The first link in this chain was reading this blog post. I would first like to say that the writer of that blog has a very good podcast called Sportsfeld about Toronto sports and it is one of my favourite ones to listen to. Cheap plug finished. I also have a certain affinity for the American Pie 2 soundtrack because that movie came out right as I was starting to get into music, which for me meant seeing blink-182, Sum 41 and Jimmy Eat World videos and thinking "Yes, this is what I like." This is because at the time, that style of music was extremely popular and obviously a summer teen movie is going to just be a collection of whatever is the most popular at the time. I was too young for my parents to allow me to see an R rated sec comedy, so it had a bit of a forbidden fruit appeal to it. All of this stewed together and made pop-punk seem like the coolest thing in the world to me.
(I chose those three videos because each of those are the first videos I remember seeing from each band. Also, holy shit have you ever noticed how much Travis just does not give a shit about being in the "All the Small Things" video?" Also, did I just watch all three of those videos? You bet. I hate to be "that guy", but it really does seem to me like the era of the music video that just gets stuck in your mind has passed. The most recent example I can think of is "Big Beast" by Killer Mike.
Could I write a separate blog post on just those three videos? Yes, I think I was just inspired to.)
So longest sidenote in IMU history aside, that blog by Jake Goldsbie inspired me to create my own playlist of that style of pop-punk, but stuff that wasn't included on the soundtrack. Which I will put here because I am so nice. I then listened to this soundtrack on the way to Value Village and when "The Boys of Summer" was playing I was struck by something which is the real meat of this post.
That is, the line "Out on the road today I saw a Black Flag sticker on a Cadillac".
The Ataris covered Don Henley's absolutely perfect song "The Boys of Summer" in 2003 and in addition to turn the sparse, synthy pop number into a pop-punk song, they also replaced "Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac" with their version above. If you think about it, "Black Flag" accomplishes the same thing as "Deadhead" and creates an interesting reading of the lyrics. In my mind, there is two ways to interpret this change, which I will now explain.
The first is that Ataris head-honcho Kris Roe put a lot of thought into this change. In this scenario, Roe is a huge fan of the Henley single (There's no way you can be a huge fan of all of his solo output because outside of this single it really does suck. Believe me, I tried.) and tried in earnest to add something that spoke to the original tone and story of the lyrics. "Out on the road today I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac" is meant to be an observation of how the counter-culture inevitably dies and is subsumed by the capitalistic mainstream. In this case, a 1960's hippy who we are to presume was at one time an anti-authority pacifist has now soldout and bought an expensive car. Though they still cling to their rebellious past, their need for commodities has now replaced their previous beliefs.
Taking that into account, the punk version of that sentiment could be a variety of bands (As is the case with hippies. "Mountain sticker on a Cadillac would work just as well, though it isn't as much of a cultural touchstone.), but Black Flag works perfectly. Roughly 3/10 hardcore fans have the Black Flag bars tattooed on them and the actual music of Black Flag, who really only put out three good releases, has been taken over by the idea of Black Flag representing early hardcore and thus teenaged angst, anger and rebellion. Just like The Ramones, people will now wear Black Flag t-shirts without listening to the band because they know that Black Flag is important and it is cool to wear a Black Flag shirt.
What type of punk would own a Cadillac? Are we meant to assume that Roe is singing about Travis Barker? With the last paragraph in mind, the line carries the exact same significance, but for a different generation. With pop-punk having locked-down a significant portion of the mainstream by 2003, the lyric represents Roe noting the disparity between punk's original world and intentions and the one that it existed in 2003.
If we take that reading of the line, then goddamn is it ever beautiful.
The second reading is much easier.
Kris Roe had no idea what he was doing. The Ataris were always kind of the shittier version of their 90's skate/pop-punk bretheren, so maybe they were just hopping on the "punk bands cover pop songs from 20 years earlier" trend and were simply the first ones to think of Don Henley. In this case, Kris Roe knows that punks think the Grateful Dead suck, so he replaces them with the first punk band he can think of, the almighty Black Flag. I remember when the band was promoting So Long Astoria, Roe was speaking about "The Saddest Song" from the album and said something along the lines of "On Limewire there's a song by No Use For a Name called 'The Saddest Song' that was always mislabeled as us, so we thought we should just write our own 'Saddest Song'."
