Drama Desk nominee Jill Sobule died May 1, the victim of a house fire. Ms. Sobule was 66. Sobule's publicist the news to The New York Times.
Ms. Sobule was an immensely influential singer-songwriter, writing the first openly gay song to ever crack the Billboard Top 20. Titled 鈥淚 Kissed a Girl鈥� (no relation to the later Katy Perry song of the same name), Ms. Sobule's song was a significant hit in 1995, positioning her as one of the few open lesbian artists operating in the commercial sphere before the millenia. Her followup single, "Supermodel," was featured in the hit film Clueless as the backing track for the film's makeover montage.
In time, however, Ms. Sobule's unflinching commitment to an open existence led her to base her career away from the demands of entertainment conglomerates. Famously, she was forced to film the music video for "I Kissed A Girl" opposite the male model Fabio, rather than focusing the video on the true female love interest. Ms. Sobule became one of the first artists to widely adopt a crowdfunding model for release, raising tens of thousands of dollars directly from her fans to release a new album without any external interference.
In all, Ms. Sobule released 12 albums over her 30 years as a professional musician, tackling complex topics including the death penalty, anorexia nervosa, reproduction rights, and LGBTQ+ rights, in her trademark, unvarnished style.
In 2022, Ms. Sobule transformed her troubled and at times traumatic childhood experiences into F*ck7thGrade, a critically lauded Off-Broadway musical that enjoyed numerous runs at the Wild Project. For the work, Ms. Sobule was Drama Desk nominated.
READ: Jill Sobule Knows 7th Grade is Toxic
As Ms. Sobule told 半岛体育 in 2023, "7th grade is evil! It isn鈥檛 the first week or first month or first year that fucks you up for life, it鈥檚 7th grade... All of a sudden, peers become more important than your parents. In 6th grade, I was this tomboy, I was a badass, I was the electric guitar player. Suddenly, 7th grade happened, and my friends started wearing makeup and I didn't feel like I fit in. I knew early on that there was something different about me; that I had crushes on my friends, and that wasn鈥檛,鈥� here Ms. Sobule made exaggerated air quotes, 鈥渢he 鈥榬ight thing.鈥� 7th grade is when it all fell apart.鈥�
In adulthood, Ms. Sobule dug into the phenomena, discovering that, by a significant margin, cis women identify 7th grade as the root of their sense of shame, while cis men typically point to 9th grade as the time when they felt the worst about themselves. As Ms. Sobule distilled, "You鈥檙e suddenly in a body that doesn鈥檛 feel like yours anymore; I don鈥檛 think we ever get over that.鈥�
The cast recording for F*ck7thGrade is set to be released June 6, where it was intended to coincide with both Pride Month and the 30th Anniversary of the release of 鈥淚 Kissed A Girl.鈥� Ms. Sobule's self-titled album will be rereleased alongside the cast recording.
She is survived by her brother and sister-in-law, James and Mary Ellen Sobule, as well as her nephews and cousins. Ms. Sobule was scheduled to perform a concert in Denver at Swallow Hill tonight. Instead, the venue will host an informal gathering by her friend Ron Bostwick to honor Ms. Sobule's life. A formal memorial will be held later this summer.
