GLEE: Etheridge says her songs not gay enough for “Glee”

The newly single Melissa Etheridge is out promoting her new album, Fearless Love, and chatted with PopEater about a host of topics.

I’ve pulled out a few that I found of particular interest:

Did you separate from Tammy [Lynn Michaels] before writing this album?
It was written before we actually physically separated, but you know, breakups just don’t happen overnight.

It must suck having the album and the separation emerge at the same time. Do you wish the timing was different?
[Laughs] Absolutely! When I saw these things were about to collide for a while there I thought, I don’t want this to come up on top of the album, and then I started doing interviews and they’re like, “You’re such a family girl, your marriage is great, what’s the key to a great marriage?” and I was like, “Oh, I can’t sit here and lie.” But I would have definitely made the timing different.

Have you been accused of not being gay enough?
Oh sure. I’ve had the gay community say, “Why don’t you write a song saying ‘her’? Your lyrics are non-gender.” They’re never happy. And the straight folks, they just assume the lyrics are about a woman, and they assume that if they go to a concert it’s going to be all gay people. There are stereotypes we all have. But there’s no us and them. Good God, we’re all the same.

Have you ever been approached to have your songs on ‘Glee?’
No, I don’t think they’re gay enough. [Laughs]