Barenaked Ladies – Gordon (original cover artwork)

For the past few weeks, I’ve been jonesing to hear “Brian Wilson” by Barenaked Ladies, specifically the live version that appears on Rock Spectacle. In one of my rare excursions driving a car, I took the CD with me, popped it in the player, and it wouldn’t play.

Denied!

Finally, as I was getting ready for my trip to Minneapolis, I threw Rock Spectacle into Itunes, grabbed “Brian Wilson,” and headed off to the Twin Cities.

In Minneapolis, I shared many great times, stories, and musical discussions over the course of several days, and at the end of one of them, I found myself itching to get back to my hotel room, to get some “me time,” and finally listen to “Brian Wilson.”

Brian Wilson (download)

By this time, another BNL song had popped into my head as well – “Blame It On Me,” which was a problem. I discovered and quickly remembered that for reasons unknown, two of my favorite BNL albums – Gordon, and Maybe You Should Drive, still weren’t on my Ipod.

1992, I was working at a record store in high school when I heard Gordon for the first time. My boss had gotten a copy of the album from a Canadian friend (the same one that hipped us to Blue Rodeo, actually) who sent it to him as an “album and band that he had to hear.”

I was hooked from the opening moments of “Hello City,” and immediately dug the goofy fun sense of humor exhibited by BNL on tracks like “Grade 9” and “Box Set.”

But I was floored when I heard “Blame It On Me” from Gordon. It’s the kind of song that if I was in a band, hearing a new band drop a song like that on their first album, I might just quit right there.

Here we are again and we’re looking at each
other as if each other were to blame.
You think you’re so smart, but I’ve seen you naked
and I’ll probably see you naked again.
Milli Vanilli told you to Blame it On The Rain,
but if you blame it on the rain tell me
what can be gained so,
if all else fails you can blame it on me.

Blame It On Me (download)

Don’t let the Milli Vanilli reference in the lyrics throw you off…..a goofy song, “Blame It On Me,” is not.

When it comes to BNL, I’ve always had a not so secret preference for the introspectively moody material. Like “Blame It On Me,” it always comes up on you unexpectedly with a track like “When You Dream” from the Stunt album, or “Adrift” from the band’s Barenaked Ladies are Me album.

Barenaked Ladies are great, and sometimes miscast as a “joke” band, which if you hear tracks like the above mentioned songs, couldn’t be further from the truth.

With that in mind, I made a playlist with nearly 30 of my favorite BNL tracks.

Check it out.

Relevant Links:

Official Website

Barenaked Ladies official Imeem page.

Check out the new Barenaked Ladies album Snacktime – Amazon link