to one of my favorite films, The Sound of Music – in which the character of Maria, an irrepressible free spirit, struggles to find herself & her freedom.
— Christina Aguilera (@xtina) June 12, 2018
Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?“
Speaking of The Sound of Music, the classic Broadway musical centers around Maria, a “flibbertigibbet” who goes from frolicking in the hills without a care to fleeing from the Nazis with seven children across the Central Alps. The song is one of the show’s most popular and served as the title to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 2006 reality TV competition How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?, in which viewers voted for who should play the role of Maria in his London revival of the musical.
Sandra’s “(I’ll Never Be) Maria Magdalena”
The lead single off the German pop star’s 1985 debut album The Long Play had all the right ingredients for a gay club anthem. It topped the charts in over 20 countries and was later re-released as a remix in 1993 and 1999. Sandra would go on to become the most successful German female vocalist of all time, selling over 33 million records and earning scores of LGBTQ fans along the way. “(I’ll Never Be) Maria Magdalena” remains her signature song and has been sampled by other artists over the years.
Caine
Thank you for including Blondie’s Maria – – – it should have been a huge hit and the dance remixes are AAAAAHHHHHHMAZING!!!
Terrycloth
Can Christina ever sing a song without the vocal gymnastics and 500 runs and over sing it..she’s the worst.
ScottOnEarth
No, she can’t. I agree – she’s awful. She’s also incredibly overrated, with two good albums and no hit singles in nearly two decades, yet she somehow bills herself as a legend and a diva. Not even close.
ouryln
You forgot the panty wetting song with Harve Presnell in Paint Your Wagon, a musical about a girl with two husbands, belting out, “The fire is Tess, the wind is Joe and they call the wind Maria!”
MarcyMayer
Ricky Martin is such a phony.
In 2000, George W. Bush ran for President supporting anti-gay policies. Then, the Supreme Court awarded him the Presidency, although he got fewer popular votes than Al Gore. But, all of this did not deter Ricky Martin from singing at Bush’s Inaugural Ball when Ricky was still pretending to be straight.
Pathetic!
mikhailmaui
I can let you in on a little secret. George ran on supporting marriage between a man and a woman, all the while making it clear to his staff that he would never push for or sign any legislation that would ban gay marriage. It was a political ploy to get the Evangelical vote and it worked. George is also one of the kindest men you would ever know. Did I agree with his policies? Oh hell no. But in private, I personally know what kind of man he is. You would be astounded if you knew how he treated the gay boys that were a part of his staff at the White House and those who have traveled with him. And you would be surprised at just how many gay boys worked in the White House under G.W.
ScottOnEarth
@ mikhailmaui – you mean the same GW Bush who tried introducing an amendment to the US Constitution specifically banning marriage between same-sex adults? He was never a friend of ours.
The Accidental Polemicist
I attended both the 2001 & 2005 President George W. Bush inauguration balls. Ricky Martin, unfortunately, wasn’t at the formal ball. He performed out on the mall.
@ScottOnEarth
“GW Bush who tried introducing an amendment to the US Constitution specifically banning marriage between same-sex adults.”
Yes, the same banning that President Obama supported; along with every other Democratic president before him.
Eternal.Cowboy
Sad trombone for The Accidental Polemicist.
Barak Obama never supported a constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage and his opposition to both state and federal constitutional bans on same sex marriage is well documented going back to his days as a state senator.
He did have the unfortunate option that marriage and civil unions should be separate things but he was never in favor of bans on same sex marriage.
BaltoSteve
Here ya go The Accidental Polemicist… your own words.. that you seem to have forgotten or just plain choose to ignore… “A non-political story must, of course, have political response.
What is it with you liberals!?! Why must politics be injected into everything? Pathetic.” Just change the word to Conservatives … go ahead Pumpkin.
Troyfight
The high concept of these “Maria” songs strongly related to gay life has the depth of Saran Wrap. REACH HARD, Queerty…. REACH HARD. Geesh.