We Lost the One Who Kissed a Girl
Mourning the senseless loss of groundbreaking singer-songwriter Jill Sobule
I’m GenX, in my mid-50s.
I know I’m coming to an age when people about my age die.
And yesterday, indie singer-songwriter Jill Sobule died at 66 years old.
I never met Jill personally. But as a long-time music writer, many of my music-industry pals did. My social media exploded yesterday with the news of her untimely and horrific death in a house fire. And from all accounts, she was an incredibly cool, kind, generous, and utterly delightful human to know — in addition to a gifted singer-songwriter. “Groundbreaking” is the word I see repeated, and while musically she’s mostly known as a one-hit wonder, the adjective is apt.
Jill’s birth year may have made her a Boomer, but her musical influence hit GenX squarely in our young adulthood, and resonated in a manner unique to our generation.
Most famously, her 1995 hit “I Kissed a Girl” broke ground as the first openly queer song to crack the Billboard Top 20 — and with it, burst open the closeted silence so many queer young adults had endured their entire lives up until then.
Nothing about the song sounds politically charged. It’s a lively indie-pop-folk bop, full of hooks, utterly delightful in its earnestness, and deceptively playful as it challenged societal norms of its time.
And then there’s the music video. Set in a hyper-saturated, cartoonish 1950s neighborhood, it’s clearly nodding to a sense of how far we’d evolved as a culture— even as the song was so ahead of its time. Sure, the world had come a long way by 1995. But an MTV and radio hit that explored female bisexuality? Well, you had to be as clever and talented as Jill Sobule was to pull that off. And she totally did, with a winsome smile and tongue firmly in cheek — even casting Fabio as her cuckolded fiance.
Jill was the right messenger at the right time.
And the song was so infectious — and the singer, so charming — it was irresistible.
“Kissed a girl / won’t change the world / but I’m so glad / I kissed a girl,” she sings in the song’s outro.
But you know what? She was wrong.
She did change the world.
Jill kissed a girl so Chappel could dance on the stage in her heels at the Pink Pony Club.
And so Billie could eat that girl for lunch.
And so girl in red could fall in love in October.
One only needs to visit the YouTube comments for “I Kissed a Girl” to see the ways in which Jill changed so many worlds:
“This song was so important to me as a young gay woman in the 90’s. Rest in power, Jill. May your memory be a blessing to us all.”
“As a young bisexual woman, this song meant everything to me. RIP, Jill.”
“Growing up as a closeted lesbian teenager in the 90s- this song had such a profound impact on me. Rest in peace x”
“I’m now an adult lesbian. Shout out to her for leading the way in music. This is one of the first songs you come across as a baby gay”
“she made it easier for me to come out to my parents in Oct 1996!. she changed the world for me!”
She died way too young.
She died so senselessly, in a house fire.
How does one who changed the world for so many get taken from the world so cruelly?
I have no answers, of course. Sometimes really awful things happen to really good people. As the mid-50s GenX woman I am, I’ve seen this happen again and again. I know it will only happen with greater frequency as I age.
But for today, I need to pause and acknowledge how unreasonably saddened I am by this loss. It’s just so unjust. Why Jill?
The only way for me to take comfort is to listen to this song that’s delighted me for decades, and to acknowledge its cultural impact.
I’m so glad she kissed a girl.
I’m Dana DuBois, a GenX word nerd living in the Pacific Northwest with a whole lot of little words to share. I’m a founder and editor of three publications: Pink Hair & Pronouns, Three Imaginary Girls, and genXy. I write across a variety of topics but parenting, music and pop culture, relationships, and feminism are my favorites. Em-dashes, Oxford commas, and well-placed semi-colons make my heart happy.
If this story resonated with you, why not buy me a coffee?
(Make mine an iced oat milk decaf mocha, please and thank
Thanks for sharing!!! Some of the boomers loved her, too.
In the realm of t.v. Sobule's song was right around the time Ellen Degeneres came out on her show. Of course that sent her career way off track for a very long time but I also remember that show as a pivotal moment in LGBTQ visibility and presence.