Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CXXXV--Crash Test Dummies: Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm

While I understand that this week's tune may not be everyone's cup of tea, for me, it's one of the many reasons that my love and fascination with pop music has never died.  It's an out of left field masterpiece, and nearly twenty-five years from the first time I heard it, it still amazes me with its compassion and surprises me with its musical nuances.

Like the sexual proclivities of many a young American teenage boy, the Crash Test Dummies met with much more success in their native Canada than they ever did here in the states.  Starting out in Winnipeg, Manitoba as a bar band circa 1988, within three years they released their debut album which went gold in Canada and won them a Juno for group of the year.  While the only constant in the band has been lead guitarist and vocalist Brad Roberts (though several other band members stuck around for the first 15-20 years), the band has been recording studio albums off and on since its inception, now numbering nine.  They went on to receive ten more Juno nominations, and were also nominated for three Grammys.  Interestingly (or not). though the bulk of the band no longer records together, they keep in touch, and most of them are busy raising families and working regular jobs (even Brad Roberts taught school for a while in the 2000's).  I guess it ain't all party, party, party if you're a rock and roll star....

Released in 1993 on their God Shuffled His Feet LP (which is probably in the running for one of the ten best album titles ever), "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm" would reach #4 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100, and #1 in Germany and Australia (surprisingly, the song only reached #14 in the band's homeland).  The song is comprised of three vignettes (a boy whose hair turned bright white after a severe auto accident, a girl with birth marks all over her body, a boy whose church's members throw themselves about on the floor) about kids, who through either accident, birth, or fate are outcasts of a sort who find themselves trying to explain the unexplainable.  The song is sung by Roberts in a bass baritone (thank God Wikipedia knew what his vocals were called because the best I would have come up with was...bizarre? different? ominous?) that really sets it apart from just about any other vocals you've ever heard, and the music is, well, understated but like a clock reflecting the time, it underscores the sorrow at the heart of the song.  In the end, I'd be hard pressed to name a song that was more compassionate, both for those with an unplanned lot in life and those of us who watch them with a quiet awe as they push ever forward.

Fun Fact:  Roberts hummed the chorus (and didn't write any lyrics) because he thought it sounded more resigned than if he had sung it.  Proof that sometimes, despite what Mr. Edison said, genius is 99% inspiration...

Lyric Sheet:  "But both girl and boy were glad/'Cause one kid had it worse than that..."

Enjoy:

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee