I grew up in a progressive family and everyone around us was as well. Colorado has its issues, groups like Focus in the Family, but Denver was always a very progressive city.
But the cold there is NOTHING like here, it’s different when there’s two feet of snow and not a cloud in the sky and all you need is a sweater. When I moved to NY everyone said, you should be used to the cold. Looking back I really appreciate just the air there and the weather. The best? I belonged to a ski club called The Eskimos and every weekend in the winter we’d take an hour train ride to Winter Park and ski. What were the best and worst parts about growing up in Denver? It’s so fucking scary! I think she’s haunting me! But to answer your question, I guess now I’m a combination of the two of them. It’s weird, as I get older I look in the mirror, and I’m starting to look like my mother and say things she would say. My mother was more… she definitely wore the pants in the family.
I look like my dad, the same light skin and blue eyes, cheekbones, and I get the creative and bumbling parts of myself from him. He was almost androgynous and he was the more affectionate parent. My dad was such an unusual man, he was a WWII vet, but he was kind of a sweet, absent-minded professor. What traits do you think you got from the folks? That’s what Nostalgia Kills is about, mining your history for songs and stories. He was a car salesman and sold us a red Ford Fairlane. My parents were great but I had to laugh recently because just before my mother passed, I did the math and realized that she’d been having an affair for a good part of my life! She married my stepfather when I was in high school, but she met him when I was just one. It was just my brother and my parents, who have both passed. But you can live in the most idyllic town in the world and still be a miserable, awful teenager! And knowing that I felt different from everybody back in the 70’s, it was a trip. It really was a great place to grow up, and I lived in a great neighborhood. I thought I was an urbanite because I lived in Denver. But for me, Denver was a big city, as fancy as you could get. And when I go back now I’m like, “Oh my God, the sky!” and I’d look west at a sheet of mountains, it’s just so beautiful. Your latest album, Nostalgia Kills is a look back in time, so let’s go back in time a little. Vacuum out that car and grab some friends for this special drive-in show. Don’t let her impish smile, lilting voice and frequent peels of laughter fool you, Sobule is a serious activist who is not afraid to let the f-bombs fly, usually followed by a smile! She will be performing on August 13th & 14th at the People’s Light and Theatre in Malvern. Her songs have covered topics as far ranging as the death penalty, anorexia nervosa, shoplifting, reproduction, the French Resistance, adolescent malaise, LGBTQ+ issues, and the Christian Right.
In a career spanning three decades, Sobule maintains a strong following of fans who appreciate her fearless drive to address social issues in her music.
Those are the words from the 1995 hit record “I Kissed A Girl” that catapulted singer-songwriter Jill Sobule onto the national stage. They can have their diamonds and we’ll have our pearl.