60 Songs That Explain the '90s - “The Middle”—Jimmy Eat World

Episode Date: November 6, 2024

It’s Jimmy Eat World Day here at '60 Songs,' and in typical Rob fashion, we take the scenic route to get to “The Middle.” Before we talk Jimmy Eat World’s smash hit, we discuss the time Rob’s friend got hit with a t-shirt cannon. Later, Rob is joined by ‘The Watch’ host Andy Greenwald to discuss his days of interviewing Jimmy Eat World, and more. Host: Rob Harvilla Guest: Andy Greenwald Producers: Jonathan Kermah and Justin Sayles Additional Production Support: Olivia Crerie Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Okay, this is a true story. I have a friend who once faked his own death so he could have more time to watch his favorite TV show. In my new podcast, Truthless, I'm talking to people about the lies they tell, from forging new identities to taking their love of Game of Thrones a little too far. From Spotify and the Ringer podcast network,

I'm Brian Phillips. Listen to Truthless on Spotify or wherever. you get your podcasts. My buddy Jerry got hit in the face with a t-shirt cannon at a Toledo mudhens game during his bachelor party. True story. This is July 2002. I'm 24 years old.

Jerry's my first friend to get married. He don't drink. He don't go in for debauchery. So for his bachelor party, we go golfing, which is horrible, and then we hit the mudhands game, right? The Toledo mudhens are a minor league. baseball team. They are the AAA affiliate of the Detroit Tigers. So you got 8 to 10 non-deboturist bachelor party dudes shuffling into the first two rows in the shallow outfield on the first base side.

And it's between innings. And here comes the T-shirt Canon. I can close my eyes even now. And picture vividly this punk, this kid wielding the T-shirt canon. He's a kid. He's like 17. He's He's like nine. He got the spiky hair. He got the attitude problem. He's chewing gum. He's smacking gum in that contemptuous manner of punk-ass kids. He's like a walking green day concert.

You know who he looks like in my head, Calvin, from Calvin and Hobbs, the beloved all-time classic comic strip? The T-shirt Canon Operator looks like the very unauthorized bootleg version of Calvin, who often appears on bumper stickers peeing on various objects, bumper stickers of Calvin, peeing on various rival sports team logos, or rival car logos, or rival political candidates. Calvin peeing on a competent T-shirt cannon operator. This kid spells trouble.

This kid spells trouble. T-R-U-B-E-L. Weird Al joke. This kid is bored. he is contemptuous. He is unconcerned. He is pointing the t-shirt canon directly at the spectators at the Toledo Mudhens game. Like he's holding a flame thrower. Like he's a one-man firing squad. I myself have never operated, never fired a t-shirt canon to one of my few remaining goals in life to do so. But even I know that you point the thing up. Yes? Upward. Not straight up, obviously, but you fire at a nice, healthy, let's say a 105 degree angle. And the t-shirt gracefully descends toward the lucky fan who will gracefully catch the t-shirt. And the graceful descent entrances and delights all those spectators who will not be catching the t-shirt.

The arc is central to the proper function, to the appeal of the t-shirt canon. Not so with this punk. The human peeing Calvin bumper sticker just squares up and levels the t-shirt canon at the front row at point-blank range and just rocks Jerry in the dome in the front row. Holy shit. Just annihilates him. A legit call of duty headshot. The t-shirt ricochets off Jerry's head and lands in like center field. unbelievable.

In one of the great tragedies of my whole life, one of my biggest regrets, is that I don't see this happen exactly. Jerry's in the front row. I'm in the second row, and I am looking at something else when this occurs. I don't have eyes on this momentous event.

What the hell am I looking at? I will never forgive myself. And so I turn back to my friends. And from my perspective, it's just that suddenly, for some reason Jerry is just facing in the other direction

and that's odd he has forcibly spun 180 degrees he has turned his back on the field and he is now gaping at all of us dudes in the second row with just a stupefied look on his face his mouth is wide open he's not

not smiling there is just the vaguest hint of childlike delight on his face he's in shock and we're all like what do you and Jerry is like I just, did you see? And we're like, did we see what?

