If you were playing some form of word association game — perhaps as part of a community service order you are serving for crimes that you are not entirely ashamed of, but have nevertheless moved past — and you got the word ‘grunge’, you’d probably throw up words like ‘loud’, ‘noisy’, ‘Seattle’, ‘flannelette’, ‘depressing’, ‘suicide’ and ‘heroin’ well before you’d offer up “light-hearted silly songs that showcase the breadth and sense of humour running through the scene at the time.”
At any rate, you’d have breached the one-word rule of the game, but you’d also be technically correct, which is one of the best forms of correct there is.
In the spirit of showing that it wasn’t all crippling drug addictions, inclement weather, and naming songs about teen deodorant brands, here are the five funniest songs from the grunge era.
PEARL JAM – OLYMPIC PLATINUM
This tune was released as the band’s 1996 fan club single, back when being gifted free music was actually a gift. Written by the producer Nick DiDia, this song is a tongue-in-cheek Olympic anthem, recorded to poke fun at the patriotism that was sweeping the country around the time of Atlanta ’96.
With philosophical questions such as “How long can I hold my breath and stay underwater, and wave my legs around in perfect unison with my partner who doesn’t really understand me, and my Olympic dream?” and a reference to Bruce Jenner, this is Pearl Jam at their least serious. Everything else they recorded was them at their most serious.
NIRVANA – MEXICAN SEAFOOD
Kurt Cobain was obsessed with bodily functions, fluids and deformities, and while this often came out in disturbing art of thalidomide babies, fetus collages, and other such things, sometimes it results in a bouncy pop song about how it “only hurts when I pee”. The verses are quite gross and descriptive, but you’ll probably struggle to make the lyrics out. I don’t even wanna start unpacking the title, either…
SOUNDGARDEN – SUB POP ROCK CITY
The earliest song to actively poke fun at the growing interest in Seattle music “where the rock’s so heavy, with all them sex dogs in my Chevy” and the cult around the Sub Pop label, this came out in December 1988, a few years before the flood really hit the city. There’s a mock phone call with label boss Jonathan Poneman, a sneering attack on the ‘scene’ and numerous other complaints that would be taken seriously if the entire thing wasn’t dripping with KISS-style excess.
CITIZEN DICK – TOUCH ME, I’M DICK
A pitch-perfect parody of the Mudhoney single ‘Touch Me, I’m Sick’ — if in name only — this song featured in the Cameron Crowe film Singles, and was performed by actor Matt Dillon and various members of Pearl Jam, who appeared in the film as the fictional band. Although this film was shot before the mass media interest in grunge hit, the stunted interview Dillon does sums up many of the muted conversations press would have with Seattle musicians in the coming years: “Well, I think ‘Touch Me, I’m Dick’, in essence, speaks for itself, you know. I think that, you know, that’s basically what the song is, um… about… is about, you know… I-I think a lot of people might think it’s actually about, you know, ‘My name is Dick, and, you know, you can touch me’, but, I think, you know, it can be seen either way.”
HOLE – ROCK STAR
Originally titled ‘Olympia’ due to the town and the people it was mocking, ‘Rock Star’ (actually the title of another song which they switched out on ‘Live Through This’ at the last moment) is Courtney Love’s sarcastic take on the burgeoning riot grrrl movement that was taking over Olympia at the time. “We look the same, we talk the same, we even fuck the same” sneers Love after asking ‘What do you do with a revolution?’ This song was the proto-Portlandia.
BONUS: PRESIDENTS OF THE USA – KITTY
They are a power trio who play de-tuned, de-stringed instruments in Seattle in the early ’90s. Sorry, these guys fit on this list way more than Californian surfer boy Eddie Vedder does. As always, complaints on the back of an envelope. OUT-SIDE.
