Tag Archives: ween

#751: Ween – Little Birdy

Leave a reply

I am a massive fan of Ween. After listening to GodWeenSatan for the first time in 2015 and being amazed at the thing, I eventually went down a rabbit hole that had me watching every live performance, album, B-side, and rarity made by Gene and Dean Ween (real names – Aaron Freeman and Mickey Melchiondo). Pure Guava, their surprising major-label debut, is a favourite of many a fan of Ween. It is probably one of my least favourite out of all their records. Just seems like a sequel to The Pod. I believe both albums were recorded in the same place, possibly in the same sessions too. There’s a huge emphasis on the rhythm and low-end frequencies on Guava though – and this is made clear our of the gate when its first song ‘Little Birdy’ begins.

This track sounds high. Carrying on the lo-fi style that was established on its predecessor, everything sounds like it was recorded on some very cheap equipment. And for the most part, they were. The strung-out bass kinda pulsates as it slides from one note to the other, the drums are somewhat tinny and light to the ear, and I can’t think of a way to describe the guitar. Sounds like a slide guitar but it’s filtered in a way that makes it sound like a completely different instrument. Dean Ween, who ‘sings’ for the first half of the track, sounds totally out of it – like he just got out of bed or probably smoked a bowl two. And Chris Williams, Mean Ween to those who know, is the high-pitched vocal who ‘sings’ the rest and closes the song out. Both lose their timing during in the song, Williams corpses in the middle of one lyric….. this is basically a song that should have no right to exist. And if it did today, people would probably slay and move onto the next thing.

It’s all strangely hypnotizing though. It stuck out to me as a really good song when I first heard it. It certainly sets the tone for what’s to follow in the album. As to what it’s about, I’m not sure. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if the song is actually about a bird that one of the band members saw one day while strung out and became a source of inspiration. They can always make great songs about the littlest of things.

#651: Ween – It’s Gonna Be (Alright)

Leave a reply

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

3 Replies

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.

#580: Ween – I Saw Gener Cryin’ in His Sleep

Leave a reply

Not a very festive or momentous song for the coming new year, I know. But these things aren’t planned. I just do whatever song is next on my phone. And on this New Year’s Eve the track is ‘I Saw Gener Cryin’ in His Sleep’, the thirteenth track on Ween’s major-label debut Pure Guava.

For any Ween fan reading (quite unlikely) wondering where I would place Pure Guava in my favourite albums of the band, I’ll say to you that it probably isn’t in my top five of theirs. To me it just feels like The Pod Part 2, though with less songs and… a bigger sound to it maybe? There’s a larger emphasis on grooves and the drums on Guava, but The Pod in itself is just a lot more interesting and has a lot more variety – no matter how out there it is. I only have four songs from Guava on my phone and for some reason ‘I Saw Gener’, which I feel a lot of people would probably skip over after a while, popped out to me on that first album listen in 2015 or so.

I guess it’s because Ween are known for being this silly band who make a lot of silly stuff (even though their music is actually amazing and you should listen to anything of theirs as soon as you can) and this song details an instance where things aren’t as they seem. Dean Ween – real name Mickey Melchiondo, affectionately known as Deaner by Ween fans – sings about seeing bandmate Gene Ween crying in his sleep and offers some advice to help him through bad times. It’s all a bit heavy.

However, it’s shoddily recorded and set to upbeat, bouncy music which completely overshadows the downbeat lyricism. The drum machines skip out of time and some points, the drum machine cymbals thrash about wildly, there’s some piercing feedback after the first chorus. It’s a great listen. It makes it so funny, but it’s not supposed to be. It’s so conflicting. But that’s the beauty of many a Ween song.

That’s the end of 2017. Hard to believe I revived this back in August when I was stuck at home relentlessly searching for jobs online. Now I have one. I start next week. Hopefully this is the start of something special. Will see you in 2018. Many more songs to come.

#570: Ween – I Don’t Want It

1 Reply

I was about 18 when I listened to The Mollusk for the first time when looking for new music to get into. That album was released in 1997 so it’s not new by any means, but you know looking out for stuff that I’d just never heard before. I got to love that album but then I never thought about really digging into the rest of the band’s discography.

Fast forward to 2015. Twenty years old, just started a new job for my placement year. Things are going good. I was at home just chilling in the evening as you do before going to work again the next day and out of curiosity I decided to listen to GodWeenSatan: The Oneness on Spotify…… There was no turning back. I dove deeper into the hole that had opened beyond my ears. I’ve been properly listening to Ween for just over two years now, and I am convinced that they might be the greatest band on this planet. No one really knows it though.

And so, the first Ween song I’m able to cover is ‘I Don’t Want It’, the tenth song on the group’s 2003 album Quebec. The album arrived at the end of a dark period during the band’s original run in which drummer Claude Coleman almost died in a severe car accident and lead vocalist Aaron Freeman (Gene Ween) going through a crummy divorce. ‘I Don’t Want It’ is the song about that crummy divorce and depicts Freeman’s feelings about the whole situation. It’s a sad song, to put it straight, perfectly capturing the moment of realisation when a breaking relationship has come to an end. It’s obviously for the best, though the love is still there that you don’t want to let go.

For the most part the track is played straight. Verse, chorus, verse, chorus. Things slow down afterwards, a short break occurs, and then suddenly a burst of guitar feedback kicks in leading into one of the most glorious guitar solos I’ve heard, drowning out almost every other instrument, echoing into the abyss and backed by some heavenly ‘aah’ vocals. For a time I did think it was lead guitarist Mickey Melchiondo (Dean Ween) doing this solo. Why not? If there’s a solo in any other Ween song, it’s usually him who pulls them off. Then it dawned on me that it could possibly be Freeman himself… Turned out that it was, which made it all the more powerful and heartbreaking to me. It’s perfect.