Most of you probably only know Scarborough, Ontario’s Barenaked Ladies as those jerks who sang that “One Week” song. Or worse, the guys who sang the Big Bang Theory theme song. Or… maybe … those guys who sang that song about getting postcards with chimpanzees on them?
As a teen growing up in the Detroit area in the early 90’s, though, the Barenaked Ladies spoke to me. I would hear their hits from the station broadcasting from nearby Windsor, Ontario. I learned of the odd sweetness that can be imbued in having a million dollars and buying, say, a green dress (but not a real green dress, that’s cruel). I listened to the melancholy that they imbued in the songwriting of The Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson. And I appreciated the tragedy that they weaved out of a CD box set. It was geeky stuff that was a little rare in those pre-Weezer days and very much spoke to an awkward teen like me.
Gordon (the one with the terrible WordPerfect design) was one of the first CD’s I ever owned. Listening to it again these days takes me back in time to 25 years ago.
The second album (Maybe You Should Drive) was probably the one that made me a fan. Gordon features the goofy, nerdy pranksters with fragile souls that we know them as. Maybe You Should Drive, though, has tracks that feel indistinguishable and at time superior to the alternative rock that dominated the airwaves. For example, “Alternative Girlfriend” is indistinguishable from anything Counting Crows was putting out. Though nothing the Counting Crows put out ever captured the Generation X attitude and bitter sarcasm as well as “Young at being old/ old at being young/ everything’s been sold to others’ revolutions.”
My favorite song in the entire Barenaked Ladies discography, though, is “Jane”.
Cripes… that video is sooooo 90’s.
The song has got a mellow acoustic part and a heartbreaking chorus. Seriously, this song could’ve been played in a Jennifer Aniston romance-in-the-big-city movie and it would not have been out of place. While the song is ultimately about heart-break, it’s also about appreciating the mundane everyday joys you take for granted. A smile. Playing music. Dying your hair. Listening to your partner’s insecurities. Writing letters which fail to communicate how much you belong together. It’s the small undramatic things in life that you value when it’s all over. It made me see the world in the saturated colors of the music video… which is weird because I had never seen that video before I’d composed this post.
It made me dream that, one day, I’d find my own Jane.
And oddly, I did… minus the shoplifting part. You can’t pin that on me.