Monday, February 11, 2008

Melissa’s Birthday

Unreleased Track

I have a love/hate relationship with this song. On the one hand, it’s a bit juvenile to sing about a drunken birthday party in which, as Seth and Doug were always so quick to point out, “the names have been changed to protect the innocent.” It gives it a little bit of a one-dimensional feel, but I guess what makes it work is that the story is cleverly told, making it more like an amusing tale to tell later.

A rowdy party is broken up by the cops, who take away a bag of pot and some fake IDs. The party doesn’t slow down as they roll the neighbor’s house and continue to dance and drink until the speaker passes out while the party is still going on. Somewhere along the way, they discuss a trip to Florida, featuring Jason Dietz’s “Happy Trails” bass line before going into a fancy free piano solo.

Today’s video is October 27, 2000. All of the live versions I have of this song leave something to be desired, so I figured I’d offer the one video I have of it.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very cool tune, tricky drum feel. Haven't thought about this tune in years.
-J

Jakob Dorof said...

i've always liked this one a lot. overshadowed by "long weekend" on the same bootleg, but still a solid little tune.

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