I listen to a lot of old music, and one of the things I’ve noticed is how little has changed over the years. This song dates back to 1990, when Letterman still had hair and nobody had heard of Kurt Cobain, yet the party scene it describes could have been last week. Always an odd live act, they seem a little self-conscious here, until John rocks the accordion while John pogos with Will Lee in the background. And Sid McGinniss seems to get a kick out of John’s string-rasping guitar solo.
These days TMBG is best known for kids’ records and David Letterman sports a hermit-in-a-cave beard, so some things have changed. Just the wrong things.
Great choice here.
This song was the genesis of one of our favourite put-downs in the early 90s. Called a lot of dipshits “bullethead” back then. Maybe I’ll start again.
“Out from the kitchen to the bedroom to the hallway
Your friend apologizes, he could see it my way
He let the contents of the bottle do the thinking
Can’t shake the devil’s hand and say you’re only kidding”
Great stuff. It is a song that gave me permission (and vocabulary) for pushing back at the off-hand and very casual racism you were surrounded by if you grew up in Delaware.
This might be the only lyrically serious song they ever wrote. On “Flood,” their best-selling album, it is followed directly by the immortal “Particle Man,” a ditty about a superhero the size of a particle (“Is a dot or is he a speck?”) that has many times been recorded by grade-school choirs and subsequently released by the band. An example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPI7ka0MiAA
Bullethead.
https://www.theadvocate.com/gambit/new_orleans/news/article_efd23b02-2013-11e9-8122-3be6d49d8326.html
I guess this fits in with the topic of racism… one of the heroes of the Civil Rights movement will be in Wilmington tomorrow to screen the documentary “An Ordinary Hero”.
http://dehistory.org/main-calendar/details/266-joan-trumpauer-mulholland
Great catch. Thanks for posting this