Christine, aka Tilted

I don’t know what she’s thinking, but I’m thinking how fluid the border is between crazy and interesting, and how hard it is to decide who belongs where.

–Melissa DeCarlo, The Art of Crash Landing

As much as I love music, I’m also fascinated by the musicians. The persona is as much a part of the art as the music is. The music, to me, becomes even more enjoyable when there are intriguing characters behind it.

It’s also never too late to find new old music. A month or so ago, I discovered a song titled Christine by Christine and the Queens. The lead singer was born Héloïse Adélaïde Letissier, but he is also known as Christine, or Rahim Claude Redcar, sometimes shortened to Chris or Redcar, or even Red. She sometimes likes to reconnect to her childhood and uses Héloïse or her inner child name Manamané.

Confused yet? Wait, there’s more.

You see, Rahim Redcar, which is his preferred name, identifies as genderqueer and pansexual. Now, unlike many men who tend to lean towards the right of the political spectrum, that does not terrify me. I accept that gender fluidity is real, beautiful, and very human.

Earlier this year, Redcar explained that all the different names were not some form of multiple personality disorder, but rather “steps towards becoming.” Also, the endemic bigotry and discrimination experienced by those brave enough to identify publicly as transgender is touched upon briefly in this interview with him a couple of years ago.

Christine is the French version of the song released in 2014. Tilted, an English version, is also available on YouTube here, but the lyrics do not resemble the English translation of Christine from French. Here’s a sample of the French song with English translations,