And he's like, oh, come on. And Jerry goes up to the concourse, right? To the Toledo Mudhens fans services desk or whatever. And they're like, can we help you, sir? And Jerry's like, you guys just hit me in the face with the t-shirt cannon. And they're like, really? And he's like, yeah. And they go, uh, would you like some free tickets?

to another game and he's like, no. Anyway, at the time, I was getting heavy into Pedro the Lion. Listen, the music, the bands, the albums, the songs that change your life, or at the very least, define different phases of your life. These life-changing albums don't necessarily hit you

whilst some tremendous cataclysmic, apocal history-making event is occurring in your personal life in like society. But sometimes there is a cataclysmic life-changing event happening. So right when Jerry gets clocked with a t-shirt canon, I'm obsessed with Pedro the Lion, the indie rock band,

the slowcore band, the Christian rock band, the no longer Christian rock band. The emo adjacent band, Pedro the Lion. The band name Pedro the Lion is the emoist elements of Pedro the Lion. I am obsessed with the 2002 Pedro the Lion album control. I am obsessed, for starters, with the song magazine, which is a song about the

superficiality, the moral rot of the rich, famous, beautiful people you see on the cover of magazines. And even for me, this is not necessarily a new concept, right? The moral rot of rich, famous, beautiful people, they can buy anything, but they can't buy backbone. Right? But I've never heard anyone wax poetic about the moral rot of rich, famous, beautiful people over drums that kick this much ass. The drums kick a great deal of ass. Man, control is a phenomenal air drums album. Control by Pedro the Lion is for sure the all-time second-best album named Control. Janet Jackson. Pedro the Lion even has a song here called Second Best. It's a crushing and crushingly slow dirge about infidelity that song. A whole bunch of soul-crushing infidelity jams on this

record. Matter of fact, this one's called rehearsal. Yeah, there's me headed to Jerry's Bachelor Party on the highway from Columbus, Ohio, up to Toledo, 23 north to 75 north, under permanently overcast monochrome Ohio skies, passing various vaguely depressing rest stops and fast food joints, a sublimely stultifyingly midwestern melancholy, coloring and deepening and weighing down everything. And I am not not smiling as I play air drums to rehearsal. Oh, you think these are rad drums? Do you?

We have not yet begun to play rad drums. Awesome. Those drums are arguably excessive and inarguably awesome. Pedro the Lion is formed in Seattle in 1995 by David Bazon, a singer and multi-instrumentalist and songwriter of uncommon beauty and fearlessly self-interrogating spirituality and sometimes unrelenting bleakness, but there is a tenderness to him, a decency, a sincerity. Control is the third full-length Pedro of the Lion album. Topics on this record include rampant infidelity, divorce, obviously, spiritual self-righteousness and hypocrisy, corporate malfeasance,

alcoholism, misbehaving children, and way more misbehaving parents. An aura of gorgeous bleakness pervades throughout. Why don't you go ahead and take one guess how it all wraps up? Yep, you got it. That song is called Priests and Paramedics. That's the priest talking there. That's the second to last song on control. The last song is called Rejoice.

And it's very arguably the bleakest, dirgiest song. Of all, this record meant an awful lot to me in 2002. I spent a goodly percentage of my mid-20s playing air drums to songs that spelled out my imminent moral decay and physical doom. The despair of control transubstantiated into elation somehow. The rad drums helped. In 2014, David Bazan talked to the Christian Arts Journal image, and he talked about the 10th anniversary tour for control. that he did in 2012, playing the full control album live. He says, quote, I was nervous that I would hate it, that it would feel gimmicky.

But in the end, because that record is so dark and has such a linear narrative, playing it every night was cathartic and fun. What started every night as nostalgia in the audience turned to despair, because it's such a bleak record. That was fun to do, to take people to a very specific place from nostalgia to something far more real. End quote. So yeah, in 2002, I'm 24 years old,

and I listen to the dark, bleak, despairing, cathartic, and fun Pedro the Lion album, Control. As I drive up to Toledo for my first bachelor party, my first friend who's getting married, and therefore my first friend taking a legit, decisive step toward true adulthood, and when I get there, he gets fucking clonked in the head by a t-shirt cannon, and I couldn't help but wonder if this was some sort of sign.

