Made famous by its inclusion/cover in the "It's Cool to Be Teenage and Pregnant" movie Juno, "Anyone Else but You" had been on my radar ever since 2001, when The Moldy Peaches released their (still-to-this-day) only studio LP, 'cause one line from the song--which (though cute and fragile and disheveled as a hangdog puppy) treads familiar low-fi folk ground, paved by Captain Beefheart, Jonathan Richman, Pavement, and the Velvet Underground (whenever drummer Mo Tucker sang)--was inspired by an incident my brother (a booking agent for several indie bands) witnessed and later related to Adam Green and Kimya Dawson. The line: "Shook a little turd out from the bottom of your pants." The incident: my brother was working at a grocery store, and he saw a man--who had been standing in the restroom queue for quite a long time...well, you can finish the rest of the story yourself.Anyway, it's still a clever little song, and it's lackadaisical attitude and kitchy lyrics are all made wonderful by Dawson's girl-next-door delivery, which masks a talented voice. She's downplaying it here--as she does on most of her songs--but the talent's still detectable, and maybe that's why I find the record so charming: in a song about loving someone despite (or, maybe, because) of one's imperfections, Dawson dials down so that her vocals will complement Green's, and that type of humility is more than just charming--it's comforting and hopeful.
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