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Solo Voice
LGBTQ+ Music

Still Running (2022)

queer songs for tenor (or baritone) and piano

Text: Matthew Stepanic (b. 1990)
Duration: 15 minutes
Difficulty: Hard

Commissioned by Tim Carter with financial support from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and dedicated to the memory of 49 queer lives lost in the massacre at Pulse Nightclub (12 June 2016). First performed in Victoria, BC by Tim Carter and Kimberley-Ann Bartczak in March 2022.

Still Running was commissioned by Tim Carter for his final recital as part of graduate studies at the University of Victoria. When Tim initially approached me about this piece, the themes of homophobia and gay identity were front and centre—we knew we wanted to make music that spoke explicitly to lived queer experience. The text for this cycle was written by Edmonton poet Matthew Stepanic, with whom I previously collaborated on he opens, my baritone song cycle. In Still Running, the six poems span a wide range of themes and emotions. “direct” finds the speaker in their Podunk home town, interweaving nostalgic memories with claustrophobia, while the music combines theatrical recitative with rich harmonies. “looking” is a blistering rant directed at Grindr and other gay dating apps, which value physicality above all else, and the music is a dissonant and aggressive flash in the pan. “how to be queer” questions the space for quiet gays in the community; the music imagines the speaker outside the nightclub, hesitant to go inside, occasionally interrupted by loud music as the doors open and close. “Sleep No More” is a dreamlike fantasy, punctuated with undulating harmonies and ending in dazzling fireworks. “Preserves” begins subdued, on a quiet evening date, but becomes increasingly excited as they begin to indulge. The music is woven with a wistful, repeating motif, eventually becoming unravelled and wild in the middle section—then ultimately sated and content. The final song, “Still Running”, is set on the night of the shooting at Pulse Nightclub, 12 June 2016. While the speaker is initially elated following their date, a homophobic slur brings them back to reality, acknowledging the real queer experience: fear and violence. The harmonies are bitter and aggressive throughout, and in its final moments, the music is abruptly cut off—we are all still running.

The audio below is a live recording of the premiere performance by Tim Carter and Kimberley-Ann Bartczak in March 2022.

Full Text

1. direct
I got lost on the way there. I never learnt
the names of these streets—every place
in response to another: next to, next to.
But there’s a Walmart next to there now
& the neighbourhoods stretch their hands further.

I recognize only at night the bingo hall
my dad collected my mom from. I pass
another high school’s football field where
I first played for the other team. This is a town
city gays will later be trapped in.

One asks me the way out in a bar after hot wings
on the night my nephew is born. (My dad
on the phone saying 7 lbs 5 oz & a name
I’d kept secret.) I tell him to follow me
home to my parents’, but even there,

though I direct myself to his lap, I can’t
help either of us depart the map.

2. looking
on an app you are best a body,
an ashtray for taps, the highlights
of you which must be your toned
tummy & pecs visible under
a tight T, a siren song for masc
men who are eager to test
the waters beyond their straight
shorelines.

3. how to be queer
when its performance is loud. hair & abs
to rival god on every grid, but my profile pic
suggests a body without showing it. I leave
it a question because I’m not good
at asking, regret any night spent with
Charli XCX on the dance floor—ga-ling
ga-ling ga-ling—as boys sweat
through their crop tops. how to be queer
when you’ll never catch me at the gay
bar. I prefer an uncrowded room
with only me (& maybe you)—indulgent
gestures between us, a chorus rising
as we turn pages together.

4. Sleep No More
After I dressed the naked Hecate,
tied his boot laces, followed him
to the stage where he crooned
about a missed connection, I wiped
the kohl from his eyes & he took
my hand, led me to the phone booth,
lifted my mask,
brought his lips near my neck & whispered,
Last night, I fell asleep with your name
on my lips.

5. Preserves
We’re on your front porch in the shadow
of an elm tree. It’s the longest day.
We’re waiting for the sun to secede to the moon.
You’ve filled the table with every Mason jar from your pantry,
unsealed them & uncorked every wine bottle too. We gorge
on marinated olives, wrap each one in a slice of prosciutto.
The Italian Centre was having a closing sale. We empty
Saskatoon berry jam, peach compote, apple rum jelly—
smother cardamom shortbread until our teeth ache with sweet.
I slug my rosé. You speak between crumbs: I can hear the moon rise.
I hear the dog’s paws as he scratches at the wooden deck in a dream;
the cats mewling from the upstairs window.
You pluck olives from a dish & await my response.
I’m chewing elk jerky; the light shifts:
I can taste it.

6. Still Running
Post-date & still aflutter,
midnight, I skip up
an emptied High Street.
A man races down
in a white pick-up,
hollers, “Nice purse,
faggot,” & I start running
posthaste.

Later, I quip:
“If he had slowed down,
I could have told him
where I got it.” The joke
conceals my fear:
“If he had
slowed down—”

Our existence is fear.
It has coded rules
in our blood—
which we cannot share
because other fears
eclipse ours—stand straighter,
touch later. Our tongues
are weighted to hold down
truths, our legs ever alert,
and our endurance
innumerable years long.

Every time a man yells
from a truck, he raises with gravel
a question: what triggers
a person to hate
the sight of two kissing
who needs to own a rifle
that could make Swiss cheese
of a deer
is tonight the night
a man walks
into this gay bar
& gunfire
is mistaken for reggae?

As people crawl
over those who are finally
done their race, a nightclub tweets:
“Everyone get out of Pulse
and keep running.”
I am still running.
We are still running.
We are still—

© Matthew Stepanic, 2021. Used with permission.