That struck me as such a weird dumb, poseur thing to say, which makes think that the second reading really is an option. Then again, in "In This Diary" he says "All those nights we stayed up talking, listening to 80's songs... it still brings a smile to my face", so who knows?
But please let it be the first one, that makes it just so much better
Could I write a separate blog post on just those three videos? Yes, I think I was just inspired to.)
So longest sidenote in IMU history aside, that blog by Jake Goldsbie inspired me to create my own playlist of that style of pop-punk, but stuff that wasn't included on the soundtrack. Which I will put here because I am so nice. I then listened to this soundtrack on the way to Value Village and when "The Boys of Summer" was playing I was struck by something which is the real meat of this post.
That is, the line "Out on the road today I saw a Black Flag sticker on a Cadillac".
The Ataris covered Don Henley's absolutely perfect song "The Boys of Summer" in 2003 and in addition to turn the sparse, synthy pop number into a pop-punk song, they also replaced "Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac" with their version above. If you think about it, "Black Flag" accomplishes the same thing as "Deadhead" and creates an interesting reading of the lyrics. In my mind, there is two ways to interpret this change, which I will now explain.
The first is that Ataris head-honcho Kris Roe put a lot of thought into this change. In this scenario, Roe is a huge fan of the Henley single (There's no way you can be a huge fan of all of his solo output because outside of this single it really does suck. Believe me, I tried.) and tried in earnest to add something that spoke to the original tone and story of the lyrics. "Out on the road today I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac" is meant to be an observation of how the counter-culture inevitably dies and is subsumed by the capitalistic mainstream. In this case, a 1960's hippy who we are to presume was at one time an anti-authority pacifist has now soldout and bought an expensive car. Though they still cling to their rebellious past, their need for commodities has now replaced their previous beliefs.
Taking that into account, the punk version of that sentiment could be a variety of bands (As is the case with hippies. "Mountain sticker on a Cadillac would work just as well, though it isn't as much of a cultural touchstone.), but Black Flag works perfectly. Roughly 3/10 hardcore fans have the Black Flag bars tattooed on them and the actual music of Black Flag, who really only put out three good releases, has been taken over by the idea of Black Flag representing early hardcore and thus teenaged angst, anger and rebellion. Just like The Ramones, people will now wear Black Flag t-shirts without listening to the band because they know that Black Flag is important and it is cool to wear a Black Flag shirt.
What type of punk would own a Cadillac? Are we meant to assume that Roe is singing about Travis Barker? With the last paragraph in mind, the line carries the exact same significance, but for a different generation. With pop-punk having locked-down a significant portion of the mainstream by 2003, the lyric represents Roe noting the disparity between punk's original world and intentions and the one that it existed in 2003.
If we take that reading of the line, then goddamn is it ever beautiful.
The second reading is much easier.
Kris Roe had no idea what he was doing. The Ataris were always kind of the shittier version of their 90's skate/pop-punk bretheren, so maybe they were just hopping on the "punk bands cover pop songs from 20 years earlier" trend and were simply the first ones to think of Don Henley. In this case, Kris Roe knows that punks think the Grateful Dead suck, so he replaces them with the first punk band he can think of, the almighty Black Flag. I remember when the band was promoting So Long Astoria, Roe was speaking about "The Saddest Song" from the album and said something along the lines of "On Limewire there's a song by No Use For a Name called 'The Saddest Song' that was always mislabeled as us, so we thought we should just write our own 'Saddest Song'."
That struck me as such a weird dumb, poseur thing to say, which makes think that the second reading really is an option. Then again, in "In This Diary" he says "All those nights we stayed up talking, listening to 80's songs... it still brings a smile to my face", so who knows?
But please let it be the first one, that makes it just so much better
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