Jill Sobule, the award-winning singer-songwriter whose witty and poignant writing first attracted widespread attention with the gay-themed song “I Kissed a Girl,” has died in a house fire.

Ms. Sobule was killed in a house fire outside Minneapolis a day before a planned performance in her hometown of Denver.

Jill Sobule, the singer and songwriter whose 1995 hit “I Kissed a Girl” was the rare pop song of that era to take an openly queer theme into the cultural mainstream, died Thursday. She was 66. Her death was announced by her spokesman,