I kind of went nuts the other day when eMusic emailed me to beg me to “come back” by offering me 210 free downloads. I’m still kind of in shock, both in terms of processing all this new music, and by the fact that it only took me two days to use all of those up. I will eventually get to the cream of that crop. But I digress; this post is all about The Lemonheads, courtesy of the recently-reissued It’s A Shame About Ray.
I was kind of a latecomer to The Lemonheads phenomenon; the period between the initial re-release of …Ray (the one with their so-so cover of Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘Mrs. Robinson’ tacked onto the end) and the inevitable backlash following the release of its follow-up, Come On, Feel The Lemonheads lasted from 1992 through 1993. I came to the party in (I think) late ‘93 or early ‘94. Growing up in severely un-hip Northern Virginia, I was completely unaware that a) Ray was a massive hit among college students and b) singer/songwriter Evan Dando was on the outs with the indie/college-rock cognoscenti by the time I caught wind of them. All I knew was I kinda liked the ‘Mrs. Robinson’ cover, and absolutely adored ‘Into Your Arms’ and ‘Great Big No’ (Then still pretty big singles; I remember taping both off the radio late at night with my headphones on and all the lights out—back when radio actually played songs you’d want to tape.)
Anyway, the next time we trekked out to visit my grandmother, my mom and I stopped into the used book/CD store near grandma’s house, and I picked up Ray for around $6. And pretty much listened to it non-stop for two months. In a lot of ways, I kind of miss the innocence of those days. My nascent obsession with pop music was still exactly that; I didn’t voraciously “collect” music en masse the way I do now, and therefore was able to devote more of my obsessiveness to a much smaller selection of songs and albums (anyone remember ‘Rapture’ by Seed? God, I loved that song.) While I still find new pop songs to fall in love with, there’s such a visceral connection to the stuff I was into from 1992-1998 compared to my more detached and discriminating “palate” nowadays that whenever I hear one of those old songs, I find myself yearning for that same sort of feeling again. What’s worse is the subsequent realization that I never will.
Which brings me (yes, I know, finally) to ‘My Drug Buddy’. While I think I had a more immediate connection to ‘Confetti’ off of Ray, my strongest attachment was undoubtedly to ‘Buddy’. At the time, I didn’t really concern myself with the “drug” aspect of the song title or lyrics; I knew enough not to play it around my parents. But what really drew me to the song (superficially, at least) was the completely effortless melody and execution of the song. During this period, I was somewhat obsessed with songs like ‘My Drug Buddy’ and The Beatles’ ‘You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away’ because they sounded like they’d be relatively easy to play on the guitar, a skill I was desperate to pick up. But the more I listened to it, the more the lyrical sentiment seeped into my brain (or at least my interpretation of it.) In spite of the warm, friendly organ-and-acoustic guitar intro, Evan Dando’s delivery hints at a not-very-well-disguised melancholy over the platonic nature of his relationship with his drug buddy. As a romantically awkward and inept 13 year old, this spoke volumes to me. And God, those backing vocals by Juliana Hatfield. Oh, how I harbored such elaborate fantasies about engaging in similar activities (minus the drugs, of course) with *insert crush-of-the-week’s name here*. And it wasn’t just ‘My Drug Buddy’ that made me feel this way; it was the entire It’s A Shame About Ray album. In fact, pretty much every song I liked from 1992-1998 (and beyond) was tied up in my feelings of sexual/romantic frustration and yearning. It’s just that ‘My Drug Buddy’ was the first.
*Incidentally, Gary: According to the liner notes of the new reissue, the reason you were unable to find King Street while you were getting drunk (*ahem* “attending college”) in Boston is that Evan was actually singing about Sydney, Australia.
