Talk:Neil Sedaka

LGBT musician?
I recently looked back over the editing history of this article and noticed that someone had briefly classified Neil Sedaka as an LGBT musician. That interested me, because I have listened to and read about Sedaka for years and he has always seemed very feminine to me. I think it is pretty clear that Sedaka is romantically attracted to females, but I have never been able to find any information about his seemingly effeminate nature. Does he just seem that way to a few of us? Or does he (or possibly she) seem that way to a lot of people?

To the person who classified him as an LGBT musician: if you happen to see this, please explain your reasoning for doing so. I apologize to anyone who finds this offensive, but seeing this really sparked my curiosity.

Andrea Parton 19:24, 30 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I recently heard an NPR interview with him where he discussed what he himself called his strong "feminine" leanings, which he said was due to being raised in a home with 6 strong women. I don't have the exact quotes, but he discussed this himself... 75.3.234.235 13:20, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
 * So, apparently he likes women. Not that there's anything wrong with that. :b Wahkeenah 14:23, 18 April 2007 (UTC)


 * A very interesting observation. I thought back in the 70s, when I first heard "Laughter in the Rain" and was unfamiliar with Neil Sedaka, that it was a woman singing! Obviously not. He does seem a little effeminate, but that doesn't make him any gayer than Jack Benny, who certainly wasn't. Neil is married with children, which doesn't necessarily prove anything either, but it's a clue. Labeling on the basis of behavior is risky. Who'd have thought Rock Hudson was gay? Yet with Liberace it was no surprise. Unless Neil himself has publicly "come out", I think it's best that it was reverted. Someone once labeled Jim Nabors that way, too. I don't think he's ever "come out" either, and I reverted it myself. Not that there's anything wrong with it. :) Wahkeenah 00:54, 1 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Yes, Neil Sedaka is married with children and I really never thought he was gay. If he seems effeminate to both of us, and likely a lot of other people as well, I guess he could be considered transgender by a broad definition of the term, but he might be offended if people described him that way.  Eddie Izzard once described hirself as a "male lesbian," but again, Neil Sedaka might be offended by that term.  I think that unless Neil comes out as gay, bi, or trans, we can leave our speculation as it is and not mention anything about it in the main article. Andrea Parton 23:43, 18 December 2005 (UTC)


 * In fact, labeling someone as possibly swinging one way or the other, solely based on his personality characteristics, is steretyping and bigotry, as I see it. I concur with your take on this. P.S. Any relation to Dolly? And how many times a day do you get asked that question? Wahkeenah 02:07, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

I never conclusively labeled Neil Sedaka to be anything and I will not suggest any more labels for him. It is also very possible that he does not consider himself to be a member of the LGBT community at all, and I agree that people should not be labeled based on their apparent personality. And some people don't like labels at all. Lily Tomlin has even said that she wishes no one had to identify as being of a certain sexual orientation.

I know that the titles of some of Neil's songs like "Breaking Up is Hard to Do" and "Steppin' Out" have become popular phrases in the LGBT community, but that doesn't mean that Neil is LGBT himself. I guess that could make Neil classifiable as a 'gay icon,' but most of the people in that category are better known than Neil Sedaka, and so I don't really know if that would be appropriate. What does everyone else think about classifying Neil as a 'gay icon' or about mentioning this in the main article. I am only considering mentioning the use of Neil's song titles as phrases in the gay community, not any speculation that Neil is LGBT.

Lesley Gore only recently came out as lesbian, but really, I was not surprised. In an interview shortly after she came out, she said she felt like the record industry was still largely homophobic. There probably are many musicians who are already well-known and who will come out as LGBT in the future. But I agree with you that it is probably better not to publicly speculate which ones they will be. After all, it seems like the majority of celebrities have had someone speculate at some time or another that they were gay. For a few of them, like Richard Gere and Dolly Parton, the rumors become widespread, and it probably creates difficulties for such celebrities. So I do not want my questions and comments on this talk page to become the basis for a widespread rumor about Neil Sedaka, and if anyone thinks that any of this discussion should be taken down, I will be glad to consider doing so.

