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25 Years Of Local H
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| | Everyone agrees that side 1 of Pack Up The Cats is good to go, but side 2 is a little weak. Joe Bosso suggests adding another verse to Lucky Time and, in an effort to save Laminate Man, we slow it down and give it the Taxman treatment. In typical Bosso fashion, he pushes for one more song. Scott had been going through a serious Stones phase and had a Keef riff that he'd been messing with. It was super poppy - maybe a little TOO poppy - but the bridge had a stone cold hook and something told us to go with it. The demo, called Lead Pipe Cinch, turned out great, but it just didn't feel like us. Maybe it was the lyrics. Written on bar napkins at Borderline, the standard issue lyrics about sitting at a bar drinking up the nerve to call an ex sounded like a lame country song. The same old shit. Something needed to be done. Besides, our story needed a climax. Think, dammit! The greatest rock song ever written is, quite possibly, Surrender by Cheap Trick. What makes it so great? The hook is unbeatable. For one - it soars. It has the most convincing key modulations in the history of pop. For two - they change keys right out of the gate, so it doesn't seem cheesy when they do it later. But those lyrics. They're brilliant. Funny, smart, and aware. Plus that refrain of We're all alright actually makes you feel like we're all alright. For just those few seconds anyway. And finally? The lyrics tell a story. A minor detail, but an important one. It was with that impossibly high bar in mind, that Scott began rewriting the lyrics to Lead Pipe Cinch on scrap pieces of paper while watching Scorsese's Kundun at the old Fine Arts Theater in Chicago. Originally titled All The Grunge Kids, it was a story song about a show gone wrong. The line All the grunge kids hold a grudge was taken from a newspaper headline concerning an ill-fated high school show that we'd played in '95. The headline read, Principal pulls plug, grunge kids hold grudge. Or something to that effect. Feeling like everyone was tired of the grunge tag, we dropped the grunge and appropriated The Who instead. Through the power of The Kids Are Alright, All The Grunge Kids became All The Kids Are Right. But we had yet to incorporate that smart-ass title into the song. That argument would come later. An early version of the song from the PUTC sessions incorporates I Saw What You Did And I Know Who You Are instead. Note that the bridge has now become the chorus. Why keep a good hook down? Thanks, Cheap Trick! While recording Pack Up The Cats, things were already changing over at Island. Universal had acquired Polygram and people were either losing their jobs, or worried they were about to. While we were in Atlanta mixing, we got a call from Bosso that the new president of the label had a suggestion about All The Kids. He wanted the title to be somewhere in the chorus. Maybe he didn't want a repeat of the Copacetic confusion, but he was insistent that the song wouldn't be a hit unless the chorus matched with the title. Scott, of course, pitched a fit and said, no fucking way. A vaguely threatening response came back about not releasing the record at all, and after a full day of seething, spitting and cursing - Scott capitulated. In the process, the third verse was strengthened and so was our resolve to be as unfriendly as possible to the new regime. But it didn't take long to realize that making the change was the right thing to do. All The Kids is one of our best songs, and adding that kicker to the chorus is one of the reasons why. After all, the lyrics had already been changed on this song so many times. Why stop now when we were so close? Nevertheless, we didn't like being told what to do - and these grunge kids could definitely hold a grudge. |
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