A cautionary tale, perhaps, about the perils of taking decisive steps toward true adulthood, marriage and children, and viable careers and whatnot. Are they our highest aspirations? Our most admirable goals? Are they the whole point of living? Or is there no point to living, particularly? Because, to quote a song I heard recently, we're all going to die. Much to consider.

The next Pedro the Lion record comes out in 2004 and is called Achilles' heel and starts with this song, which is called Bands with Managers. This is the chorus. Unsurprisingly, the chorus is unfolding super slowly. Unsurprisingly, the chorus will richly reward your patience. Unsurprisingly, the chorus is musically gorgeous

and lyrically quite bleak. You don't believe when I say that it won't be all right. I will confess to you that for a long time I misheard David there. I thought he was saying it will be all right. I don't think that's what he's saying.

I'm pretty sure he's saying it won't be all right. I should know better by now. I love this guy. I know this guy. I know his band, his various bands, his solo projects.

I'm pretty sure Pedro the Lion is my brother's all-time favorite band. I put that song, magazine on a mixed CD I made from my younger brother and Pedro the Lion became my younger brother's favorite band. I'm quite proud of that if you want the truth. That's an elite

cool older brother move by me, getting my cool younger brother heavy into Pedro the Lion. But I love this band too. I love this guy too. I know this guy's deal. I know David Bazan's deal well enough to know that

he knows that it won't be all right He's got no problem telling you that it won't be all right. But in my defense, pop songs have been telling me that everything's going to be all right. My whole life. Bob Marley told me that everything's going to be all right on the song Three Little Birds from the 1977. Bob Marley and the Whalers album, Exodus, it's a movement of the people. This is the archetypal, the foundational, the God tear, everything's going to be all right song. Yes?

Sorry, every little thing is going to be all right. Every little thing is even better. That phrasing makes everything extra all right. I suspect that Three Little Birds directly taught millions of people that pop music, that a mere pop song could be galactically soothing. A pop song could be aspirational. A pop song could be unapologetically, ecstatically sincere. It could make you feel better. It could make every little thing better forever.

Al Green told me that everything's going to be all right. Better yet, 80s Al Green told me everything's going to be all right. Dig Al Green singing over some rad 1987 ass drums. That's a song called Everything's Gonna Be All right from his 1987 album Soul Survivor, which is even better a gospel album. Al Green's voice convinces you that everything's going to be all right, even when he is not specifically singing the words. everything's going to be all right.

But of course, this phrase can also be employed ironically, bitterly, righteously, ferociously. Naudy by nature sampled Bob Marley telling me that everything's going to be all right. They sampled No Woman, No Cry from 1974's Natty Dread. That's the other God tier, Bob Marley in the Whaler song, about how everything's going to be all right. I should have thought a no woman, no cry earlier. That's on me.

But naughty by nature used that sample to animate their ferocious 1991 single, Everything's going to be all right about how no, it's not all going to be all right, depending on how and where you grew up, etc. This song's original title was Geto Bastard. Tretch from Nottie by Nature raps, Say something positive. Well, positive ain't where I live. And this is another harder but equally valuable lesson pop,

music teaches you, that all rightness is very much a matter of luck and geography and circumstance. And then you go back and realize that's what Bob Marley was telling you all this time as well. The most transcendent pop music can be awfully complicated. The most transcendent pop music can also be somewhat less complicated. Real big fish, 1996, sell out. Don't overthink it. Everything's going to be all right. Abrupt and somewhat inexplicable hit singles. Ecstatic and apologetic jauntiness.

