“Fuck 7th Grade” Original Cast Album
By Eleni P. Austin
Almost a decade ago, David Bowie released his 25th album Blackstar, on his 69th birthday. Two days later, he died. Of course, the world found out he had privately been battling cancer for 18 months. He was suddenly gone, his fans were devastated, but he left us an elegant parting gift that helped mitigate the loss.
This month, under different circumstances, Jill Sobule fans were shattered to hear the beloved, 66-year-old musician was gone. She hadn’t been sick, in fact, she was on tour, staying with friends when she died in a house fire in Minnesota. Her next tour stop was in her hometown of Denver. She had big plans for 2025, Rhino Records is re-issuing a 30th anniversary edition of her self-titled album (available on vinyl for the very first time). She was scheduled to open shows for bands like The Fixx and The Mekons, and most importantly, she was releasing the Original Cast Recording of her Drama Desk-nominated Off-Broadway show, Fuck 7th Grade. Now she too (albeit unwittingly), has left us with a parting gift that allows us to mourn her loss and once again, marvel at her brilliant talent.
Born in Denver, Colorado at the start of 1959, by age five, Jill was obsessed with Ringo Starr, and she began playing drums. Her mom had been a musician, so her innate talent wasn’t a surprise. Rather quickly, her parents convinced her to switch to guitar, and she swiftly became proficient. The only Jewish student at a Catholic Day school, she would play her guitar during Mass and was soon writing her own songs. Following high school, she attended the University Of Colorado, Boulder. She spent her junior year abroad in Seville, Spain. There, a friend urged her to sing on the street with several buskers. A club owner heard her and invited her to play on their stage. Returning home, she dropped out of college, in order to pursue music fulltime.
She became a presence on the Denver music scene. As she gained more confidence and added to her arsenal of original songs, she began splitting her time between Denver, Nashville and New York City. By the late ‘80s, she had inked a record deal with the MCA label and her debut, Things Here Are Different arrived in 1990. Produced by Todd Rundgren, it received positive reviews but negligible sales. While on tour, opening for Joe Jackson and he offered to produce her second album. The songs were recorded, but her label had lost confidence in her and that music has never been released. That pattern repeated when Wendy & Lisa (the distaff part of Prince’s Revolution band) produced more music with her. The label simply wasn’t interested.
Dropped by MCA, she soldiered on and finally, her lawyer slipped her songs to someone at Atlantic Records and she signed with them. Her eponymous effort arrived in 1995 and contained her hooky, Folk-Pop charmer, “I Kissed A Girl.” A sly and joyful celebration of same-sex attraction, its popularity was driven by a quirky video featuring Jill and her suburban pal acting on their mutual affinity with a bit of selective smooching. MTV was in, and critical acclaim was matched by commercial success. The song peaked at #20 on the Modern Rock chart. More importantly, it allowed young people wrestling with their sexual identities to know they weren’t alone.
Although this was the pinnacle of Jill’s commercial success, each ensuing album was an artistic triumph. All told, she went on to record 10 studio albums, a live set and a hits compilation. Each one matched indelible melodies and astute arrangements to quick-witted lyrics that walked the tightrope between sagacious and smart-ass. Her fervent fan-base never stopped loving her. Meanwhile, peers and heroes like Syd Straw, Margaret Cho, Julia Sweeney, John Doe, Lloyd Cole, Warren Zevon, Marshall Crenshaw, Robin Eaton, Richard Barone and Ben Lee became collaborators and partners in crime.
She was probably the first musician to successfully crowd-source funding for an album. Jill basically shrugged when Katy Perry appropriated the title “I Kissed A Girl” for her own execrable song that offered a shallow and vaguely salacious take on same-sex attraction, featuring Katy’s over-singing and the egregious instrumentation. Later, she joked that she actually saw a bump in sales from folks accidently buying her song instead of Katy’s.
In 2022 she unveiled her Off-Broadway show, Fuck 7th Grade. Reviewers characterized it as a Queer coming-of-age musical memoir, that traced nerdy adolescence to an artistically fulfilling adulthood. The critical acclaim extended to a nomination for a Drama Desk award. With the release of the This summer, Jill had planned to tour behind the release of the Cast album, a mix of old and new songs spanning the last 45 years.
The record jolts into gear with “Raleigh Blue Chopper,” a stripped-down ode to a tricked-out bike she asked for forever and finally receives on her birthday. The Punky arrangement is initially powered by slashing electric guitar, as lyrics revel in those last few moments of carefree childhood: “Riding down First to Colorado Blvd. faster than the breeze in my Raleigh Blue Chopper, man at the store says ‘it’s a boy’s bike,’ yeah, I know, it’s a Raleigh Blue Chopper, girls in my neighborhood with pretty girl bikes, they don’t like ‘no, we don’t like’ each other, and my Raleigh Blue Chopper.” As the song downshifts, she offers up a spoken interlude: “When I was 12 years old, I was this fierce little Rocker who wanted to be Jimi Hendrix, the boys used to think I was cool, the girls, I think they envied me, and I didn’t have to tell anybody what I was, I just was.” The band kicks in with a vengeance, all pummeling drums and spiky keys as Jill exuberantly celebrates those waning days of freedom: “Got a radio strapped to the handlebars, singing ‘Telegram Sam,’ I’m a Rock & Roll star.” As the song pedals across the finish line, it neatly folds into “I Hate Horses.”
