Dear Ms. Hanley,

I wish I could sum up everything I’d like to say to you in one concise sentence. I can’t. I don’t even think I can explain how much you have meant to me, how much you changed my life since I first heard your voice eleven years ago. I was 8 years old when I went to see Josie and the Pussycats in theaters. At the risk of sounding like a grossly hyperbolic fangirl, hearing you sing changed my understanding of female singers and popular music. Before I heard you, I thought that women could only sound a certain way in songs. Women could only be Britney Spears, or the Spice Girls. There was nothing in between. And then I heard you and I realized that women could rock, could seriously kick the shit out of a song the way I had heard Elvis do it, or Jimi Hendrix, or the Rolling Stones.

The truth is, this realization changed my life. I watched Josie and the Pussycats obsessively, and listened to the CD every chance I got. Hearing your voice put me on a path towards a genre of music that felt all my own. It wasn’t influenced by my brother or my father, the people who, up until that point, pretty much dictated what I was listening to. I started seeking out female singers that felt like you, like home. There was something that I could understand in them that had been lacking in all the other music in my life. Besides listening to both your solo and Letters to Cleo albums, I found Blondie, Hole, Veruca Salt, Bikini Kill, The Dresden Dolls, Laura Marling, Liz Phair, Ani DiFranco, Janis Joplin, The Runaways, Sleater-Kinney, The Distillers, The Donnas, Ednaswap, Killola, and (more recently) bands like Little Fish and Vanity Theft, etc. I insisted on learning how to play the guitar at the age of 8 (and the electric guitar I got for my 13th birthday is proudly named Josie). Riot grrrl/girl grunge/female-fronted rock has become my favorite genre of music.

But you had an influence on me and my life that cannot be summed up only by telling you about the music your voice led me to. Your voice also taught me how to sing, and gave me a place to go when I was scared or lonely. It still works today (and as a testament to the effect its had on me, I wrote my college-application essay about your voice—I credit it with my acceptance to my top school). I was 8 when I first heard your voice. I’m 19 now and it still makes me feel loved and safe in a way that is impossible to explain. Your voice made me realize that that’s exactly what music is supposed to do.

I’m writing this letter to thank you, Ms. Hanley. I’ve thought about this a lot in the past few years, as I’ve become more and more reflective about exactly what made me the person I am today. I am proud of who I am and, to me, the music I love has shaped a lot of who I am. So thank you. Thank you for singing, for having a truly individual voice that spoke to young girls like me, one that told them that there was music out there for them too, that there was music that could feel like home. I needed to hear it. I still do sometimes.

Yours always with the utmost respect and thanks,

Emma Jacobs.