To answer your question, Wahkeenah, no I am not related to Dolly, but I do like her music and her personality, as well as the music and personality of Neil Sedaka and dozens of other musicians.

Andrea Parton 05:14, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

LGBT? He may or may not be G, or even B, but he's certainly not L, or T.

I really doubt that Neil is even gay considering that he has been married to Leba for over 40 years and I think he is in a very happy marriage. Neil had a long songwriting partnership with Howard Greenfield and they definitely became very good friends; it is no understatement to say that they loved each other, though their affection for each other may not have been romantic. When Neil performs "Our Last Song Together" in his concert at the Royal Albert Hall, he talks about his relationship with Howie, which is further described in the song. But my guess is that Neil Sedaka is probably either heterosexual or bisexual, and any further speculation at this point will be pointless and possibly offensive to Neil and his family. Andrea Parton 05:19, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Again, we have homosexuals trying to legitimize their unnatural, juvenile behavior by insinuating that a famous person is homosexual. Again, we have a smear that should be considered libelous.Lestrade 15:12, 16 October 2007 (UTC)Lestrade
 * Oh my god! Did you just seriously type that, Lestrade? Was fire shooting from your fingertips as you typed?  Have you been living under a bridge for the past 30 years?  Are you just congenitally retarded...or maybe you were raised by Fundamentalist christians?  That's usually the same thing.  YOUR comments should be considered for a libel suit!  And for removal from Wikipedia.  But of course, since it's not racism, everyone's just ignoring it as if nothing scandalous was written by a moron on Wikipedia.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.27.225.85 (talk) 20:06, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Neil did talk about his feminine characteristics on an episode of A&E's Biography. Neil claimed that since his father left his family when Neil was a boy, Neil could only identify with his mother and his sister and copied their look and feminine ways. But Neil never said he was feminine because he was gay.204.15.6.99 (talk) 04:54, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't want to revive the discussion which, to my opinion, went the wrong way, but it is fact that Neil Sedaka had (and still has) an almost perfect alto or contralto voice which seems to have never changed, even when he was 70 years old. It seems that he never had what is sometimes called "voice breaking" (in German: "Stimmbruch", what normally occurs when boys are 14/15 years old). I'd like to hear your opinion about that.

A German pop-music lover, almost the same age as Neal 91.21.73.101 (talk) 11:56, 14 October 2013 (UTC)


 * It's not really the singing voice that's the issue. In interviews and documentaries he's so softly spoken that you might easily assume he's the world's biggest faygeleh. With a near-60 year marriage, two kids and two grandkids this seems perhaps unlikely (but why not, is true of many man?) But some of his conversational mannerisms suggest he was the original "Queen of 1964". That's what getting reared by 7 women and a lifetime in showbiz does, I guess.86.187.230.103 (talk) 11:34, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Songs used in Zeta Gundam
Both "Better Days/Toki wo" and "Bad and Beautiful/Hoshizora" were both composed, recorded, and featured on albums around a decade or more before Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam premiered (and for that matter, some years before Gundam itself was conceived!). I'm not sure what year the melody for "Mizu/For Us" was written, but it may have also been years prior to Zeta, and if not, I doubt Sedaka himself had the show in mind when writing it. I remember reading that the suggestion to use the melodies came from a relative of Sedaka with connections to the Japanese music industry and/or Yoshiyuki Tomino (or something like that); if I can find that source again, I'll post it. Tony Myers 00:13, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Album articles
Hi! If anyone should want to start creating album articles about Sedaka's albums, you can copy the track listings (and maybe some more things like chart info) from the Swedish wikipedia. I've created articles for most of his albums. Hakanand 11:43, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

"Breaking Up" remake
Since the section on the ballad remake of "Breaking Up is Hard To Do" comes right after the section on Sedaka being fired from the Carpenters tour by Richard Carpenter, is it worth mentioning that the arrangement on the "Breaking Up" remake is by Richard Carpenter? Rich 13:56, 7 May 2007 (UTC) Carpenter is credited as the arranger of that track on Sedaka's "The Hungry Years" LP, which is the LP on which the track first appeared. Rich 05:51, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Maybe, if you can prove it. Wahkeenah 14:03, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

