From Neil Young’s “Ohio” to Green Day’s American Idiot, Pearl Jam’s “Bushleaguer” and the Beat’s “Stand Down Margaret,” songwriters have occasionally used their poison pens to take on political figures, including prime ministers and presidents.
You can add the late folkie Jill Sobule to that list. The 66-year-old singer-songwriter — who died tragically in a house fire on May 1 — made a final recording that denounces the current U.S. vice president. Titled “J.D. Vance Is a C***,” it’s likely the last song Sobule wrote, composed quickly just a month before her death.
According to Rolling Stone, the tune came to life after Sobule arrived in Los Angeles to write with friends Michelle Lewis and Kay Hanley. The three musicians have previously worked together as the trio Sugar Tits, a name they derived from a slur former actor Mel Gibson made to a female police officer after he was arrested for drunk driving in 2006.
To Lewis and Hanley's surprise, Sobule showed up with the song ready to go.
“She played it for us, and we were like, ‘Oh, my God,’” Hanley tells Rolling Stone. “Michelle and I came up with background parts and we filmed it, and I started a TikTok account for Sugar Tits and just threw it up.”
The song uses a variety of rhymes — including runt, bunt and Allen Funt (of Candid Camera fame) — to insinuate the adjective describing Vance, but stops short of actually singing it until the very end.
The video was also posted to Sobule’s Facebook page, where it drew a range of reactions both for and against the politically charged tune.
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Sobule was no stranger to controversy. She found fame for her gay-friendly anthem, “I Kissed a Girl,” in 1995. It was a cutting-edge tune for its time, a bisexual anthem that helped break new ground for queer artists while it lent moral support to the gay, bi and bi-curious.
Although her star faded in the years after that hit and its followup, “Supermodel,” Sobule never lost her trenchant eye for social commentary and character studies, which imbued much of her work.
Speaking with Westword shortly before her death, Sobule described “J.D. Vance Is a C***” as a "really dumb little thing with a lot of words that rhyme with ‘c---.’ It’s not radio-friendly. It’s not my best song, but it does get to the point."
Another video posted on YouTube shows Sobule singing the song live with an acoustic guitar and letting the audience fill in the blank.
“You said it, not me, so they’ll beat you up!” she remarked as the audience erupted in cheers.
In a bittersweet twist, the original video went viral in Sobule’s final days and was approaching one million views on Facebook. It was the most exposure she’d had in years.
Sobule’s death occurred in Woodbury, Minnesota, at a house where she was staying with friends while she helped prepare a performance of her one-woman-with-band autobiographical musical, F*ck 7th Grade.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation. Her manager, John Porter, suspects Sobule’s use of medications to treat back pain may have played a role in her inability to escape the fire.
“She was in so much back pain that she was taking muscle relaxants or sedatives to sleep, and that might have made it harder for her to get out,” he says. “But I don’t know for sure.”
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