An Enduring Tribute to the Elusive Spirit of a Musician and Friend
There are songs that simply exist, and then there are those that become woven into the fabric of your past, resonating with the quiet drama and profound ache of relationships that couldn’t quite be contained. For those of us who came of age with the resonant, introspective poetry of Jackson Browne, the 1980 hit “That Girl Could Sing” is surely one of the latter. Released on his sixth studio album, Hold Out, a record that holds the unique distinction of being Browne’s only album to ever hit number one on the Billboard chart, this particular single offered a delicate, yet musically muscular, counterpoint to the era’s prevailing sounds. It debuted on the charts on September 20, 1980, and would climb to a respectable peak position of No. 22 on the Billboard Hot 100, etching its place as the seventh-biggest Top 40 hit of his career. It’s a song many of us remember as a staple of classic rock radio, its distinctive mix of hard-edged rock production and classic singer-songwriter intimacy offering a sound both familiar and fresh.
The beauty of “That Girl Could Sing” lies in its tender ambiguity, an enigma that kept music critics and fans speculating for decades. In the grand tradition of songs shrouded in mystery about their muses, the identity of the “girl” was long rumored to be one of the powerful women in Browne’s orbit—the late, great Laura Nyro, whom he dated, or perhaps his dear friend and frequent collaborator, Linda Ronstadt. The truth, however, finally emerged in a deeply poignant confirmation after loss. The song, a heartfelt and somewhat tragic ode to a free spirit, was written about singer-songwriter and sometime-backup vocalist Valerie Carter. Browne had a brief romantic relationship with Carter in the 1970s, and her talent and troubled existence clearly left an indelible mark.
The narrative behind the song is a classic, bittersweet tale of love encountering an untamable spirit, a drama that unfolds in the deeply personal language that only Browne can master. He didn’t publicly confirm the song’s subject until after Valerie Carter’s untimely passing in 2017, a testament to the depth and privacy of their bond. He performed the song in tribute shortly after her death and later formally acknowledged her as the muse. It was a raw, human moment of revelation that deepened the meaning for all who loved the track.
Lyrically, the song is a beautiful, painfully accurate portrait of an elusive woman—someone who offered salvation but could not be possessed. The true meaning of “That Girl Could Sing” is the emotional reconciliation of a past love where the one who departs is ultimately a gift, even in their leaving. It’s about accepting that some people, like shooting stars, are meant to cross your path and illuminate it briefly, rather than settling in your firmament. The famous opening lines capture this perfectly: “She was a friend to me when I needed one / Wasn’t for her I don’t know what I’d done / She gave me back something that was missing in me.” Yet, the gut-punch comes almost immediately after: “She could have turned out to be almost anyone / With the possible exception / Of who I wanted her to be.” That single line—that impossible, heartbreaking realization—is the entire dramatic core of the song.
Musically, the song is far more of a “rocker” than the somber ballads of his earlier work, reflecting the slightly harder edge of the Hold Out album, but it retains a tenderness that cuts through the power chords. David Lindley’s plaintive lap steel guitar and Craig Doerge’s keyboards infuse the track with an almost desperate yearning. The song chronicles the emotional struggle of trying to anchor a soul determined to fly, a person who couldn’t be burdened with the weight of someone else’s expectations.
In the final, whispered confession, Browne absolves her entirely: “She wasn’t much good at saying goodbye / But that girl could sing.” The song title itself, which only appears once in the track, is replaced in the final moments by the slightly altered, incredibly moving admission: “But that girl was sane.” It’s the moment of acceptance, the realization that her freedom, which caused him pain, was the very thing that kept her whole. It’s a deeply felt benediction, a recognition of her wild, essential truth. For those of us who have loved an impossible person, one whose nature demanded a horizon we couldn’t follow, this song is the elegiac soundtrack to that long-ago ache, a powerful reminder of the things—and the people—we carry with us.