Sometimes you meet someone and it just seems like it’s meant to be.
That’s how it felt when I met the girl I’ll call Jennifer.
Our eyes locked as I got up to play in front of the small, coffeehouse crowd and I felt, a little, like I was playing just to her.
She was with a friend of mine — who it turned out was her ex-boyfriend — but, for me, she was pretty much the only one in the room. I’d sung a song about suicide — she’d said “Don’t you just feel that way, sometimes?” and I said, “Yeah,” — and we talked for a while about some of the ideas behind my songs, touching on love, death, and fate, suicide and responsibilty to the living. It was an interesting, surprisingly lively conversation that wound from one provocative or resonant idea to the next.
Brazenly slipping my card across the table to her, I was somehow sure that I would hear from her again… I’m not usually so confident — much the opposite. But, looking into her eyes, I felt certain that fate would bring us back together.
That Sunday I wrote the fleeting shadow of a song below, “Jennifer” (not the real girl’s name, mind you) — starting simply from that pretty name and a sad, bittersweet mood… and not moving too far from there. It was my idea to fill out the lyrics, make some sort of story about it. In my mind, the song was very much about someone ending their life.
Days went by and I didn’t hear from Jennifer, though I still felt, somehow, that I would.
Late in the week I saw my friend, Jennifer’s ex, sitting alone at the counter of my local coffee house and sat next to him. He was unusually quiet.
Finally he said, “Remember my friend, Jennifer?”
I nodded. Of course I did. She’d barely left my mind — but I didn’t say it.
“She died.”
I was stunned. I’m seldom truly without words but I couldn’t say aynthing.
Finally, I said, “How?”
“No one knows. She was having friends over for Sunday dinner last weekend and when they arrived she didn’t come to the door. Finally, they peered through the window and saw her lying in the kitchen. She was already gone.”
In the back of my mind I couldn’t help but think of our conversation — but she’d seemed so full of life and I was so convinced that we’d both intended to somehow see each other again…
Eventually, we found out it was a heart attack — the result of a previously unrecognized congenital defect. She was only 28.
Fate… it’s a funny thing.
Jennifer
previous versions
Friday, December 30, 2005
lyrics
Jennifer
Jennifer
I swear it’s not your fault
It’s always been the same
It’ll always be this way
Jennifer
you’re not to blame
Jennifer
Jennifer, you’re not to blame
Jennifer
Jennifer, you’re not to blame
Jennifer
Jennifer, you’re not to blame
Jennifer
Jennifer, you’re not to blame
Jennifer
(C)1996, TK Major
(C)2007, TK Major
