Welcome to Songs of Significance, chronicling the songs that have helped shape me and people across generations.
You Were Meant From Me, Jewel, from the 1995 album, Pieces of You
Line of Significance
Put on my PJs and hop into bed/I’m half alive but I feel mostly dead/I try and tell myself it’ll all be alright/I just shouldn’t think anymore tonight.
Back when I was diving in head-first into the angsty world of grunge, along came this sweet-voiced Alaskan with such a completely different view of the world from the Kurt Cobains and Layne Stayles that I didn’t quite know what to think of her. With little more than her guitar and oft-told story of living in her van as a teenager, Jewel punched grunge right in the nose with innocent songs that were as soft as the Seattle scene was rock hand. She was, in a word, disarming. And so I fell into songs like this and dug her hippie-chick vibe and would confuse my six-disc CD changer (look it up, kids) with a mix of music that showed just how much the world didn’t make sense to me.
Funny thing is, it still doesn’t. But Jewel does, and this song is the one that propelled her to superstardom.
B. Goode is by no means a music critic and has zippo in the way of actual music theory education. He is simply a fan of music who grew up in Seattle and loves delving into the significance of songs.
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