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I spent my first year of college living in two places at once.
The other, a bit less literal, was the closet.
I didnt know I was gay yet, but I also didntnotknow I was gay.
And I couldnt yet fully articulate to myself, much less anybody else, why not.
(At that point, Santana was nowhere near ready, and Brittany was dating Artie.)
Unlike their last foray into Fleetwood Mac, however, Songbird is a private performance, just for Brittany.
Its a familiar ache that weighs on my chest rewatching the scene even now.
The only other person in the room during the performance is Brad, the clubs ever-present accompanist.
Hes just furniture, Santana, deliciously brusque even in romance, says when Brittany asks why hes there.
As the seasons progressed, wed come to see this as a well-honed defense mechanism.
(And for the viewers, a real treat to watch Rivera do her thing.
If youve never watched a Santana insult supercut on YouTube, heres agood oneto start with.)
Its beautiful for so many reasons.
Riveras smooth and raw vocals shine through in a rare and perfectly underproduced solo number.
By contrast, the Songbird performance doesnt feel gaze-y or even intentionally trope-y.
Its just a woman trying, despite all her fears, to tell another woman that she loves her.
Later on in the episode, Santana still isnt ready to come out to a world beyond Brittany.
(Hes also a closet case.)
At the time, I filed the episode away in my brain.
Here was a woman in love with her best friend.
And even with all that, she still wasnt ready.
A few years later, I found someone who made all the love songs in the world make sense.
For my birthday that year, she burned me a playlist.
Songbird was on it.
Naya Rivera as Santana Lopez gave a generation of queer people a role model.
But thats why she mattered so much.
She existed on mainstream television in a time where looking for queer women on television yielded incredibly limited results.
That was more than enough.
She was, well, like never before.
