Gay songwriters

Sir Noël Peirce Coward (16 December 1899 – 26 March 1973) was an English playwright, composer, director, actor, and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Coward attended a dance academy in London as a child, making his professional stage début at the age of eleven. As a teenager he was introduced into the high society in which most of his plays would be set. Coward achieved enduring success as a playwright, publishing more than 50 plays from his teens onwards. Many of his works, such as Hay Fever, Private Lives, Design for Living, Present Laughter, and Blithe Spirit, have remained in the regular theatre repertoire. He composed hundreds of songs, in addition to well over a dozen musical theatre works (including the operetta Bitter Sweet and comic revues), screenplays, poetry, several volumes of short stories, the novel Pomp and Circumstance, and a three-volume autobiography. Coward's stage and film acting and directing career spanned six decades, during which he starred in many of his own works, as well as those of others.
At the outbreak of the Second World War, Coward volunteered for war work, running the British propaganda office in Paris. He also worked with the Secret Service, seeking to use his influence to persuade the American public and government to help Britain. Coward won an Academy Honorary Award in 1943 for his naval film drama In Which We Serve and was knighted in 1970. In the 1950s he achieved fresh success as a cabaret performer, performing his own songs, such as "Mad Dogs and Englishmen", "London Pride", and "I Went to a Marvellous Party".
Coward's plays and songs achieved new popularity in the 1960s and 1970s, and his work and style continue to influence popular culture. He did not publicly acknowledge his homosexuality, but it was discussed candidly after his death by biographers including Graham Payn, his long-time partner, and in Coward's diaries and letters, published posthumously. The former Albery Theatre (originally the New Theatre) in London was renamed the Noël Coward Theatre in his honour in 2006.

Franco Noriega Haltenhof (born January 16, 1989) is a Peruvian entrepreneur based in New York who has branched out into the restaurant business, modelling, television, and the music industry. He is also a retired professional swimmer.
Noriega started swimming competitively at a young age, eventually representing Peru at various international sporting events. After retiring from his swimming career, he moved to New York City in 2007 and started modelling. He has since also opened his own restaurant, BABY BRASA, which focusses on organic Peruvian cuisine and catering. Noriega has hosted several television programs on the Food Network, and has appeared as a culinary guest on various talk shows such as The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Live with Kelly and Ryan, and The Wendy Williams Show. In 2017, Noriega ventured into the music industry with his debut single "Me Aceleras." Noriega released his second single, "Tu Llamada", in 2019.

Bruno Balz (6 October 1902, in Berlin – 14 March 1988, in Bad Wiessee) was a German songwriter and schlager writer.
From the time he wrote the music for the first German sound film until his retirement in the 1960s, Balz was responsible for the lyrics to over a thousand popular hits. Much of his output was in conjunction with the composer Michael Jary; their songs helped make the singer Zarah Leander popular.
Balz was arrested several times for homosexuality. In 1936, he spent several months in prison, and was released under an agreement that mandated that his name was no longer to appear in public. To maintain the appearance of propriety, he entered a "lavender marriage" with a woman named Selma. He was rearrested in 1941 by the Gestapo and was kept in the Gestapo headquarters in Prinz-Albrecht-Straße. He was released from imprisonment by the intervention of Jary, who persuaded officials that he could produce songs that would aid the war effort. Within a day of his release, they had written two of their greatest successes, "Davon geht die Welt nicht unter" ("This Will Not End the World") and "Ich weiß, es wird einmal ein Wunder gescheh'n" ("I Know Some Day a Miracle Will Happen"). His film songs for Leander, a star of UFA musicals which were later criticised as having helped public and armed forces morale during the war, became anthems for homosexuals imprisoned in concentration camps.
The fall of the Nazi regime did not spell an end to the persecution of Balz, as Paragraph 175, the law against homosexuality, continued in force. Thus his name is considerably less well-known than if he had been properly credited for his lyrics.
Balz's companion was painter and actor Jürgen Draeger, who was enjoined by a clause in Balz's will from talking about their relations for ten years following Balz's death.
The Bruno Balz Theatre in Berlin is named for him.

Luke Caswell, known mononymously as Cazwell, is an American rapper, record producer and songwriter. He has released the three studio albums Get into It in 2006, Watch My Mouth in 2009 and Hard 2 B Fresh in 2014, along with videos and singles.

Edward Droste (born October 22, 1978) is an American singer-songwriter and musician, formerly of the rock band Grizzly Bear. The group began as the solo effort of Droste with the release of 2004's Horn of Plenty, originally released on Kanine Records. All songs were written and performed by Droste. By 2005, the group expanded into a four-piece, with Droste still as a contributing songwriter. He left the group in 2020.

Louis Charles Augustin Georges Trenet (French pronunciation: [lwi ʃaʁl oɡystɛ̃ ʒɔʁʒ tʁenɛ]; 18 May 1913 – 19 February 2001) was a renowned French singer-songwriter who composed both the music and the lyrics to nearly 1,000 songs over a career that lasted more than 60 years. These songs include "Boum!" (1938), "La Mer" (1946) and "Nationale 7" (1955). Trenet is noted for his work with musicians Michel Emer and Léo Chauliac, with whom he recorded "Y'a d'la joie" (1938) for the first and "La Romance de Paris" (1941) and "Douce France" (1947) for the latter. He was awarded an Honorary Molière Award in 2000.