Not so much an ode to equine antipathy as an acknowledgment that too many pre-teen girls were obsessed with drawing horses. From the clip-clop gait, (home on the) range-y guitar, and Sons Of The Pioneers-campfire harmonies, the lyrics mildly protest being trapped at a horsey girl’s camp in the mountains.
A Cast album basically delivers the songs from a musical show, sans any of the dialogue or conversation that moves the plot along. The beauty of this record is you don’t need to be privy to the in-between patter to understand the trajectory of this musical roman a clef. In typical Jill fashion, the next three songs are equal parts poignant and droll.
“Strawberry Gloss” marks that moment when you’re required to put away childish things, in order to join your contemporaries and invest in all the rituals of puberty. Strummy guitars wash over a spare arrangement that echoes the willowy grace of a Burt Bacharach song. Deft lyrics sketch out a scenario that girls who came of age in the ‘70s easily recall: “Older girls with the Sun-In hair, then my best friend became aware of the boys after school, then she began to wear Strawberry Gloss/Someday, some way, love will be calling and I will be falling, sometime, I’ll find someone to love me too.” It’s a steep learning curve, as “Hot Wheels and comic books are hidden away, for Seventeen magazine and Jean Nate,’ so I kiss the mirror to see how I taste, Strawberry Gloss.” Rippling piano notes magnify the sense of yearning in ¾ time, as the song gracefully winds down.
Meanwhile, “Forbidden Thoughts Of Youth” confirm that our heroine has figured out for her, attraction doesn’t lie strictly with the opposite sex. Serpentine guitars dart through the mix atop delicate percussion on this feathery piano ballad. Cogent lyrics cut to the quick: “In the parking lot of Captain Dee’s, Billy rolls one from just stems and seeds, He wanted to go, but I just didn’t know, cause he didn’t do it for me/I just kept seeing your eyes, imagining that you were by my side, we’d take the bus where there’s others like us, and we wouldn’t have to hide.” A spark has been ignited.
The glow of mutual attraction combusts on “What Do I Do With My Tongue.” It starts of slowly, a spoken preamble sets the stage for a teenage assignation. Records are spun, illicit libations consumed, as the pair inch closer to each other. Tentative guitar licks accompany each breathless twist and turn: “I know might happen tonight, your parents are out and we both will get high, we’ll sit close on the couch, watching TV, inching closer and closer, our knees start to touch, your hands rest on mine, is this a sign, my heartbeats go crazy, now what do I do, who makes the first move, it’s so fucking scary.” Suddenly the instrumentation revs up, erupting into a kind of Folk-Punk Sea-Shanty, replete with a ramshackle beat and wheezy Parisian accordion. The chorus asks that eternal question, “What do I do with my tongue…do I open my eyes, or do they stay closed, do I stay silent (or) let out a little moan, I just don’t wanna be gross, I don’t wanna be gross.”
“I Put My Headphones On,” takes a deep dive to the subconscious. Braided guitars, shivery keys and twinkly percussion accompany an interior monologue that stir repressed terrors. Only musical charms can soothe the savage breast: “Flip the record, headphones on, Court And Spark, the seventh song, Joni sings ‘love is gone, love is gone,’ Janis Ian’s ‘Seventeen,’ that song from 10cc, ‘Alone Again, Naturally,’ someone has it worse than me, Sam Stone, Major Tom, Captain Jack, Delta Dawn, Alvin Tustig, Sweet Jane, music wash away my pain….ooh, ooh child, things are gonna get easier.”
“Pilar” shapeshifts from defiant Soul-Pop to a bossy Bossa Nova, reflecting Jill’s junior year abroad. Ticklish piano keys wash over sinuous guitar and insistent Flamenco-style handclaps. Conversational lyrics ping-pong between Pilar’s world-weary skepticism and Jill’s idealistic feminism: “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 mother, a whore or a wife- So, why don’t you do something about it, things don’t happen to you, you make them happen…she said you don’t understand, you’re from a different land/We’ve seen your freedom, we hear your TV shows, so simple, so inviting, thought I’d like to know, I’m the talk of the town, I’m the shame of my family, your wonderful freedom, look where it’s got me.”
The metaphors are fast and furious on both “When My Ship Comes In” and “Mexican Wrestler.” The former locks into an irresistible Latin Jazz groove that shares some musical DNA with Ramsey Lewis’ “The In Crowd.” Skittery electric guitar rides roughshod over sinewy bass lines, plush electric piano and a conga-fied beat. Lyrics long for that moment when prosperity and passion coalesce: “When my ship comes in, I’ll be happenin’ after all these years, I’ll be happenin’, when my ship comes in, you’ll finally love me and I’ll never leave you when my ship comes in.”
