"Jill Sobule, the groundbreaking singer-songwriter and activist whose 1995 song 'I Kissed a Girl' is widely considered the first openly gay-themed song to crack the Billboard Top 20, died in a Minneapolis house fire early Thursday morning, her rep confirmed. She was 66" — Variety.
♫ Why are all our heroes so imperfect?... ♫ Paul McCartney, jealous of John, even more so now that he's gone. ♫ Dylan was so mean to Donovan in that movie. ♫ Pablo Picasso, cruel to his wives.... ♫ My favorite poets took their own lives. ♫...
पोस्ट्स
४८ टिप्पण्या:
Not sure I needed to know about that song. Too bad about the death, however.
I think I still have her first album. What a pity, and a horrible way to die.
Link isn't working. The St. Paul newspaper says the fire was in Woodbury, which is an east metro suburb closest to Wisconsin but I realize all the journalists at these big shitty magazines all think everything important in Minnesota happens in Minneapolis.
Link -
https://www.twincities.com/2025/05/01/jill-sobule-woodbury-fire/
RIP.
There was a 1974 song by Jim Stafford called My Girl Bill that flirted with the gay theme. It reached #12 on the Billboard Hot 100.
It played with the gay theme but then backed off at the end with the payoff "Stay away from my girl, Bill" (from memory) revealing that he was talking to Bill about his girl, not talking about his girl named Bill.
Kudos to Jill but as we are constantly reminded in History of Rock and Roll in 500 Songs, nobody is ever truly first.
John Henry
What does her height have to do with it?
A nasty way to go, but someone who made a small fortune making a sexual dysfunction seem cool to impressionable young girls can't have my maximum sympathy.
Did Gov.Tim Walz’s wife morbidly open the windows again to better smell of the smoke from the house fire believing it might be another left-wing riot?
Civil liberties for consenting adults. But from 1995 "Kissed a girl won't change the world" to 2012 "Bake me a cake!" and beyond...
I remember the song - very 90s. Did not realize she lived here in the Cities. I have been seeing things about her on social media recently, because I believe she had a new album about to come out. Horrible way to die and too soon. RIP.
Link fixed. Sorry.
Jenny came over and told me 'bout Brad
"He's such a hairy behemoth", she said
"Dumb as a box of hammers
But he's such a handsome guy"
And I opened up and I told her 'bout Larry
And yesterday how he asked me to marry
I'm not giving him an answer yet
I think I can do better
Never heard of her or her song. ( I you tubed it). Not my cup of tea music wise...but whatever...neither is Katie Perry's song with the same name.
I think her eponymous album is probably one of my 15 favourite albums of all time -- even though there isn't a single song on there that even cracks my top 100 for the even the 90s.
Karen by Night comes close though.
Sobule called Perry's use of the song title "sleazy."
RIP, Jill Sobule.
I first kissed a girl when I was 7 years old. I remember the disappointment I felt upon noticing that the kiss was NOT “sweeter than wine”, like the song said.
It wasn’t until I got into my teenage years that yes, indeed, they tasted sweeter than wine. And that’s the rest of the story. Good day!
Song title!?!? Katy Perry is the epitome of sleazy.
I don't think I've ever watched the video before. Fabio! If he's Larry, it makes me question the "I can do better" line.
"Dylan was so mean to Donovan in that movie"
I know that's what everyone thinks after seeing that scene in "Don't Look Back" . It was my view until I saw an interview with Pennebaker on YouTube (I can't find it now) in which he says that Dylan was actually very nice and considerate towards Donavan. He mentions that there was a much more damning clip that Dylan left out. It was of Donavan playing a song he wrote to the melody of Mr Tambourine Man, which he mistakenly thought that Dylan had borrowed from an old folk song. It turns out that it was one of the few melodies that Dylan hadn't borrowed at the time.
That scene could be viewed as the songwriters playing recent songs they wrote and Dylan's was just so much better that
it made Donavon look a bit foolish.
As a young parent working to make partner and establish my practice I sort of missed the 90's, culturally. I've never heard of or about Ms. Sobule or that song.
RIP.
I thought Jimi Hendrix had the first big openly gay hit. "'Scuse me while I kiss this guy".
People who die in house fires are usually drunk or stoned.
Boatbuilder, I think you’re thinking of Hendrix’s song “Woody Hayes”, and the exact line is ’Scuse me while I hit this guy.
Or maybe the subject of the song is just into S&M.
“first openly gay-themed song to crack the Billboard Top 20”
That would be Lola by The Kinks, which reached #9 in 1970.
John was much more jealous of Paul than vice versa.
I saw her at the Kennedy Center's free Millennium Stage a few weeks ago. Talented and fun. May her memory be a blessing; let light perpetual shine upon her.
