Culture Club, Karma Chameleon | LGBTQ Bopz 🌈🎶

Reading Time: 3 min read

On the 3^rd edition of LGBTQ Bopz (2021), we highlight the song, “Karma Chameleon” performed by Culture Club.

ring on the B-O-P-Z, like #SLAYYY! LGBTQ Bopz is a column that embraces, highlights, and celebrates singles and tracks by LGBTQIA musicians. On LGBTQ Bopz

we provide background info and insight into the respective musician(s), as well as analyze + go gaga over the bops being served up. Furthermore, when the music dictates deeper, more transcendent discussion, we ensure the point is articulated to the fullest. All styles of music are welcome and the BOPZ can be classics or brand-spanking new. So, without further ado, on the 3^rd edition of LGBTQ Bopz

(2021), we highlight

“Karma Chameleon” performed by

Culture Club.

Theme & Lyrics

“Karma, karma, karma, karma, karma, karma chameleon / You come and go, you come and go.” Every LGBTQ music column deserves a little Boy George – it’s a non-negotiable! The go-to gem comes courtesy of Culture Club: “Karma Chameleon.” This undeniable, gets-stuck-the-F-in-your-head-joint appears as the opener on the collective’s 1983 album, Colour by Numbers. Produced by Steve Levine, “Karma Chameleon” exemplifies the 80s. More notably for LGBTQ Bopz and the LGBTQIA community, it provides a lens into the plight of the gay man back in the day. According to Boy George via Rolling Stone, “They [the songs] were written about my relationship with Jon [Moss], and they were also written about being a gay man in the homophobic world.” Moss, of course, was the drummer for Culture Club, and more was ‘drumming up’ between him and Boy George, apparently.

“I’m a man without conviction
I’m a man who doesn’t know
How to sell a contradiction
You come and go; you come and go.”

“Karma Chameleon” is fun and infectious without reading into it. Of course, when you explore the background and analyze it closely, the secret relationship between Boy George and Moss and homophobia make it much deeper. “Every day is like survival / You’re my lover, not my rival,” George sings on the bridge. Earlier, on the second verse, and into the second pre-chorus, George speaks on the change that occurred:

“Didn’t hear your wicked words every day
And you used to be so sweet, I heard you say
That my love was an addiction
When we cling, our love is strong.”

Final Thoughts

Hopefully, the next time anyone listens to “Karma Chameleon,” they catch the various layers of the record. It’s so much more than a catchy 80s bop! First, it’s an LGBTQ bop, and secondly, it sheds light on the plight members of the LGBTQIA community experienced back then and to this day regarding treatment by others and relationships. Your favorite 80s classic – so much deeper than previously known!