Tag Archives: the mollusk

#651: Ween – It’s Gonna Be (Alright)

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Though Ween have mostly considered to be this joke band who don’t take their music seriously because of the humour they incorporate into their material (which they’re not and they do), there has always been a song on each of their albums (except La Cucaracha probably) that can unexpectedly surprise you with its sincerity. There are a couple I can think of when it comes to The Mollusk; ‘It’s Gonna Be (Alright)’ is one of them.

This track has always been one of my favourites from the album since I heard it back in 2013. Following ‘The Blarney Stone’, an explicit number in the form of a sea shanty, ‘Alright’ slows things right down to darken the mood with its wavey guitar arpeggios and echoing percussion. It’s another devastating track in Ween’s discography concerning the end of a relationship. For anyone who doesn’t know, Gene Ween – lead singer and co-songwriter in the band – has a big heart; when it gets broken he can get really sad. He wrote songs like ‘Birthday Boy’, ‘Baby Bitch’, and ‘I Don’t Want It’ detailing some of the misery he’s been through. However, ‘Alright’ is one of those tracks where although the relationship is no more, there’s still hope that things can still be good between the two of them.

Things get weird again as they follow this with ‘The Golden Eel’ on the album, pretty much about what it says in the title, so it’s almost like the band just drops this serious track to just say ‘everything’s not as well as it seems here but forget about it here’s the silly stuff again’. But that’s all what adds to the charm… of Ween.

#593: Ween – I’m Dancing in the Show Tonight

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Ween members Gene Ween and Dean Ween both agree that their 1997 album The Mollusk is the best project the band put to tape. I agree with them on most days; for me it is always a close race between it and Quebec. I do hold the The Mollusk in high regard for sentimental reasons too; it was the first full album by Ween that I ever listened to about five years ago.  At the time I felt that I was in a bit of a lull, listening to the same artists over and over, so I decided to look for an album that I hadn’t heard before. ‘Ocean Man’ had been in my iTunes library for some time too, I downloaded it after hearing it in the ending credits of the OG SpongeBob movie, so it only made sense to hear all the other songs around it.

‘I’m Dancing in the Show Tonight’ is the first track on The Mollusk. For a lot of reasons, it shouldn’t work. No band should get away with opening any album with a kitschy, vaudeville show tune. That’s what ‘I’m Dancing in the Show Tonight’ is. But it’s executed so well that it never gets annoying. For the sub-2 minutes it lasts for it builds and builds. Starting off with a piano and the vocals, it steadily progresses as percussion and horns are thrown in and by the end it’s a huge singalong with a fake but emphatic string section. It may confuse some first time listeners, but there’s no time to really think because then the title track suddenly starts like nothing never happened. It’s a brave move. I really enjoy it, I think it’s great.

The track is basically a rip of the Christmas song ‘Are My Ears on Straight?’, sung by Gayla Peevey in 1953, with a few lyrical differences. The band full out admit this on the album’s liner notes though they have yet to be punished for it. Not that I want them to, don’t be silly.