Singer-songwriter Eli Lieb says Young Love and Steve
Grand's All-American Boy tell different love stories.
Lieb released the video for Young Love just days after
All-American Boy, which received mainstream attention, made
its debut. Both feature young gay men in love, except in Grand's
version, the love is not returned.
(Watch Young
Love and All-American
Boy in our video library.)
In an interview with Michigan
weekly PrideSource, Lieb said the similarities in the videos are
just a coincidence.
“I released this a week after his got released, and there's no
way I could've made that in a week. But people are accusing me of
trying to ride his coattail,” Lieb said.
“What I've noticed with the comparisons to Steve and I: When I
set out to make this video, I specifically did not want it to have a
'gay theme;' I just wanted to be authentic to who I am, and who I am
is this very comfortable human being in my own skin. My sexuality is
just one part of who I am; it's not something I focus on and I
definitely don't want to make it a big deal. So, when I was going to
shoot this video, I knew it had to have a love interest, because it's
a love song and it just was not an option to me to not have a guy. I
also wanted to shoot it in a way that was no different than any other
video, where you just feel the love rather than being hit over the
head with an agenda or a point of view. Not saying that was Steve at
all, but I find a lot of gay stuff does have sort of a gay theme to
it, which isn't bad; I just didn't want to do that. And Steve's
story is a different story than mine.”
“I guess I can say that we have different points of view and
we're at different places in our lives, and different people respond
to different things. Some people, who are very free in their love
and who they are, might relate to mine more because they see it as a
celebration – about not having to hide who you are. But then
there's other people who might be struggling more and aren't at that
place in their life and they still feel that struggle and seeing
[Grand's version], they can relate to that more. They're just
telling two different stories,” he added.