JSM
WHy not more details about the House fire? I assume it was smoke inhalation that killed her. Smoke alarm fail, drugs or alchohol all could be possibiliites.
"That would be Lola by The Kinks, which reached #9 in 1970."
I thought of that when I was writing the post, but I'd saying "Lola" wasn't *openly* gay at all. Also, by today's standards, it isn't *gay* at all. "Lola" is a woman, a trans woman. Feminine pronouns are used for Lola throughout the song.
The cagey lyric is: "I'm glad I'm a man and so is Lola." The ambiguity: Is Lola also glad that the "I" in the song is a man or Lola, or is the "I" in the song glad that Lola is also a man. Based on that, I'd say Lola and the "I" are both gay men, but they are not openly gay.
From the Wikipedia article, "Lola": "Ray Davies has claimed that he was inspired to write "Lola" after Kinks manager Robert Wace spent a night in Paris dancing with a cross-dresser. Davies said of the incident, "In his apartment, Robert had been dancing with this black woman, and he said, 'I'm really onto a thing here.' And it was okay until we left at six in the morning and then I said, 'Have you seen the stubble?' He said 'Yeah', but he was too pissed [intoxicated] to care, I think"."
In about 1980, I bought a Holly Near album from the 99-cent cut-out bin at the record store, just as a shot in the dark purchase. Reading the lyric sheet, it took me a few minutes to recognize a theme. Anyway, now I’m very worldly about such things.
Transmusicality.
"died in a Minneapolis house fire "
What is going on in Minneapolis?
Weird Al’s version of Lola is better.
https://youtu.be/-IUMCyAR6U0
I didn't know who she was but I watched the clip. Now I miss her.
Jill is from Denver.
The combination of testosterone and that video made my ears bleed, so there is some logic behind tampons in the men's room.
Thought Hendrix was "Scuse me while I kiss the sky."
Last I heard of her she was feuding with Katy Perry. Perry's song may have been "sleazy." My impression was that Sobule's was starry-eyed and a little silly. Both songs are a little coy about the singer's sexuality, but Jill's song suggests that the singer is into women and Katy's that it's just a flirtation.
I heard the Kinks line as "I'm glad I'm a man -- and so is Lola," as finally making it explicit that Lola is a man and not as an admission that the singer is glad that Lola is a man, but then I always heard the Jimi Hendix line as "'Scuse me while I kiss the sky."
Most of her music had nothing to do with gayness. She played an appealing character in Eric Shaffer's Mind the Gap. A girl with a pacemaker afraid of what a broken heart might do to her.
"I heard the Kinks line as "I'm glad I'm a man -- and so is Lola," as finally making it explicit that Lola is a man and not as an admission that the singer is glad that Lola is a man...."
I agree that's the most straightforward way to hear it. That's very close to "I'm glad Lola is a man." But the other meaning is still there — for deniability?: "Lola is, like me, glad that I am a man."
I mean, if you don't WANT the ambiguity, you should edit the line. I would assume the ambiguity was intentional. The line, even in that ambiguous form, led to some censorship, cutting out the line for some radio play.
There's a whole genre of "reaction" videos, in which someone will listen to an old song for the first time. I've seen several about "Lola" -- it's always funny when it suddenly dawns on the host what the song is really about. (Although some of them never get it.)
Also R.I.P.: Ruth Buzzi, the comedienne that played Gladys Ormphby on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In has passed away.
To those who are saying that they thought the words to Purple Haze were “Scuse me while I kiss the sky” - of course, you are correct. The other commenters were just riffing off of commonly misheard lyrics. In fact, there is a website KissThisGuy.com that acts as an archive for misheard lyrics.
That said, I have to admit that I have been apparently mishearing the lyrics to Lola. I had heard the line that Ann is referencing as “But I know what I am and I admit I’m a man, and so is Lola”. My interpretation can fit into the song’s storyline and also in the musical meter, but I guess I’ve been mishearing all these years.
Also, it blows my mind that many people could understand the lyrics in general, with all of the hints and innuendo therein, and not know what was coming up as an ending.
italics be gone??
doesn’t seem to work
YMCA by the Village People, (hell anything by the Village People) has to predate the Openly Gay genre.
That certainly was not the first gay or lesbian song. It wasn't the first gay or lesbian song to reach some subjective level of popularity on some chart. It may be, however, the first pop hit memorializing the current socially celebrated war on heterosexual males, using disgustingly crude stereotypes to describe them, even though it's the lesbians who are behaving badly by sleeping around on their hardworking male partners.
This really saddens me, I loved Jill Sobule's music and have at least two of her 90's albums.
Re Katy Perry, I remember being annoyed for the same reasons Sobule was. No class.
RIP and I'll keep revisiting your music.
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