Back when this song first dropped, (as it never really hit, not the mainstream anyway) someone called it "the indie-pop song of the summer." Indie-pop? This song? Puh-lease. This is a rock and roll song all the way. Listen to the chorus, to the guitars ripping those power chords, to the drummer flaying the cymbals, to singer Jenny Lewis trying her best to control her inner Pat Benetar. The verses might be pop, but they're only pop for the purpose of rising action, for the sake of dynamics. All the filigree work on guitar is just icing. Courtney Love only wishes she could have written a rock song this fine this decade.
The lyrics are as astute an observation on sex and lonliness and forgiveness as anything Elvis Costello or Roy Orbison or Don Henley ever wrote. When's the last time you heard a pop-rock song by a girl about a cheating lothario that didn't condemn the man?* As much as I've always hated the way that some girls (some meaning all) always fawned over the bad news, I understood. I didn't like it ('cause I wasn't bad news), but it certainly made sense. The fact that it made sense made it even worse, I believe. Dunno. I'm not at that stage anymore (thank goodness). I remember it well, though, and everytime I think about it, and the old seething jealous and envy rile themselves up again, I need to try to think of this song so that I can understand and sympathize, just like Lewis does here.
NOTES
*Probably the last time I've heard a woman praise a less-than-heroic man was Sheryl Crow in "Strong Enough," but the early '60s girl groups did so quite often.
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