It’s been a huge year for female musicians. From Taylor Swift to Beyoncé, Dua Lipa to Sabrina Carpenter, Billie Eilish to Gracie Abrams, Chappell Roan to Ariana Grande, women have ruled the charts and the airwaves.
Now let me add another young woman’s name to that burgeoning list: Gigi Perez.
This 24-year-old singer-songwriter’s path in some ways mirrors many who’ve gone before her. She leveraged her huge TikTok following into a contract with Interscope, a major record label.
But then a curious thing happened: She decided she’d like to go back to just releasing music herself, independently.
One of her latest efforts, “Sailor Song,” proves that you don’t need a major record label to be successful, as the track has had nearly half a billion streams on Spotify alone and climbed as high as No. 7 on that streaming outlet’s main singles chart.
I think it’s also safe to say that Perez has a unique sound. Armed with an acoustic guitar and an ethereal voice, Perez sounds more like Bon Iver than the women listed above, with distant echoes of something like The Beach Boys lingering further back in the sonic haze.
Though Perez says she spent some time in a Christian school, this song expresses her disbelief in God now. Perez is also openly gay, and romance (and more) chronicled here is obviously one between two women.
We hear that Perez’s mother is concerned about her wellbeing: “My mom says that she’s worried.”
“Sailor Song” describes infatuation at first sight that quickly moves into a sexual relationship: “I saw her in the rightest way/Looking like Anne Hathaway/ … And then, she came up to my knees/Begging, baby, would you please?/Do the things you said you’d do to me, to me.” While not explicit, those lyrics—and others like them elsewhere in the song—carry an erotic charge and leave little doubt about what’s happening in this relationship
The same-gender aspect of the song is clear when Perez sings, “She took my fingers to her mouth.” And the singer also adds, “And when we’re getting dirty, I forget all that is wrong.”
Perez also says bluntly that she’s rejected God and is now seeking salvation in sex and romance: “I don’t believe in God, but I believe that you’re my savior.”
Looking for identity and meaning in sexuality is hardly a new thing. What has become much more frequent the last few years is the number of musicians, both men and women, singing openly about same-gender relationships and sensual encounters.
That’s what Gigi Perez gives listeners in “Sailor Song”: an unabashedly sensual song about connecting physically with another woman.
Just as we saw in Chappell Roan’s story and heard in her music earlier this year, Perez seems to have had some experience with Christianity before rejecting it—and saying no to belief in God, too. Instead of seeking a relationship with God that leads to redemption, she’s looking to sexual intimacy to provide transcendent meaning in life.
Kids growing up today are bombarded with messages like Perez’s when it comes to God and sex. The culture is having an ongoing conversation about these issues –every single day—one in which individual autonomy and emotions trump nearly everything, including faith.
The question we face as faith-guided parents, grandparents, youth leaders and concerned adults, then, is this: How do we enter into that conversation, too? It almost certainly won’t be comfortable. And there’s likely not a one-size-fits-all answer.
But our children need our voice and our listening ear, too, if they’re going to encounter grace and truth that are bigger than a momentary feeling or experience.
I don’t know what Gigi Perez’s experience of God was in the Christian school she went to. But I wonder if she had someone who was genuinely willing to hear her, to be present with her, to ask hard questions and to engage in authentic dialogue with her. I wonder …
She’s having that dialogue now with millions of kids. And we need to be willing to step into it with the ones we know and love as well if they’re going to hear a message of salvation that’s bigger than sexual identity or experience.
After serving as an associate editor at NavPress’ Discipleship Journal and consulting editor for Current Thoughts and Trends, Adam now oversees the editing and publishing of Plugged In’s reviews as the site’s director. He and his wife, Jennifer, have three children. In their free time, the Holzes enjoy playing games, a variety of musical instruments, swimming and … watching movies.
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