“Ringo, I Love You”: They Thought Cher Was a Man!

It was in 1964 that Cher recorded her first single under the name Bonnie Jo Mason, which destroys the pretensions of some fans who thought she had begun her career with Sonny Bono.
Her first single called “Ringo, I love!” was a love song about Ringo Starr that got banned from the majority of radio stations. Because of her vocals, they thought she was a man and, therefore, a gay love song.

Needless to say, the single became a commercial failure due to the lack of publicity, bizarrely staying forgotten even today, despite the singer’s worldwide success.

In Portugal, the lead singer of the Portuguese Band “The Gift” Sónia Tavares, during one concert, a man tried to hit her because he thought she was a travesty. Sonia Tavares has a very deep voice for a woman as I do. For this reason, the band had to create their label because no producer or radio wanted to play their music. After all, “the boy”, they said, had a good voice but wasn’t commercial.

Today, The Gift is the most successful international Portuguese band, which worked in the past with Brian Eno.
Sónia calls her voice Alfred, and I call mine, Albert. She is married to Fernando Ribeiro, the lead singer of Moonspell Band.

Last year the British singer Helen Leahey became the singer with the lowest vocal note for females. And of course, many were the voices that said she was a man, and in her “The Voice” performance, you can hear people laughing in the beginning.

We are born with specific characteristics that make us unique in this world. Be it physical or intellectual characteristics. Our gender should never be mistaken by the tone of our voices or physical appearance. Women, because of environment and hormonal changes, are developing a tendency to have a deeper voice than usual.

For both men and women, the people who had lowered their pitch ended up with a higher social rank and were considered to be more dominant in the group, while the people who had raised their pitch were considered to be more submissive and had a lower social rank.

Every day we hear and see slogans defending that our world should be a better place where acceptance is one of the basic traits in a healthy society. But what is see is discrimination based on false assumptions and bullshits that seem to never end. We treat people as objects of curiosity because they break the norms and are unique. What do we want with all this? What is the education we are giving to young generations?

It is understandable why so many people are suffering from emotional instability and mental health disorders. We are killing biodiversity but, most importantly, killing the freedom of being.

Being unique in the middle of standard society is halfway to success. Use that power to change and create a brand new world!

The Gift Band and Sónia Tavares Voice:

And one of my podcast if you want to hear me and learn:

With Love,

Alexandra