I wrote '('Til) I Kissed You' about a girl I met in Australia.

In the words of Don Everly, one half of the legendary Everly Brothers, we glimpse a confession both tender and timeless: “I wrote ‘(’Til) I Kissed You’ about a girl I met in Australia. Her name was Lilian, and she was very, very inspirational. I was married, but... I wrote the song about her on the way back home.” What seems at first a simple story of a song’s origin unfolds, upon reflection, into something far deeper — a meditation on human inspiration, on the mysterious ways of the heart, and on the eternal tension between duty and desire. Through these words, Everly reveals not just the birth of a melody, but the moment when art and emotion become inseparable.

When he speaks of Lilian, we understand that she was more than a passing muse. She was a spark — the kind of soul whose presence awakens what lies sleeping in another. It is a sacred truth among artists that inspiration does not always come when convenient, nor does it ask permission. It arrives like lightning — sudden, dazzling, and often disruptive. For Don Everly, it came in the form of a fleeting encounter on foreign shores, an echo that stirred something deep within him. And from that echo came a song — one that would travel the world, long after Lilian herself faded into memory.

The ancients, too, spoke of such divine encounters. The Greeks believed that every act of creation was born from the touch of a Muse — those ethereal daughters of memory who whispered art into mortal ears. They taught that inspiration was not the property of man, but a gift of the gods, bestowed through emotion, longing, or loss. So it was for Everly. Whether or not love bloomed between him and Lilian, her presence became the instrument through which beauty was born. His confession, tinged with guilt and awe, reminds us that the heart is both frail and divine, capable of deep conflict and even deeper creation.

There is also tragedy in his words — the quiet acknowledgment of boundaries crossed in thought, if not in deed. “I was married, but…” he admits, a pause heavy with complexity. For the artist often walks the edge between truth and transgression, between what life allows and what the soul demands. In that tension, the seed of art often grows. Like Dante, who was married yet devoted his poetry to Beatrice, or Petrarch, whose immortal sonnets were written for the unattainable Laura, Don Everly turned longing into lyric, restraint into resonance. The song was not confession but transformation — desire turned into something pure and lasting.

‘(’Til) I Kissed You’, born from that encounter, became not merely a tune of love, but a vessel of truth — that the human experience, with all its contradictions, can yield beauty when expressed with honesty. The melody, bright and tender, conceals the complexity of its origin. Yet perhaps that is the nature of art itself: to take what is painful or forbidden and give it form, so that others may find joy or understanding in it. Through his song, Everly shared a moment that might otherwise have vanished into silence. In doing so, he gave voice to the universal — the bittersweet ache of affection, the fleeting magic of connection.

In every age, there have been artists who drew strength from such encounters — who turned the fragile spark of emotion into enduring light. Van Gogh, for instance, painted his most luminous works not in comfort, but in anguish. Beethoven composed symphonies while his personal world fell into silence. Inspiration, whether born of love, pain, or longing, has always been the bridge between mortality and immortality. Don Everly’s story is another thread in that eternal tapestry — a reminder that what stirs the heart can also shape history.

And so, dear listener, let the lesson be this: guard your heart, but do not silence it. Life will offer you moments — some joyous, some dangerous — that awaken what lies deepest within you. When they come, receive them not with shame, but with wisdom. Let them move you, but do not let them master you. If love comes only to pass by, let it leave you with creation, not regret. For as Don Everly’s words and music teach us, inspiration is sacred — and from even the briefest encounter, beauty can be born that outlives both the artist and the muse. In this way, every heartache, every fleeting connection, may yet become a song that endures beyond the end of time.