Released 1995 Genre Pop/Rock Producer(s) Brad Jones | Recorded 1995 Length 3:13 | |
Writer(s) Jill Sobule, Robin Eaton | ||
"I Kissed a Girl" is a 1995 song by Jill Sobule. It reached No. 20 on the Modern Rock Tracks chart, #67 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #36 on the ARIA Charts.
Contents
2008 comparisons
In 2008, new pop-singer Katy Perry issued a song of her own called "I Kissed a Girl" for her debut album One of the Boys. The song received mixed reviews, with much of the negative reception originating to comparative inferiority with the Jill Sobule song. Hiponline.com wrote that the song is "not nearly as interesting or exciting as you’d expect. It’s not even half as good as Jill Sobule’s song 'I Kissed a Girl'". Glitterati Gossip wrote that Sobule's song "was ten times better, because there was actual emotional content to her lyrics". Sobule shared her feelings about Perry's song and use of the title in a July 2009 interview with The Rumpus:
When Katy Perry's song came out I started getting tons of inquiries about what I thought. Some folks (and protective friends) were angry, and wondered why she took my title and made it into this kind of "girls gone wild" thing....
As a musician I have always refrained from criticizing another artist. I was, "Well, good for her." It did bug me a little bit, however, when she said she came up with the idea for the title in a dream. In truth, she wrote it with a team of professional writers and was signed by the very same guy that signed me in 1995. I have not mentioned that in interviews as I don't want to sound bitter or petty...
Okay, maybe, if I really think about it, there were a few jealous and pissed-off moments. So here goes, for the first time in an interview: Fuck you Katy Perry, you fucking stupid, maybe 'not good for the gays,' title-thieving, haven't heard much else, so not quite sure if you're talented, fucking little slut.
God that felt good.
In a later interview, Sobule later stated that the interview in The Rumpus was tongue-in-cheek and in an article she wrote for The Huffington Post, she stated
I thought maybe this time I would have fun with it and goof on what many of my fans were hoping to hear over the last year. I prefaced my reply with a wink, and then rambled on with a string of over the top dumb-ass profanities, purposely out of character and completely in jest ... I may be a touch cynical about the business, but I have never really been angry or had ill feelings towards Katy herself. I was actually in a small way happy to not be the "Kissed a Girl" girl anymore.
Music video
The music video featured model, Fabio, as Sobule's male love interest. It parodies his romance novel covers.