Sophie B. Hawkins, “Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover”

“Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover” (1992) was the debut single from Sophie B. Hawkins’ album Tongues and Tails that shattered pop music conventions with its unapologetic portrayal of same-sex longing. The four-minute pop-rock track weaves an erotic narrative about yearning for a woman trapped in an abusive.

The song’s visual presentation became as controversial as its lyrics. MTV banned the original video — featuring Hawkins in a tube top and team shorts, often draped in sheer fabric while dancing with a Black performer — ostensibly for being “too erotic”, though Hawkins later found out the network objected to her having a dance partner who was black. She mentioned in an interview many years later: “If I’d known that back then, I’d have done more scenes with him”.

So, in the end, the label produced a sanitized black-and-white alternate version of the video, showing Hawkins in a flannel t-shirt with the sleeves torn off and jeans, which became the more widely circulated cut.

Lyrically, Hawkins crafts a poignant duality:

I sat on the mountainside with peace of mind
I lay by the ocean, making love to her with visions clear,
Walked for days with no one near
And I return as chained and bound to you.

These verses juxtapose the narrator’s free, sensual connection with her beloved against the painful reality of the woman’s abusive partnership. While it seems that love was unrequited in the song, it was a bold and rare homoerotic statement in a pop song of the time (it came out in 1992). Hawkins, anticipating the potential for homophobia, tried to combat it with the line: “Free your mind and you won’t be ashamed.”

Hawkins’s artistic boldness was mirrored in her self-exploration. She came out as omnisexual — a term she coined to describe attraction unrestricted by gender. In a 2023 People interview, she reflected:

I took omni and I took sexual, and I put them together […] My sexuality is not based on my gender, and it’s not defined by your gender. […] People did not pick up on it, and they just said, ‘Ah, you’re gay. You’re gay. You’re gay’.

Hawkins has also written about her queer experience for the Huffington Post as well as on her Facebook page.

Though this stance initially damaged her career (her label withdrew support), Hawkins now recognizes her pioneering role: “Omnisexual is actually a thing […] I was a little ahead of my time.”

The single achieved remarkable success for a debut, peaking at #5 on the Billboard charts and gaining international traction. Today, both videos collectively boast nearly 45 million YouTube views, while the track has surpassed 53 million Spotify streams.

“Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover” was a towering achievement of musical expression of queer, unrequited longing in the 1990s. And Hawkins’ bravery in coming out during the same decade and owning up to the homoeroticism in the song’s lyrics should not go unnoticed. As such, it deserves recognition for its historical part representing bi people in modern music.