Maybe your kid just came out to you, or came out a while ago and you have been looking for a way to say it back: I love you, no change, none needed. Below are eight real songs about loving a child exactly as they are and about being yourself out loud. There is also one more idea at the end, an original song written about your own child, for $39.90, delivered in 24 to 48 hours. We start with that one, because it is the example.
Listen: "I Already Knew"
What makes a song for your LGBTQ kid actually land
The songs that reach a queer kid are the ones that say your love never depended on the answer. What a child in this moment often needs to hear is not a speech about tolerance. It is the plain fact that nothing has moved. "I Already Knew" is written from a parent's side of the table: I saw you, I loved you, the coming-out did not start the love and could not end it. That is the whole move. You name the constant thing, the love that was already there, and you let the song hold it steady.
This matters for two reasons. Being seen and still loved is the exact thing your child was afraid they would lose, so a song that says it lands hard. And it is the thing a famous song can only gesture at, because the songwriter did not know your kid, your kitchen, or the night they told you.
8 songs for parents of LGBTQ kids
Here is a short way to choose: a famous song is best when a lyric already says what you feel, and a written song is best when you want your child's real name and story in the words. These eight are real, well known, and land for a parent loving an LGBTQ child.
- "You'll Be in My Heart" — Phil Collins. Written for his daughter and sung in Tarzan by a mother to a child the world says is too different to love. For the parent who wants to say: you are mine, and that was never in question.
- "True Colors" — Cyndi Lauper. A plain invitation to let your real self show, embraced by the LGBTQ community for decades. Lauper later started the True Colors Fund for LGBTQ youth. For telling your child you love the colors, all of them.
- "Coat of Many Colors" — Dolly Parton. Parton's 1971 song about a mother's love stitched into something the other kids mocked. She has called it a song "about love, about acceptance." For the parent whose love is the thing that keeps a kid warm.
- "Born This Way" — Lady Gaga. The 2011 anthem that said, in plain words, that there was nothing to fix. Elton John called it the new gay anthem. For the child who needs to hear that they were right all along.
- "I'm Coming Out" — Diana Ross. Written by Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards in 1980 and a celebration of self-disclosure ever since. For the joy of it, the party after the hard part, the sound of a kid stepping into the open.
- "Same Love" — Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, featuring Mary Lambert. The 2012 song that carried "love is love" into the Top 40, with Lambert's line that she cannot change who she loves. For a parent who wants a song that argues, gently, on their child's side.
- "She Keeps Me Warm" — Mary Lambert. Lambert's 2013 love song, tender and specific, simply about loving a woman. For a parent who wants their kid to picture their own happy, ordinary love story.
- "I Am Light" — India.Arie. A 2013 mantra of self-worth: I am not the labels, not the voices, not the past. For the child untangling who they are from what they were told to be.
The lyrics
The lyrics
I Already Knew
You sat me down with that shake in your voice,
like you were handing me something to break.
Baby, I saw you at seven
light up at the thing you light up at still.
I've folded your laundry for sixteen years —
I know your heart like the back of the hill.
You came in tonight all rehearsed and afraid,
hands twisting the hem of your shirt.
And the only thing breaking in me, child,
is that you carried this long in the dirt.
You thought you were telling me something new —
oh, my love, look at you —
I already knew.
I've known since the kitchen light, since you were small.
There was nothing you could've said
that would've changed it at all.
Whoever you love, whoever you are —
I already knew.
I kept the porch light on every Friday,
not waiting to find out — waiting for you.
You don't owe me a single apology,
there's nothing in this house to undo.
I'd do the whole sixteen years over,
skinned knees and the slammed-shut door —
and I'd pick you, exactly this you,
every time and a hundred times more.
You thought you were telling me something new —
oh, my love, look at you —
I already knew.
I've known since the kitchen light, since you were small.
There was nothing you could've said
that would've changed it at all.
Whoever you love, whoever you are —
I already knew.
And one day you'll stand at your own front door,
porch light gold in the rain,
and somebody small will come to you scared —
and you'll know exactly what to say.
You'll say it the way I'm saying it now:
nothing to fix, nothing to fear —
I already knew.
I've known since the kitchen light, since you were small.
There was nothing you could've said
that would've changed it at all.
Whoever you love, whoever you are —
I already knew.
So put down the speech, come sit by me.
I already knew. Come, let me see.
Common questions
What songs are good for a parent of an LGBTQ child?
"You'll Be in My Heart" by Phil Collins and "Coat of Many Colors" by Dolly Parton are two of the most fitting, because both are about a parent's love holding steady no matter what. "True Colors" by Cyndi Lauper works too, as a way of telling your child you see them and love what you see. If you want a song that names your actual child rather than a general one, a custom song is the most personal route.
How can a song help me support my LGBTQ kid?
A song can say the thing that is hard to say out loud. It puts your love on the record, plainly, so your child can play it whenever they need to hear it. Choosing a song that celebrates being yourself is a small, real way of showing you accept them. A custom song goes further, because it can use their name and your own words.
What should a custom song for my LGBTQ child include?
Small, true things say more than grand statements. The day they told you, a phrase you always say to them, who they are becoming, the thing you love that has nothing to do with who they love. You fill out a short questionnaire about those details and Songbond turns them into an original song.
Give your kid the song that is only about them
A famous song says how this kind of love feels in general. A song about your own child says their name, and says it out loud. If you want the second kind, have a custom song written for your child for $39.90, delivered in 24 to 48 hours, revised until it is right. Tell us about the day they told you and the love that never wavered. We will write the rest.
From the same series: coming-out songs and songs about gender transition.