Hand-ringing over signing to a major label. Bumbling music industry shenanigans in general. Good, clean, wholesome American fun. These themes will resurface later. In fact, these themes will resurface right after this guy sings this thing. Sean Mullins, 1998 Rockabai

Sorry, lullaby Don't overthink it Everything's going to be all right The precise degree of everything's all rightness is largely a function of the all rightness

With which you sing the word Everything For example What if you sang Everything Like disconcertingly Wholesome Southwestern Pop Punk Elvis

We made it Everything Everything My name is Rob Hart Villa. This is the sixth episode of 60 songs that explained the 90s, colon the 2000s. And this week we are discussing the middle

by Jimmy Eat World. From their 2001 album, initially titled Bleed American, and then after 9-11, quickly and temporarily retitled Jimmy Eat World, self-titled because suddenly nothing was all right. And yet this song

about everything being all right was suddenly, inexplicably, ecstatically popular. it's complicated. Don't overthink it, but also it's complicated. Let's take five and then maybe get into how complicated it was or wasn't. Yes, another excellent ad break. I keep meeting to say that I texted my buddy Jerry

and I asked him if I could tell the story about him getting hit in the face with a t-shirt cannon. And he was like, go for it. But Jerry would like to clarify that he doesn't think it was a t-shirt. Jerry thinks the canon fired one of them squishy balls, like baseball sized but squishier and therefore much softer than a baseball. Not soft enough, but nonetheless. I don't know. I don't know.

I really thought it was a T-shirt canon. The argument for Jerry's version of this story is that this happened to Jerry. The argument for my version is that I didn't get hit in the head. I leave it up to you. So here's what you do. here's how you get things done. So you say you've got a crush on someone. You are smitten.

You are pining. You are in love. And you wish to compel that person to fall in love with you. It is the year 2000 and you've got a crush on somebody and you're making a mixtape for your crush. Or it's right now. It's 2024 and you've got a crush. It's whatever. But you're making your crush a mixtape with the explicit goal of making them fall.

in love with you. Cassette, Mix, CD, playlist. Usually I care very much about the precise format, but I ain't got time for that this time. Do what you want? But what's the first song on this tape? What's the first line? What are the first six words on this tape?

You have 10 seconds to make this person fall in love with you. What do you do? Here's what you do. You say the most beautiful things. And the first thing that happens in the first 10 seconds of the Jimmy World Song, The Most Beautiful Things, is that your crushes pants fly off. Just whoop, just whoop, your crushes pants fly off at high velocity and hit their bedroom wall. Or perhaps their bedroom ceiling.

Or your crushes pants fly off, shoot out their open bedroom window, and get tangled in a tree on their front lawn. One of those things happens. Point is, the object of your affection is panceless now. And they're in love with you now. We did it. Turns out the most beautiful phrase in the English language is, you say the most beautiful things when Jim Adkins from Jimmy World sings it. And now we need a second guitar, dulcet, delicate, tinkling, melodic, melodic, hypnotizing a second guitar line to tenderly sew back together all the rips in your crushes pants look out we are braced now for the imminent arrival of ecstatic cathartic heart-bursting guitar distortion you know it's coming and they know you know it's coming and you're still not prepared the tree

on the front lawn of your crush's house that's got your crush's pants caught in the branches is about to burst into flames. Hit the deck. Yeah, I'm not positive when anybody's singing right here other than show us all

what grace can mean and that's all anybody needs. Suddenly, show us all what grace can mean is the second most beautiful phrase in the English language. This song, The Most Beautiful Things,

first appears in the year 2000 on the Jebediah and Jimmy Eat World split CD. Six songs total with three songs by Jimmy Eat World and three songs by an Australian band named Jebediah. The original version of the Jimmy Eat World song Cautioners on this split CD is superior to the official Bleed American version of cautioners. Just in case I don't mention that later. I've just always wanted to say that out loud because it's true. Jimmy Eat World by the year 2000, even before the middle arrives and Jimmy Eat World thus fully arrive commercially. By 2000, these guys are already the mixtape nuclear option. There are love songs,

right? There are, I got a crush on you songs. There are, please love me songs. There are seriously, I'm going to burst into flames if you don't love me songs. And then there are Jimmy Eat World songs on those topics. And these songs are so love Lord, so crush having and crush worthy, so achingly sincere and defiantly sentimental and flagrantly ultra-romantic that if you're in the crowd at a Jimmy Eat World show, it's just people's pants flying off in various directions the whole time Jimmy Eat World formed in Mesa, Arizona in 1993. Four teenage suburban childhood friends raised on pop-punk buoyancy and wholesome ultra-sincerity and heart-bursting guitar distortion and extra chill suburban vibes.

