The Girl I Know By Heart
Recently, by accident (or by the intention of an algorithm), I caught a YouTube performance Taylor Swift did on British TV a long time ago of her song “Fifteen.” Standing there in tiny yellow mini-dress with a sparkly headband, like an oracle of teenage-life, Swift helped me find a way to talk with you about a song I wrote a few years ago – a song about a friend from middle school. It’s song from the never-released Jeni demo archives and I’m glad to have the special world of Substack where I can share it with you (before it ends up on my Platinum album . . . ha, not really, but maybe?!).
In “Fifteen,” Swift writes:
When all you wanted Was to be wanted Wish you could go back And tell yourself what you know now . . . 'Cause when you're fifteen And somebody tells you they love you You're gonna believe them And when you're fifteen Don't forget to look before you fall But I've found time can heal most anything And you just might find who you're supposed to be I didn't know who I was supposed to be At fifteen
Yes, exactly. I remember when I was fifteen that between knowing that my parents met when they were twelve and the pressures of living in southern Christian American suburbs (in Las Cruces, Omaha, and Nashville) I felt I was supposed to find my forever guy right then. Right then at fifteen or fourteen or thirteen. We’d stay true all through high school and college. We’d get married right after we graduated. We’d have kids and go to Disneyworld. That was the “right” way to be. That was who I was “supposed to be.”
This wasn’t my parents’ idea or expectation of me at all. They really wanted me to study, practice my trombone, and go to college. This inner dialogue was formed by some kind of middle school spiritus mundi which went beyond peer pressure. It approached something like the hysteria of Picnic at Hanging Rock in Peter Weir’s film or Joan Lindsay’s original novel.¹
Was it hormones? The books I was reading? The music that was popular? Or just an American era of girl-ness that hit right when I was fifteen. Tom Petty wrote: “She’s a good girl loves her mama, loves Jesus and America, too. She’s a good girl, crazy ‘bout Elvis, loves horses and her boyfriend, too . . . . I’m a bad boy ‘cause I don’t even miss her. I’m a bad boy for breaking her heart.” That was how it all felt. Somehow, Tom Petty knew it all when he wrote “Free Fallin’’ and he was 39.
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That unbroken thread from middle school to middle age with that boy didn’t happen for me. Sometimes in my life I’ve felt like a real failure because that wasn’t my script, my movie. It hasn’t been Swift’s movie script either or the script for lots of other women. But still, there’s a weird kind of guilt (disappointment/bewilderment?) for me about it even though I’ve done good work and I’m proud of what I’ve made. As Swift says, “Back then I swore I was gonna marry him someday/But I realized some bigger dreams of mine,” and “Well, in your life you'll do things/Greater than dating the boy on the football team/I didn't know it at fifteen.”
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I wasn’t the only one back in middle school and high school who felt this weight, this expectation to pair up. That’s why Swift’s songs and Swift, herself, mean so much to her audience. They’re going through the same stuff as her at the same time – just like me and my friends back in the day with Alanis Morissette or Tiffany or Molly Ringwald in Pretty in Pink or The Breakfast Club.
The teenage girls around me, younger and older, felt this intense pressure, too, even though we didn’t talk about it. I don’t think we had the language. I didn’t. Teenage girls in series now like “Your Friends and Neighbors” are so self-assured and full of one-liners. Is it like this for teens in real life? When I was a teenager, we were dealing with the stress of being teenage girls before society at large started talking about “Girl Power,” #metoo, and “emancipated confidence.” We were caught in that generation between Gloria Steinem and Bend it Like Beckham. I can only be grateful we didn’t have smart phones and TikTok. I can honestly say I would not have coped.
My friends and I reacted differently to the pressure we felt to be attractive, but not too sexy; smart, but not too clever; and thin, but not brittle. I barricaded myself in my room with my bears, dolls, music, and clothes, and I studied. I believed that an education would help me conjure some kind of me apart from the me reflected by everyone else’s perceptions. Some of my friends got deeply into Christian movements. Some drank and partied. We ate tacos, looked at Elle magazine, practiced our schoolgirl French, and listened to Madonna on cassette tape.
Must be noted, Madonna did not have the kind of solid advice Swift often does (though her latest album has raised some eyebrows, too). Lyrics like “We are living in a material world and I am a material girl” and “Like a Virgin,” whose “fear is fading fast” don’t really cut it in 2026. But, I digress.
So, the song I’m sharing with you today, is one I wrote for those old friends who were just as confused and delicate as I was – so delicate that some nearly didn’t make it. But they did (most did) and we do keep figuring it out as much as anything can be figured out – all of us, those girls we knew at fifteen, those girls we knew by heart.
I hope you enjoy this rare track.
Your friend,
Jeni
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This song is a photograph album of teenage friendship and it’s as much about me as it is about my friends. This song is about wanting to feel safe without knowing how, and how singing your wish is a first step.
The Girl You Know By Heart ©2021 Before it all came down and we stopped feeling safe, we never said out loud what we couldn’t say. Then you took your first drink and I moved away. Twenty years slipped by until the other day. We spoke that schoolgirl French at the science fair. Your Quinceañera dress• and your big blonde hair – you looked like a teenage bride floating down the stairs. You ruined your satin shoes, said you didn’t care. You say you won’t live down the things that you’ve done – your glamorous disguise your life spent on the run. I wish you could let them go to play your biggest part – the girl I used to know, the girl you know by heart. In your Daddy’s car, we made our great escape to the shopping mall and the taco place. We drove all the way to France in one single day. We broke every heart 'til we came home again. And when we slept that night we were too tired to dream of the hurts we felt and the things we’d seen – the lure of parking lots, senior high school team, of every sweater lost and those unraveled seams. Before it all came down and we stopped feeling safe, we never said out loud what we couldn’t say. Lyrics and music by Jeni Hankins and Alfred John Hickling ©2021. Vocals by Jeni. Instruments by Alfred. Recorded by Jeni in Lancashire & Alfred in Yorkshire. Mixed & Mastered by Jeni. * I went to middle school in Las Cruces, New Mexico, where many girls had a big fifteenth birthday party called a Quinceañera. This began as a traditional rite of passage in Latino cultures, spiraled into the equivalent of an exceptionally expensive debutante occasion, and is now challenged among some contemporary Hispanic groups for gender stereotypes and excess. It's a deeply complex tradition on which I have no expertise. But, it was a ritual which crossed over into some anglo families in Las Cruces. The whole world of Quinceañera fascinated me when I was thirteen, but I had moved to Nebraska before there was any question of whether this tradition would touch my own fifteenth birthday.
I’m playing a concert at NashYarnFest on April 18th, less than one week away! And even if you can’t come to Nashville, the festival and my concert can come to you. My show and talks from four other speakers, plus a spin around the festival, are all part of the virtual ticket. It’s $35 and the broadcast will be available for a week afterward for folks in other time zones to catch up on anything you missed. Read more about it here: NashYarnFest.
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Thank you. And thank your for staying in touch.
Last month, I wrote about friendships that disappear into thin air with no warning. I was grateful for all of the comments you sent about finding old letters and sifting through photographs. I didn’t feel so alone in my bewilderment. Thank you.
Three Swans and Then One | ||||||
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I’d be so glad if you’d touch the heart and leave a comment. It’s good to know you’re out there. | ||||||
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There’s a superb article about Lindsay’s book and the film written by Jo at Return of a Native. I’ve only just discovered Jo’s writing and I’m already a devoted reader.
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