ABBA
The article used to say that Sedaka helped on the English lyrics to ABBA's song "Ring Ring" for the Eurovision Song Contest. Sedaka is credited as a co-writer in the Ring Ring (song) article, but the song came in 3rd in Sweden's national "heat" to represent the country in the contest. An unlogged editor changed "Ring Ring" to "Waterloo" without citing a source. According to the "Waterloo (ABBA song)" article, ABBA won the following year's Eurovision Song Contest, but that article does not list Sedaka as a writer or mention him in any other way. Assuming that both articles are correct (although they do not cite sources, either), Sedaka's role in translating lyrics for an ABBA song that was not entered Eurovision, but unsuccessfully competed to represent Sweden in the contest, is insignificant in the context of Sedaka's career. So I deleted the sentence about this subject. Finell (Talk) 01:18, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

THE HUNGRY YEARS
For sure Neil Sedaka wrote some hot stuff in his first career, but nothing to compare with what he offered when he came back in early ’70s; PUPPET MAN (Tom Jones), LOVE WILL KEEP US TOGETHER (Captain & Tennille), LAUGHTER IN THE RAIN are just outstanding songs, among the best standards written at this time. But I think you should devote some lines to a much better one, a high-class classical that is (according to me) one of the very best song of the last 60 years: THE HUNGRY YEARS. Listen to it carefully, and you’ll see it has it all: a great melody, meaningful lyrics, a very strong musical environment and Sedeka’s voice at his very best. Wow! That is a hell of a song. I just can’t understand why it has not been covered over and over yet. This song is purely, simply a pearl. --André54 (talk) 02:04, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Citations & References
See Footnotes for an explanation of how to generate footnotes using the  tags Nhl4hamilton (talk) 04:47, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Neil in tour concert Philippines
I have to add the notable tour concert of Philippines since this is a feather on his cap's comeback.: Neil also toured the Philippines for his May 17, 2008 concert at the Araneta Coliseum.Neil Sedaka arrives in RP for concert, 05/15/2008 --Florentino floro (talk) 09:29, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Two pictures
Let's not have a war over the pictures. There's plenty of room for them both. Rothorpe (talk) 00:15, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I think you missed an early release
The first time I saw Sedaka on TV (1959)was either American Bandstand or a prime time show like Ed Sullivan. He sang a song called "Ring a-rockin'" which was introduced as his current release. I didn't see it in your discography, so I hope you can do some research to verify. Thanks.

Gjolusczak (talk) 13:54, 25 September 2009 (UTC)Greg Olusczak, 9/25/2009

The song is here and here on YouTube. Maybe it didn't chart. Joel Whitburn's Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits has "The Diary" (December 1958) as his first chart single. After that it's Oh Carol (Oct 59) and Stairway to Heaven (April 1960). Grimhim (talk) 13:41, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Run Samson run
Neil Sedaka's Run Samson Run was very popular in Europa. In this article I searched for the song. In Discography section, it was #28 and in the introductory paragraph it was #30. Which is correct ? Nedim Ardoğa (talk) 06:48, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Dara Sedaka needs her own article!
I do think so, since she is a musician herself, not just the little daughter singing with her father! Widely forgotten these days, she even released an album in 1982 at the tender age of 19: I'm Your Girlfriend, which is obviously very hard to find these days and prone to go for over $120 US. (Yes I'm serious.) But at any rate, just this own album would justify the existence of a separate article for her. IMHO. -andy 217.50.61.64 (talk) 21:53, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
 * "Widely forgotten" weakens your case substantially, but on the other hand, the quickest way to remedy the lack of a link between her mentions at Neil_Sedaka and at List of 1980s one-hit wonders in the United States is to covert the Rdr Dara Sedaka to a stub linking to both of those article sections. --Jerzy•t 07:44, 17 May 2016 (UTC)
 * ... which is a matter that arises bcz the stub will work to link each of the two existing chunks of info on her more cleanly (less material in his bio that clutters his article for most readers primarily interested in just him, no extraneous prose about via a link into his bio for those primarily interested in the existing link into his bio). --Jerzy•t 09:28, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