They debut in 1994 with a self-released four-song EP called One, Two, Three, Four. And this is nobody's favorite Jimmy E. World release, but it just takes some time, little girl, and the ride's got to begin somewhere. Now, doesn't it? Hey now, look at you. Way cool. That song is called Look at You. Jimmy World at This point consist of singer and guitarist Tom Linton. That's Tom singing now. Guitarist and for now only occasional singer Jim Adkins, drummer Zach Lind, and bassist Mitch Porter. Mitch was raised Mormon and his parents are eager for him to go on his mission and so Mitch ain't going to be around for much longer. Alas. This super early underage version of Jimmy Eat World does not sound

like the middle era top five zeitgeist leading imperial jimmy e world usually right there in the chorus to look at you they kind of sound like themselves i suppose but like here's how this song look at you starts if you know anything about jimmy e world but you've never heard prehistoric jimmy e world that that uber pop punk ass tempo change kicks in and you go what we got some green day here we got some propaganda. We got some no effects. If you squint, we got a little drive like Jehu and rocket from the crypt to interconnected extra noisy and extra raucous San Diego post-hardcore bands, who are of particular tremendous interest to burgeoning teenage southwestern suburban punk rockers. But yeah, mostly what we got with early Jimmy E. World is a lot of work to do.

One other point of interest on this first EP, though, is a song called Angst for Joel, which is one of those, let's rock out over our buddy's garbled answering machine message sort of deals. And because these four songs are clearly recorded in somebody's living room or in somebody's linen closet or possibly in a phone booth, I'm just going to tell you up front that I'm 80% certain that this guy's going to say, punk is what you want it to be. It's not what anybody wants it to be. It's not what they tell you it should be. Punk's what you think it should be.

I'm 75% sure. Yeah, actually, the first Jimmy E. World EP is recorded in the trunk of a moving car. And I'm only like 60% sure of what this dude is saying here. But I'm pretty sure that the gist of what he's saying is, Live right now. And just be yourself. It doesn't matter if it's good enough, good enough for someone else. Excuse me.

Excuse me. Jimmy E. World 1.0 puts out a whole album, a self-titled 1994 album with 11 songs, including this one called Amphibious. Even if there were thousands of punk rock songs in which the singer sings the words, I Love Stealing, this would still be, delightfully, the least convincing delivery of the line I Love Stealing in punk rock history. No, you don't, Tom. God bless you, Tom Linton. Jimmy Eat World 1.0 guitarist and ostensible from and Tom Linton. But if you've been in jail, I've been on the moon. In my experience, you put on super early Jimmy Eat World to marvel

at how hilariously unlike themselves they often sound. Their proto-mall punk brattiness, their reckless, youthful breakneck speed. But then you start zeroing in on the fleeting, but still quite startling moments when they sound more, like themselves when the loveliness, when the sweetness kicks in. And you hear the future. Is anybody up for one of those deals where there's a string section? How did this band get a string section? And the singers screaming really impassionably from across the room? I love that shit, personally. How did they even cram the whole string section into the car trunk? That's Jim

Adkins, guitarist and for now only occasional lead singer, wailing there from across the room. on a song called Usory. Where can you hear this first self-titled Jimmy E. World Record? YouTube. That's where. I don't think the band will be remastering this one. But like the guitar here, man, the dulcid, delicate, tinkling, melodically hypnotizing guitar here.

On a song called Reason 346. What's with that song title? Beats me. What's the deal with the full circle K? No idea. What does your mom have to do with any of this? Well, if you have to ask, I just really dig the guitar right here. Man, the mom thing, I got no clue.

