—David Menconi, Down on Copperline
When Hillsborough’s Jess Klein decided to write a song about the difficulty of navigating this world as a woman, she didn’t have to look far for inspiration – but it was from pretty far back in time. Klein recalled an incident from the distant past of her own personal history three decades ago, a romantic teenage encounter with a classmate in her original hometown of Rochester, New York. Where she thought it had been something special, he thought little enough of it to humiliate her in front of his friends.
All those bad feelings go into Klein’s new song “Never Gonna Break Me,” an uptempo rocker that she doesn’t sing so much as snarl.
It probably started with that boy when I was 14
I let him touch me, then he tried to bring me shame
I laughed aloud with him, my tears went unseen
But I learned to claim what’s mine including my own name
And you ain’t never gonna bring me down…
“It’s not like this is something I’ve thought about constantly over the years,” says Klein. “And I did try to laugh it off at the time. But it has come to mind a number of times, and it eventually emerged as a defining experience – even more than I realized at the time. It was the first time I understood that who tells a story is something that matters. When I started thinking about using my voice to advocate for other girls and women, that’s what came to mind. It’s one of the first things that ever happened to me that made me want to tell my own story, what it looked like from my own perspective.”
Accompanying “Never Gonna Break Me” is a video that depicts Klein as a boxer who knocks out a male antagonist, played by her partner and fellow local singer/songwriter Mike June (who also took her latest publicity photos). It’s the first single from Klein’s upcoming album “When We Rise,” which is due to be released in September.
“When We Rise” will be Klein’s 11th album in a career that goes back to the late 1990s. She has earned some praise over the years in high places like the New York Times, which described her voice as one of “unblinking tenacity.” And she’s always been prolific. Even though “When We Rise” hasn’t yet been released, Klein is already working on album number 12 with longtime producer Mike Addison. Larger societal currents are creeping into lots of her current songs, not just “Never Gonna Break Me.”
“At a time when so many rights are under attack, especially reproductive freedom being stripped away, writing this song put me in touch with a sense of resilience that feels important,” she says. “I want to uplift people. There’s value in speaking your truth and power in creativity. That’s important to us as human beings. I think our super-power is envisioning a more beautiful world and working to make that more real.”
As for whatever became of that long-ago teenage boy who inspired “Never Gonna Break Me,” Klein has some thoughts.
“I don’t know where he wound up, but I hope he has learned something since then and is thriving somewhere far away,” she says with a laugh. “It wasn’t just about him, others were involved and went along with the storyline. I wanted to tell this personal thing that happened to me in a way that’s uplifting to other girls and women who also have to deal with some degree of this. To tell about the experience in a way that gives others a voice.”
