Kissed a Girl--alternative ending?
...so when the label heard the song, they thought, being the geniuses that they are, "Ah, this lesbian thing could sell! It's trendy! But let's not make it TOO lesbian, if you know what I mean." So when we did the video, I couldn't actually kiss the girl. And, in the end, I go back to the husband.
I wish we could have done a directors cut and filmed an alternative ending. Here's what happens in the original, then let's make up a better ending:
It opens with the paperboy riding by on his bike. I'm wearing a blond flip wig, living in this colorful cartoony version of 60's suburbia. I wave to Jenny, my next-door neighbor, who is married to Fred, who is "such a hairy behemoth." Jenny's wearing a brown flip wig.
I invite her to a Tupperware party - very Stepford Wives - and we are obviously a bit shy and crushed on each other. The next scene is of me (as the real me) in black bobby socks with mary janes and, sitting on an oversize chair with these huge braids on my head. Looking at it now, I resemble a Goth version of Marie Osmond in "Dancing With the Stars."
After the Tupperware party Jenny and I must have had sex, because she's under my bed hiding when my husband Larry - who is played by…Fabio! - comes home from work. They (The Man, meaning the record company) wanted you to think that I'm still into my husband, and not a converted lesbian, so they reenact scenes from Fabio-like Harlequin novel covers. The only thing at all titillating is that Jenny and I get to play Footsi under the backyard BBQ table. But then it ends up like most all pre-L Word lesbian-themed pulp fiction: I go back to my husband. The other choice would have been to kill myself. The video ends like it began, with me waving to Jenny, but this time I am 9 months pregnant. The paperboy rides by again.
So, what would I have done differently with the ending? Here's one scenario of the top of my head.
Jenny and I kiss. In a nice way, not a gross way. I wouldn't show cleavage, since I have none, but Jenny could. But back to the story line: What if after a steamy, sneaky few weeks, Jenny and I run off to Greenwich Village and live where other bohemians and odd girls live – I'm still thinking this is 1962. We become friends with the Beats, and I take off my blond flip, dye my hair black, and become a poet.
Jenny becomes a painter and works with Warhol. She teaches him how to keep a diary. I never became pregnant because I wore an IUD. Oh, and I bought a worn-down two-bedroom apartment on Perry Street for $20,000. I still have it, and now (in 2007) it's worth $5,000,000. Jenny and I broke up 2 years later. We just stopped having sex (bed death, some call it) but became great friends. The paperboy rides by.
I know there's not enough time for all this in a 3-minute video, but it could be something like that. And by the way, I wonder what ever happened to the girl who played Jenny? She was so nice and cute.


And as for the cleavage bit, I just saw your former opening act, Jewel, showing more cleavage than was sensible. It was a truly scary sight. It was on all those sites where jokers post bad photos of celebrity so everyone can laugh and feel better about themselves.
And Jewel, poor Jewel, is at home right now downing a whole container of Haagan-Dazs -- chocolate with walnuts and caramel -- yeah, she is feeling just that bad. There she sits, crying her eyes out and writing an achingly awful Maya Angelouesque poem. She is to be pitied. I feel for her as she struggles to come up with something to rhyme with "tragic sag". Me? I can come up with loads, but none she'd like.
And then there is you, Jill. You'll be seventy and looking as fresh and perky as a daisy. Ha! And you are cuter than Jenny too! But that's your cross to bear.
Your "Christmas is the Saddest Day of the Year" is on EW's list of top Christmas bummers--right up there with the likes of Judy Garland and the Who. http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20163256,00.html?xid=rss-CNNHome-20071204-100+Great+Christmas+Bummers
Great post. I love the impressionistic lyrics, they warm a jaded heart;
Everything's so tinsel, bright and new
Giant snowflakes fill Fifth Avenue
Window shoppers whistling merry tunes
Wait in line to get a better view
Of something that makes them feel alive
Like when they were a child...
I transcribed those from the song and probably got them wrong. Is it possible for you to post the full lyrics, Jill. I mean, this is now officially one of the best Christmas songs of all time. Every year modern songwriters take their best shot and fail. So take a bow.
Happytown goes double platinum.