Etheridge croons her first gender-specific love song

In an interview with Reuters, out lesbian singer Melissa Etheridge says, It is intentional on my part to keep my lyrics non-gender-specific. Even when I came out, I didnt want to narrow my musicbecause we all have the same emotion. Thats been important to me. On her latest album, Skin, however, Etheridge says she found shed written herself into a corner on the song Its Only Me. Although she wanted to be nonspecific, after the line I found a little angel who had fallen from the sky / and I took that little angel she needed to go with a pronoun, so she completed the phrase with, and I taught her how to fly. Etheridge admits, Im making a sexual reference to a woman here, and thats really the first time, and to me, thats a big deal. On the new-relationship front, Etheridge says of her pairing with actress Tammy Lynn Michaels (Popular), Its only been a few months, and Im very happy, and its very clean and wonderful.