Early Life
"However, when The Beatles and the British Invasion took American music in a different direction, Sedaka was left without a recording career and decided a major change in his life was necessary, moving his family to the UK in the early 1970s." This one sentence covers about 8 - 10 years and implies a cause and effect relationship between Sedaka moving to the UK in the early 1970s because he lost his recording career due to the British Invasion that began in 1963. This sentence probably wouldn't be acceptable in a high school essay, much less an encyclopedia.Jtyroler (talk) 01:47, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Big Hits in the Early 1960s
This paragraph covers his career, based on song dates, up to 1963. The last sentence has him appearing several times on American Bandstand and Shindig!. Shindig! did not begin until 1964 - was Sedaka performing earlier hits or did he have other songs? If he had other songs, shouldn't those be listed? Also, is there any reference material for this portion of the article? Billboard Chart information should be fairly easy to find (and easy to reference). This section (and others) read like they are based on personal knowledge only.Jtyroler (talk) 01:56, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

The Mid to Late 1970s
Based on this sentence, "From 1974 onward, Sedaka's records were issued in Europe and around the world on the Polydor label. His first album of new material with Polydor was Laughter in the Rain." the next paragraph makes little sense because it contradicts this. "In the US, Sedaka's records were issued first on the Rocket label from 1974–77 and on the Elektra label from 1977-81." Were Sedaka's records on Polydor everywhere but the United States and Rocket Records was his U.S. label, or was Sedaka releasing material on both labels worldwide? Was Rocket Records only released in the U.S.? How long did Sedaka's records released on Polydor?Jtyroler (talk) 02:13, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

In the "Sedaka's Back" section about "The Immigrant", what critics "hailed its beautiful orchestration and evocative lyrics: wistful, nostalgic" and what does this have to do with John Lennon? Was the original recording dedicated to John Lennon, or was this during a concert performance later on, possibly after Lennon's murder?Jtyroler (talk) 02:19, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

That scratchy American noughts and crosses sign
Americans may be unaware that the # has little meaning outside the US. So, when a recording reaches Number 9 in the Hot 100 - and we, in the rest of the English speaking world, see #9 - it's like reading computer code ... it doesn't have a meaning. Could there be a universally acceptable way of writing number. What about No. ? Francis Hannaway 17:33, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Did you mean to say "Tic-tac-toe"? :) I changed '#' to 'No.' as used in many other articles about artists and charting music.  See WP:Be bold and next time feel free to make such changes yourself! -- hulmem (talk) 01:42, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you, Hulmem. I didn't want to cause waves across the Atlantic. (Actually, things like this don't usually stop me - but thanks anyway :) ) Francis Hannaway 20:02, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

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It was Istanbul 500 years prior to Neil's grandparents coming to America
Gee, the article says then known as Constantinople:

Neil's grandparents came to the United States from Istanbul, then known as Constantinople, in 1910.

I don't care what the reference says, Constantinople's been known as Istanbul since about 1453 when the Turks conquered the last of the Byzantine empire predating by about 500 years, his grandparent's arrival in the United States. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.76.96.111 (talk) 20:36, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Not exactly. The Wikipedia article on Instanbul gives a more thorough explanation of the city's naming history.--Martin IIIa (talk) 14:09, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Origins of father
The edit summary for this recent edit said: “His own official website as well as other sources say his father is a Sephardic Jew from Lebanon not Turkey.” The source at his website says “His father was a taxi driver and a Sephardic Jew of Lebanese descent.” So I’m not sure it’s fair to put “of Lebanese or Turkish origin”, as this suggests he may have been from Lebanon (or Turkey), i.e. born there? Martinevans123 (talk) 14:00, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

The Lebanese origins of the Sedaka family
The Sedaka/Sadaka jewish family of Lebanon that was possibly a Halabi family (meaning a merchant family that traded with Aleppo-Istanbul-Beirut-Cairo) which is why Neil Sedaka's grandparents were born in Istanbul and came with his family from there. The Sedakas/Sadaka is a jewish family originally from Lebanon as you can see in the Montefiori census that the family lived in Sidon in 1839 and in Beirut in 1849 here

https://www.sephardicgen.com/databases/LebanonSurnamesSearchEngine.php?SurnameKind=exact&SurnameSoundex=&SurnameMax=Sadaka&SourceIKind=exact&SourceIMax=&SourceIIKind=exact&SourceIIMax=&SourceIIIKind=exact&SourceIIIMax=&SourceIVKind=exact&SourceIVMax=&NotesKind=exact&NotesMax=&offset=1&pagesize=20

