When I decided to properly get into Ween by listening to their expansive, wacked-out debut GodWeenSatan: The Oneness back in the autumn of 2015, ‘Stacey’ was one of three tracks on the album that couldn’t be played on Spotify. Alongside ‘Bumblebee, Pt. 2’ and ‘Hippy Smell’, the song was added to the ’25th Anniversary Edition” of the album when it was reissued in 2001. And the funny thing is that it had only been out for 11 years at that point. But I guess there must have been some licensing issues going on with labels, hence ‘Stacey’ was unavailable to listen to. I found a solution by downloading a pretty high-quality rip of the album online – think it was the first result on Google, it was very easy to find – and once ‘Stacey’ got around, well, it was a pretty instant like, I want to say.

‘Stacey’ is one of the many Ween songs named after a girl. Just as entertaining as the rest, even if the story behind it may raise a couple eyebrows. The track’s inspired by a young lady both Gene and Dean Ween knew at their school who was, to put it politely, a little slow. The “Hello”‘s at the end are meant to be an impression of her. But the song expresses an admiration for the subject and acts as a sort of tribute. Though whether it’s sincere is another question. I like to think it is. Ween songs aren’t usually mean in their intentions, except for those instances when they very much are. There’s only one verse really. “I know a girl named Stacey/With a brain that’s kinda spacey/I like her more than Sue or Tracey/Do you know a girl like Stacey?” That’s repeated three times or so, and the rest the duration is filled with killer guitar licks, riffs and a face-scrunch-inducing solo courtesy of Dean Ween.

I don’t think the question of why ‘Stacey’ and the other two songs were left off the LP’s original release in 1990 has ever been asked. I’m sure people were used to GodWeenSatan as the 26-track record it initially was before 2001 anyway, so when the three ‘new’ songs came along, they were welcomed into the tracklist with open arms and time for questions was reserved for a later date. Twenty-four years on since that reissue, I don’t think anyone could imagine the album without them. Below’s a live performance of ‘Stacey’, done in September 1991 when the duo were promoting their new second album The Pod. Mushrooms may have been digested prior to it.