Conversely, the latter is a tender treatise on heartbreak. It’s just Jill and her trusty acoustic guitar as lyrics paint a portrait of false hopes and home truths: “Sometimes I wish I was a wrestler, a Mexican wrestler in a red vinyl mask, and I might take you and body slam you and maybe cause you physical harm, but when we would land I might take pity on you, I can crack all your ribs, but I can’t break your heart…Sometimes, I wish I was a beauty, a beautiful girl who was still 21, and I’d turn your head, as well as your buddies, and I could afford to play hard to get, we’d go to parties and you’d show me off, and I’d go home with someone else/You will never love me, and this I can’t forgive, and it will always bug me, as long as I will live, you will never love me, why should I even care, it’s not that you’re so special, you’re just the cross I bear.”
“Open Mic Night” is even more vulnerable. As sly organ fillips envelop shimmery guitars and a hi-hat kick, lyrics chronicle the steely fragility it takes to get on stage and share her talent: “Open mic night, open mic night, every other Tuesday at a quarter past nine, don’t be afraid you’ll be just fine, everybody starts at open mic night.” When the spotlight shines and she begins the finger-picked intro to her “Houdini’s Box,” it feels as though sunshine has eclipsed a cloudy day.
A couple songs speak to her frustration with the music business. The tentative “Sold My Soul,” is awash in pointillist keys as lyrics like “I feel like a Cliff Note to a novel no one can read, and I feel like such a phony, like I got them all deceived, and I feel like a punchline nobody gets, I bet that you’re laughing and shaking your head.” Meanwhile, “Bitter” flips the script. Powered by a kinetic pulse, jaunty guitars and brittle bass, the temptation to talk shit is nearly irresistible: “I could sneer, I could glare, say that life is so unfair, and the one who made it, made it cause her breasts were really big/Well, I don’t want to get bitter, I don’t want to turn cruel, I don’t want to get cruel before I have to….so I’ll smile with the rest, wishing everyone the best, and know the one who made it, made it cause she was actually pretty good.”
Three final songs end the set on a high note. “I Kissed Girl,” gets the once over twice, the arrangement shifts from Folk-Pop to a rollicking Honky-Tonk confection. Ringing guitars partner with sparkly percussion and coltish piano. Even decades later her ebullience shines through as she confides “I kissed a girl her lips were sweet, it felt just like kissing me but better, I kissed a girl, well, I kissed a girl and it changed the world and I’m so glad I kissed a girl.”
By the time she gets to “Underground Victorious,” she confesses “I still feel like I lived through 7th grade over and over again, but the difference is I’m used to it.” An anthemic number that matches chunky guitars, plinky piano and a thunking beat, it tells the story of a queer kid who is bullied on the schoolyard but finds solace in his own little world: “Upstairs in his room, he’d close the door, tie on his cape, put on his skin-tight suit, Underdog Victorious, he was simply glorious, someday he’d die notorious, Underdog Victorious/He could see into the future, that was one of his great gifts, and one day all those dodgeball bullies would dream of his sweet kiss.”
The closing cut, “A Good Life,” finds Jill turning that frown upside down. Plucky guitars lattice impish percussion and swirly, swoony woodwinds. With her trademark grace, grit and wit, she promises whatever life throws at us, we can handle it: “Tomorrow the ground may shake, like they said it was bound to happen one day, and the Hollywood sign will fall, the final call, well, don’t you fret and don’t be blue, you had me and I had you, it was a good life.” The cast and the audience chime in on the final refrain: “I said boom-boom, crash-crash, underneath the overpass, burning buildings, flying glass, it was a good life, on the day the earth stood still, we won’t have to pay our bills, as the mud slides down the hill, good life, and we won’t have to make our beds, break out the booze, and like I said, let’s have a ball before we’re dead, a good life, let the pious rise above, we’ll go down in our sweet love, it was a good, good life.”
Liza Birkenmeier wrote the book for Fuck 7th Grade, crafting the narrative structure and dialogue around Jill’s music and lyrics. It was directed by Lisa Peterson. The cast included musical director Julie Wolf (Ani Difranco, Bruce Cockburn, indigo girls, Maceo Parker) as well as Kristen Ellis Henderson and Nini Camps (half of Antigone Rising).
There’s something beautiful and bittersweet about listening to this record. On the one hand, shit! What an accomplishment. She’s created a musical memoir that tells a story that feels deeply familiar to outliers, misfits, loners and mavericks. Queer kids, no matter their age can feel a little less alone as they navigate the rocky shoals of attraction, rejection and acceptance. On the other hand, Jill is gone and she can’t be here to revel in the tributes and accolades. Along with a kajillion friends, family and fans, I’ll never get over the fact that she is gone too soon. But I will play her music forever and think “ooh child, things are going to get easier, ooh child, things’ll get brighter.”
