This man was extremely formative in defining my sexuality. 

I was about twelve or thirteen years old when Songs About Jane first came out and, after hearing a few of its singles bouncing around the radio, I asked for a copy for my birthday. I remember bringing it up to my room that morning after my mother had given it to me, putting it into my boom-box, laying down on my carpet, and listening to the whole album through. 

I didn’t understand all of his lyrics. I assumed the phrase “keep her cumming every night” meant to have her continue to visit his house each evening. A ton of innuendos zoomed right over my head. But, somehow, it resonated. I felt it. I understood him without even beginning to understand.

I remember sitting in the back of the car, having the album on in my walkman, and hearing my mother say to my father, “just let her listen to it, they like to have things to themselves at this age”. It was how Songs About Jane felt to me. It was something I had with myself. It was this little secret thing I could listen to over and over as I tried to align myself to the lyrics. I wanted to understand. He seemed so much deeper than the sex ed lessons I was getting in middle school, and he was actually answering the questions I did not realize I had.

I learned lust. I learned sexual envy. I learned sexual greed. I learned what it meant to want. In school, I learned the mechanisms. In his songs, I learned what turned them. And, I learned that I didn’t want to just be the women in his songs, I wanted to be with them, even though he had spelled out their problems very clearly in his songs. 

Not to mention his voice is pure sex. That counts for something.