Recommendations of the Editorial team
When I heard that Jill Sobule died on a house fire on May 1st at the age of 66, I immediately had to think of this one song of her that I sang along for months in 1997 until I had completely internalized it: “Bitter”. And that I hadn’t thought of the singer songwriter for a long time.
Her last album was released in 2018, it was called “Nostalgia Kills”. Sobule probably got on his nerves that everyone wanted to hear this other piece from her that she had briefly brought to the American charts in 1995.
Katy Perry had a bigger hit with the same song title
“I Kissed a Girl” always spread in a good mood because it was a emphasized that was inexperienced song that was not too important. Maybe I’ll do it again, sang Sobule back then, that won’t change the world. Thirteen years later, the title was made by the HIT writers Dr. Luke, Max Martin and Cathy Dennis stolen and Katy Perry gave. The lightness had been replaced by emphasis (“… and i liked it”). At the same time, they had already built in an apology for lesbian experience (“I kissed a girl just to try it/ i hope my boyfriend don’t mind it”). Of course it became a much bigger hit. Placativity Sells.
“I Could Sneer, I Could Glare/ Say That Life is so unfair/ and the one who made it/ made it ‘Cause her breasts were real big …”
Jill Sobule has succeeded in not knowing even in view of this injustice. In 1997, on the magical album “Happy Town”, she sang from how easy it is to slip and fall – between all the “other Jealous Bitches and the Bitter, Grumbling Men”. You just have to laugh if it is so dry as easy as it would be to get it down by the hardness of everyday life: “I Could Sneer, I Could Glare/ Say that life is so unfair/ and the one who made it/ made it ‘Cause her breasts were real big.”
We all know: incompetent people (even more often without breasts) dazzle, the nice ones are left out. But Sobule has a chorus ready that defends himself against accepting it: “No, i Don’t Wanna Get Bitter/ I Don’t Wanna Turn Cruel/ I Don’t Wanna Get Old Before I have to/ and i Don’t Wanna get Jaded/ Petrified and Weighted.” Dull, petrified, complains: Who wants that? Better to blink into the sun than just see the shadow.
Despite everything – and believe in the good
A clever man once asked me if man can choose whether to make him bitter? “I always thought that fate just had to hit people enough, then he was bitter,” he wrote to me – but I didn’t let myself be tattooed for nothing “Living Well is the Best Revenge”! I think it is a decision as long as fate does not intervene too brutally. Sobule saw it similarly, because in “bitter” she decides to smile in spite of everything and to wish everyone the best. And to believe in the good: “I know the one who Made it/ made it ’causes she was actually pretty good.” And even if not: what’s the point? Anyone who is only waiting to be treated fairly will probably miss a lot of opportunities in the meantime.
Jill Sobule sings another song on a similar topic on “Happy Town” with Steve Earle: “Love is never equal”. Also honestly honest. Someone is always left or cheated, placed or maltreated, she states. But is that supposed to mean that we don’t let anyone go to ourselves? “Love Is Never Equal/ I Learned That Early at Home/ Someone Always Loves More than the other/ and ends will always come/ so you might as well have starting.” Death comes quickly enough, better life.