Go listen to some Jill Sobule.

In October, in the comments to my post Going To Concerts, my good friend Erin, recounting concerts we’ve been to, reminded me that “we saw Joe Jackson & Jill Sobule at SDSU Open Air” Amphitheater. That was on August 8, 1991.

I read a quote from Michael Stipe when I was still young saying “lyrics are not poetry.” 

But the words in music can hit you hard. I remember as a kid hearing the words in Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight” and marveling at the pictures they pained. I was maybe 11 years old.

And I remember in the midst of my first divorce the trenchant words of Randy Newman being an excuse to feel doomed but sarcastically hopeful. “Little Criminals” has  refrain of “’cause we’ve almost made it… we’ve almost made it… to the top.” I was thirty-something.

Jill Sobule’s words hit me when I was just 21. Erin and I went and saw Joe Jackson, the headliner. I don’t think I knew who Jill Sobule was at the time. But nerds that we were, we arrived early and took in this opener. I remember her with minimal accompaniment and a guitar. And it became clear she had great words.

Pilar (Things Here Are Different) is a knowing, sad dialogue with Pilar, constrained by a society where her choices are limited. The narrator of the song just wants her to be free to do anything, like she is in America, and the cultural mismatch is solidified by the matter-of-fact statement from Pilar: “things here are different.”

“here in sunny Spain, the widows all wear black
to show their respect and their sorrow
here in Spain, so simple is our life
you’re either a whore, a mother, or a wife”

“so why don’t you do something about it?
things don’t happen to you, you make them happen”

she laughed–

“see you don’t understand
you’re from another land
things here are different”

Some songs, the first time you hear them, nothing is the same after, they make everything sound different by contrast. I was driving through Point Loma and heard the bootleg cover of “I’m Down” by the Beastie Boys. Seared into my brain. I would not hear it again for 20 years. Wild Thing by Tone Loc had a sound that was so new it surprised me. Smells Like Teen Spirit had the same effect. “Considering a Move To Memphis” by Colorblind James Experience made me smile and laugh and still obsesses me. I transcribed some of the lyrics back in 2002. It was 1992 or 1993 when I heard it on the UVa college station, I think.

I’m considering
I’m considering
A move to Memphis
A move to Memphis
I’m considering
I’m considering

And so, “Karen By Night”

“Karen By Night” had that power. The narrator talks about her boss, Karen. Shoe store manager. The song unfolds and Karen is revealed as a butch top. To hear this incredibly funny song about someone totally underestimating a person, and being delighted to be so wrong rewired my brain. I remember Erin and I looking at each other like we’d been hit by a bus. I think partly it was that Jill Sobule has this kind of–mousy? stage persona. “Just a girl with a guitar.” She won over the crowd.

I bought her CD but Karen By Night wasn’t on it. It would be 4 years later that I would hear it again.

It was worth the wait.

Watch her perform it–just her and a guitar–in 2010. And listen to that crowd hear that song, and laugh at the right parts, and gasp at the same parts Erin and I did 20 years earlier. That song is immortal to me. Might be to you too. Watch it now.

Reading her wikipedia page, it seems she was dropped by her label the same year we saw her. And no releases for 4 years. I cannot imagine what it was like to be so brilliant and be able to kill live and yet have zero support from a music label. Todd Rundgren produced her first record but that didn’t keep her supported.

Her 1995 record had Karen by Night on it. It also had Supermodelon it. You know, from the soundtrack for Clueless. And I Kissed A Girl, a queer song from an era where being gay was a cultural novelty.

So brilliant.

Why am I writing about her today? I just learned she died in a house fire at the age of 66. Dropped by her label at 32. Hot single in hit movie at 36. Taken from the world at 66.

Life is so short and precious. Make your art and share it.

Karen by night
The leather comes out under the moonlight
Takes off her Chanel and hops on her bike
Looking like young Marlon Brando
Karen by night

Go listen to some Jill Sobule. Now. Do it.

RIP Jill Sobule.