Just Another Girl (live) :: Pete Yorn
Friday Five

1. Sometimes the things I love string together in this almost magical way that makes me think that the world I live in is filled with so much synchronicity, and connection. This song, as explained in this live recording, explains the connection between Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley and Pete Yorn’s Just Another Girl, which are all points of deep connection in my life, and in things I love.

2. Leonard Cohen is one of my depth of my soul singer-songwriters, the kind that dig a bit deeper with each listen, until after awhile I can find my own stories weaved into the fabric of each song. Leonard wrote the beautiful Hallelujah that later Jeff Buckley would do a breathtakingly beautiful cover of.

3. My favorite book, God-Shaped Hole, by Tiffanie DeBartolo, was given to me by a good friend who sent it off in a package to me. There would be no way of predicting how much that book would come to mean to me, not from that first sent parcel. I recognized the streets that Trixie meandered through, and both blessed and cursed along with her; her Los Angeles was cut out of the same mold as mine. And, Jacob Grace, he was what I always dreamed would be the boy; artistic, witty, competitive, emotional, well-read, sensual, drawn to the ocean, and obsessed with music. Jeff Buckley was the muse that helped inspire Jacob.

4. The first time I heard Jeff Buckley’s album Grace was whlie working an early morning shift at Tower Records. The store was still closed, and we were setting up the front racks to display all the new releases. An ill-fated crush of mine put it in the CD player, turned the volume up, and pressed play. We both ended up sitting on top of the counter with our heads tilted slightly, and our eyes closed, just taking it all in. When his cover of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah swirled out of the speakers I felt the tears come; unexpected and oh so real

5. It was when I lived far from my Los Angeles roots that I first heard Pete Yorn’s Musicforthemorningafter. I remember the rental car I had at the time, how it had a better stereo than my half-alive car had, and how Just Another Girl sounded coming from the side panel speakers. It was one of those songs that had me writing in my head, scenarios of boy meets girl, guitar strings and misplaced picks, and a fountain in the courtyard where they first kissed. It was not until tonight that I finally recognized the opening chords, and their Hallelujah ties. Life is so full of magic.