From the Vault--Shameful 90's Edition

There's a burger joint on St. Mark's Place that I take everyone who's company I enjoy--I discovered it while out with my friend Eeon, and then we took Pete (also of Canned Laser), and last weekend, I took Matthew to thank him for driving eight hours to see me in The Odd Couple.  It's an awesome place, a tiny, cramped little joint with sliders topped with carmelized onions, 3 beers on tap and Guiness milkshakes, pecan pie and the best fries on Planet Earth.

But this time, for some reason, they'd set the satellight radio to the 90's station, and it got progressively worse as our meal went on.  It started off promising enough, "Allison Road" by the Gin Blossoms (I have an unabashed love for the Gin Blossoms that Matthew claims he will never understand) and "No Rain" by Blind Melon (which I'm trying to decide whether or not it's an inanely stupid song or a bright bit of pop genius, like "Brian Wilson" by the Barenaked Ladies) . . . but then the unthinkable happened.

Whether it was because lunch hour was over and everyone else with normal hours and normal cubical jobs was dragging themselves back to another half a day of soul-crushing work, the tone of the radio turned from nostalgia to the Toaster-In-The-Bathtub Hour.  It started with Semisonic's "Closing Time," which I have hated since it spawned (my ex-friend Caitlin maudlinly used the lyric "Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end" as her senior quote . . . in 2001) and then went to the Verve Pipe's "Bittersweet Symphony" and then "Desperatly Wanting" by Better than Ezra.

Audrey Hepburn does
not endorse Deep Blue
Something

. . . and then, in case you weren't already about to stick your genitals in the deep fryer, came Deep Blue Something's "Breakfast at Tiffany's."

I know a lot of bad songs.  A lot of them.  But "Breakfast at Tiffany's" was the "Hey Soul Sister" of the 90's.  It's inane, it's whiny, it's really, really dumb from a band with a faux-intellectual name.  And you just know at least one guy in the band was a lit major with bad facial hair. 

A sample of the brilliantly crafted lyrics:

"So what now?

it's plain to see we're over

and I hate when things are over"

That is easily the most crybaby lyric in history.  Here's the chorus, won't you?

"And I said
what about
Breakfast at Tiffany's
She said, I think I
remember the film
and as I recall, I think
we both kind of liked it
and I said, well that's
the one thing we've got"

They're sticking together because of a film they can't remember whether or not they liked?  I guess there are only two things left to do.

1) Netflix Breakfast at Tiffany's and watch again to see if maybe this time you can be sure whether or not you liked it.  I had to watch The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension three times before I could say that I liked it.

2) Break up.  This girl sounds like a moron if she can't remember whether or not she liked a movie.  Then again, you're in Deep Blue Something, so it's not like you're going to do much better unless she's deaf.

The wonderful thing about "Breakfast at Tiffany's" is that you can make up lyrics really, really easily.  They don't have to rhyme or fit or anything!  It's plug-and-play songwriting, like

"And I said
what about
Buckaroo Banzai?
and he said
I think I remember the film
and as I recall
you fell asleep when we watched it
and I said, well I, tend to do that"

Or:

"And I said

\what about

Breakfast at Tiffany's?

and you said 

That's my favorite song

and I'm pretty sure

I left you in the parking lot

oh well, at least I

know all this now"