You can see the oldest burials there is record of the Sadaka family in the Jewish cementery of Beirut here https://www.sephardicgen.com/databases/BeirutCemeterySearchEngine.php?NoKind=exact&NoMax=&SurnameKind=contains&SurnameSoundex=&SurnameMax=Sadaka&GivenNameKind=contains&GivenNameSoundex=&GivenNameMax=&FathersNameKind=exact&FathersNameMax=&SpousessurnameKind=contains&SpousessurnameSoundex=&SpousessurnameMax=&SpousesGivenNameKind=contains&SpousesGivenNameSoundex=&SpousesGivenNameMax=&GenderKind=exact&GenderMax=&GregorianDateofDeathDayKind=exact&GregorianDateofDeathDayMax=&GregorianDateofDeathMonthKind=exact&GregorianDateofDeathMonthMax=&GregorianDateofDeathYearKind=exact&GregorianDateofDeathYearMax=&HebrewDateofDeathKind=exact&HebrewDateofDeathMax=&AgeyearsKind=exact&AgeyearsMax=&TombstonematerialKind=exact&TombstonematerialMax=&StateofGraveKind=exact&StateofGraveMax=&NotesKind=exact&NotesMax=&offset=1&pagesize=20

You can only find two burials in Turkey of the Sedaka/Sedacca family in the Jewishgen database as seen here https://www.jewishgen.org/databases/cemetery/jowbr.php?rec=J_TURKEY_0013171 and https://www.jewishgen.org/databases/cemetery/jowbr.php?rec=J_TURKEY_0013172 which is a clear indication the family was not originally from Turkey.

You also cant find the Sedaka last name/family within the Jewish community of Tire, Turkey as listed here http://web.archive.org/web/20180423122311/http://www.jewsoftire.com/ nor in the list of the Jewish families in other areas of Turkey as seen here http://web.archive.org/web/20060519132559/http://www.jewishgen.org/sefardsig/besalel.htm nor in the list of Jewish families of Istanbul as seen here https://www.jewishgen.org/Sephardic/niyego.htm

Besides the Beirut burials above, you can see the Sedaka family listed in the detailed list of the Lebanese Jewish surnames of Beirut and Saida (Sidon) is found at https://farhi.org/Documents/The%20Jews%20of%20Lebanon.htm. The more detailed list can be found at https://www.sephardicgen.com/databases/LebanonSurnamesSearchEngine.php?SurnameKind=exact&SurnameSoundex=&SurnameMax=&SourceIKind=exact&SourceIMax=&SourceIIKind=exact&SourceIIMax=&SourceIIIKind=exact&SourceIIIMax=&SourceIVKind=exact&SourceIVMax=&NotesKind=exact&offset=1

This combined evidence points out indeed that Neil Sedaka's grandparents were of Lebanese Jewish descent and resided in Istanbul before arriving to America.Chris O&#39; Hare (talk) 19:38, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Infobox image
Shouldn't we have the 2017 image of Sedaka as the main image rather than a 1965 portrait? I thought it was policy to use the most up to date image available for living public figures, and the 2017 shot is a good one. Humbledaisy (talk) 00:20, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
 * No, that's the braindead mindset of the average Wikipedian, believing we're here to be yet another current/recent events site instead of something more closely resembling "the sum of all human knowledge". Since you didn't quote a specific policy, the one which turned up in my search was WP:BLPIMAGE.  The crux of that is found in the first sentence, "Images of living persons should not be used out of context to present a person in a false or disparaging light".  Unless you really know better than that, there's nothing about the current image that's harmful or afoul of policy. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions  05:22, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

I was asking. No need to be so rude.Humbledaisy (talk) 00:36, 1 March 2021 (UTC)