I'm Coming Out (1980)

"I'm Coming Out" is a song recorded by American singer Diana Ross. It was written and produced by Chic members Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers, and released on August 22, 1980 by Motown, as the second single from Ross' self-titled eleventh album, Diana (1980). It peaked at number five on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, number one on the Billboard Hot Disco Singles chart, number seven in France, number eight in Ireland, and number 13 on the UK Singles Chart. Since its release, "I'm Coming Out" has been regarded as an anthem for the LGBT community.

Background

In 1979, Ross commissioned Chic founders Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards to create material for a new album after taking her daughters to see the band in concert. In 2021, Nile Rodgers confirmed in a TikTok video that the song was inspired by seeing drag queens dressed as Diana Ross at a New York club, with Rodgers stating:

So the way that the song "I'm Coming Out" came to be was when we went to work for Diana Ross we wanted to write about things that were in her universe, so we went to her apartment and interviewed her for a couple of days. One particular night I went to a club, The Gilded Grape, and I happened to notice that there were at least 6 or 7 Diana Ross impersonators, so I went outside to call Bernard and said "you know, Diana Ross is revered by the gay community. If we wrote a song called "I'm Coming Out" for Diana Ross it would have the same power as James Brown's "Say It Loud – I'm Black and I'm Proud" and next day we met in the studio [...] and then from that we built the song.

The lyrics hold an additional meaning for Ross, as she was leaving Motown Records and "coming out" from under Berry Gordy's thumb. According to the BBC4 documentary How to Make It in the Music Business, Ross loved the record until she put it in front of Frankie Crocker, who pointed out that "I'm coming out" is what homosexual people use to announce their homosexuality, that listeners would think Ross herself was announcing she was gay, and that it would ruin her career. She allegedly ran back to the studio in tears and demanded to know why Rodgers and Edwards would write the song knowing that it would damage her career, but was later convinced that was not the case and decided to release the song.

Legacy

The song was another hit from the album, peaking at number five on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart for three weeks in November 1980. It is also notable for being the first song usually performed at Ross' performances and concerts since 1980. In 2021, it was ranked No. 385 on Rolling Stone's "Top 500 Greatest Songs of All Time". In 2022, the magazine ranked it No. 45 in their list of the "200 Greatest Dance Songs of All Time". In 2025, Billboard magazine ranked it No. 3 in their list of "The 100 Greatest LGBTQ+ Anthems of All Time".

LGBT significance

"I'm Coming Out" has been regarded as an anthem for the LGBT community. The phrase "coming out" to describe one's self-disclosure of sexual orientation or gender identity had been present in the LGBT subculture since the early 20th century. It has also been understood as "coming out of the closet" or coming out from hiding. The song is thus interpreted as a celebration of lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender identity and the encouragement of self-disclosure.

Trombone solo

Rodgers convinced his neighbor, producer Meco Monardo, to contract the horns for the album in return for a commitment by Rodgers to co-produce Monardo's then-upcoming album of music from The Empire Strikes Back. Monardo, a former first-call session player who had a string of hits in the late 1970s with disco versions of film music, also played trombone on the album and is featured in a solo towards the end of "I'm Coming Out":

Nile recorded all the tracks and vocals and called me and my horn section for a 3-hour date. We had a great time, as the songs were fabulous—especially "Upside Down" and "I'm Coming Out". We sounded great—Nile was pleased and as I was packing up, he asked me to stay and play a jazz trombone solo on one of the tracks. I said, "Nile, there are a lot of hit records with jazz saxophone solos—even some with jazz trumpet solos, but not one with a trombone"!! He said. "That's exactly why I want you to do it"!!

Trombone solos have been rare on Top 40 songs in the post-big band era and especially so since the 1960s. Notable exceptions include brief solos by James Pankow on a handful of early Chicago hits and Clifford Adams' brief solo on Kool & the Gang's 1983 hit "Joanna".

Weeks went by when I heard through the grapevine that Diana Ross was incredibly unhappy with the album. She thought Nile and Bernard made her sound like Chic. She took the master tapes from Power Station and went to Motown in Detroit to remix the record. When it came out, her early interviews were very unenthusiastic about it and Nile and Bernard, her producers. Well, as we all know, this turned out to be her biggest-selling solo album ever. "Upside Down" was a monster Number-One single and "I'm Coming Out" was a top-ten single.