Leighton Meester Is Finally Getting Her Pop-Star Comeback On HIMYF

Everyone who’s been following Leighton Meester’s career knows she’s more than just an actor. Though best known for her devastating insults as NYC’s queen bee Blair Waldorf in Gossip Girl, Meester also found success as a pop star in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Meester seemed to step away from the music biz for several years, but now she’s proving she still has her vocal chops in her latest onscreen role. Yes, that’s actually Leighton Meester singing “Jay Street” in How I Met Your Father. (Longtime fans of hers shouldn’t be surprised; the song sounds like it’s straight from her debut album.)

Spoiler alert: This post contains spoilers for How I Met Your Father Season 1, Episode 9, “Jay Street.” Meester’s musical role in HIMYF was actually teased in the series’ premiere episode, although most viewers missed it. The pilot briefly showed Meester as Jesse’s ex, Meredith, in the viral video of her turning down Jesse’s proposal. After that blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo, Meredith was absent for most of Season 1, but she made her big return in the final three episodes. But it wasn’t until the penultimate episode of the season that fans actually got to hear Meredith sing, when her suspiciously named song “Jay Street” became a hit.

Fans only got to hear four lines of “Jay Street,” but it was enough to excite anyone who’s been missing Meester’s music. As all the HIMYF characters quickly piece together, the acoustic ballad is an ode to lost love — more specifically, Meredith’s way of telling Jesse she regrets their breakup. The lyrics are:

I should've gotten off the train at Jay Street / Cuz I wanna be with the tracks and the pain in me. / Sometimes I still think I can hear your heartbeat / Then I realize I'm just missin' Jay Street.

It’s immediately clear Meester’s the one actually singing the song. Though her music career is perhaps best known for her more uptempo collaborations, she did release some buzzy emotional ballads very similar to “Jay Street” — most notably her Country Strong duet with Garrett Hedlund “Give In to Me” and a few songs on her 2014 album Heartstrings, including the title track.

Of course, the HIMYF song is the polar opposite of Meester’s biggest hit: “Good Girls Go Bad” with Cobra Starship (aka the perfect encapsulation of 2009).

Since HIMYF has already been picked up for Season 2, here’s hoping some more Meester music will be featured on the show as Meredith continues to climb the charts.