No more secrets lyrics series#

What was your relationship to ballroom culture? You were - you describe yourself as adjacent to that world. So 'Pose' is set in the world of ball culture during the AIDS crisis. TERRY GROSS: Billy Porter, welcome to FRESH AIR. PORTER: (As Pray Tell) Take a hike and don't ever come back. You go on ahead and be somebody, Miss Jesse Jackson - just not on my floor. UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Yes, you are. ROSS: (As Candy) You going to regret your words. Judges, your scores - five, five, zero, six, five. ROSS: (As Candy) But in this room, you the only one that refuse to see that I got something to contribute. UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) That's right. ROSS: (As Candy) You stood up there on your perch talking about it's our time, our time to be seen, to show the world what we got. PORTER: (As Pray Tell) I don't have to put you down when you're always in the bottom. And you don't want to go back to that flat ass you used to have, now do you?ĪNGELICA ROSS: (As Candy) Why you always reading me the Riot Act, Pray Tell? You go out of your way to put me down. And quite frankly, I'm concerned about your health. It is a dance category for actual dancers. Candy is played by Angelica Ross.īILLY PORTER: (As Pray Tell) The category is called lofting. Pray Tell seems to enjoy mocking her voguing and dancing, but as you'll hear, Candy has some powerful comebacks. Here he is commenting on a dance performance by Candy, a trans woman of whom Pray Tell has always been critical. Let's start with a scene from the first season of 'Pose.' When Pray Tell is an emcee at balls, he's colorful in his praise and his put-downs. Terry Gross spoke to Billy Porter last year. Now he kind of embraces flamboyant and is famous for his red carpet appearances in clothes that are elegant and outrageous at the same time. He was even told he was too flamboyant to portray characters that were described as flamboyant. In 2013, he won a Tony and a Grammy for his starring role in the Broadway musical 'Kinky Boots.'īut roles were scarce because he was Black or because his voice was too high or he was too gay. He found many creative ways to circumvent these obstacles and managed to get admitted to a performing arts high school, study theater at Carnegie Mellon University and get parts in Broadway shows. The book also describes the obstacles he faced, growing up poor in Pittsburgh with a mother who had a degenerative neurological disorder, a stepfather who sexually abused him and schoolmates who brutally bullied him. Billy Porter says he was adjacent to the ballroom scene, and his new memoir, 'Unprotected' - now out in paperback - shows some of the parallels between his life and that of Pray Tell.

No more secrets lyrics series#

The balls are celebratory, but as the series progressed and time elapsed, the AIDS epidemic kept getting worse, and a growing number of people in the community were dying. Our guest today, Billy Porter, won an Emmy in 2019 for his starring role in the FX series 'Pose.' It was a drama series set in the gay and trans underground ballroom scene of the late '80s and early '90s, the culture that inspired Madonna's hit 1990 record 'Vogue.' Porter's character, known as Pray Tell, was the ball emcee and provided the commentary for ball competitions involving dancing, lip-synching and costumes. I'm David Bianculli, professor of television studies at Rowan University in New Jersey, in for Terry Gross. Writer(s): vearaLyrics powered by is FRESH AIR. Relieving the pressure inside by moving on with our lives. Feeling the pressure inside, we keep wondering why we have so many secrets to hide. We'll throw regret to the wind, while we smile and wave. Hanging on to mistakes we've made can get carried away. But when you get there you figure out where to start over. Standing back up on your own takes more than you know. All those times I took the fall and laid there. Moments that keep running through my mind. Feeling the pressure inside, I keep wondering why I have so many secrets to hide. I'll throw regret to the wind, while I smile and wave. Hanging on to mistakes I've made can get carried away. The tug-of-war against myself is tearing me apart. These days I feel like all my thoughts are pulling at my strings.

Gasping for a breath of fresh air from choking on my foot again. Can I climb out of this ditch I've dug? This guilt won't let me free.