I just really recognize the guitar right here. Man, all right, enough screwing around. Let's get these crazy kids signed to a major label. Shall we? Already? Yes, this is the mid-90s. We got Green Day signing to a major label and selling a bigillion records, but all their old punk rock friends back in the Bay Area hate them now.

I'm exaggerating, but not my much. We got Jawbreaker signing to a major label and not selling a bagillion records and basically imploding from the ideological stress and Bay Area fan indignation. And then we got Jimmy E. World. Kings of the Ultra DIY punk rock scene in Mesa, Arizona, who put out their own records and set up their own shows in a warehouse or a strip mall church or a storage unit or whatever. And they tour very occasionally.

in their rented vans, but they also got this new song called Digits. And a hungry young Capitol Records talent scout named Lauren Israel stumbles across this song, and he recognizes something. Okay, this major label guy probably doesn't recognize anything in that part of this song, Digits specifically. The first two minutes solid of this song are instrumental in moody and meandering and withholding. very demure, very, don't do it. Rob, enough with the memes.

You're in your 40s. Don't. Okay, Jimmy World are getting into atmosphere, into dynamics, into less breakneck tempos, into tension and release, into sophistication. In our friend Dan Ozzie's excellent 2021 book, Sellout, the major label Feeding Frenzy that swept punk, emo, and hardcore, 1994 to 2007,

He interviews the label guy who signed Jimmy E. World, Lauren Israel, from Capitol Records. And what Capitol Records heard in this band was, A, this band knew the difference between a verse and a chorus, and B, Jimmy Eat World apparently had something that most bands couldn't buy for all the money in the world. Sincerity. And sometimes, when you're being sincere,

you've got to write songs where the first two minutes are very, very, very, very quiet. And then the next two minutes are very, very, very loud. That's Jim Adkins there, imploring you to pay attention and stop paying for regret. And that's great advice. In essence, what Jim seems to be saying here is, Hey, don't write yourself off yet. It's only in your head you feel left out and look down on. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. That won't happen again. By all accounts, Jimmy Eat World on this song,

Digits are greatly influenced by a fellow youngish, punkish, emoish band from Denver, Colorado, called Christy Front Drive. This song, Digits, in fact, first appears on a split single with fellow youngish, punkish, emoish band, Christy Front Drive. Christy with an I.E. That feels important. Here is Christie Front Drive on that split single with a song called Slide. I will be taking no questions. Don't ask me. Dude, don't ask me what he's saying. He said slide, I think, at some point.

Don't ask me anything. All as I know is the guitars are roaring and cathartic and excellent. And you know an emoish band means business when the cathartic guitars drown out the vocals. Let's fly Jimmy Eat World out to Los Angeles and get them signed a capital record. shall we there is no bidding war because in all likelihood no other major label knows that this band exists jimmy world have no lawyers no managers no real conception of the big city in that sell-out book dan azi writes quote the band admits to being such suburban rooms that they were dazzled by l.A's simplest amenities even the concept of valet parking was foreign and impressive to them end quote but perhaps most importantly, Jimmy Eat World have no substantial existing fan base to betray.

As new bassist, Rick Birch puts it in the sellout book, quote, the band was so young that there wasn't anything to sell, end quote. So Jimmy E. World signed a capital record. Jimmy E. World hook up with the producer Mark Trombino, best known as the drummer, for exceedingly rad, noisy San Diego, post-hardcore band Drive Lake Jehu. I would play you the especially exceedingly rad drive like Jehu song, Luau right now, but I'm trying to show some restraint. Jimmy E. World's major label debut album comes out in 1996, and it is called Static Prevails. And it's really great, actually, but it flops, dude, but not for lack of trying.

This song is called Call It in the Air, and let's say immediately that that's the emoist song title imaginable. Call It in the Air. I mean that as a high compliment. I dig it very much. Yes, they just saying, leave home today, escape your region at maximum velocity. Are you prepared to hear these guys sing, become your dad? Because you have like 2.5 seconds to prepare yourself for that. Become your dad.

Live unquestioned. Amazing. Somebody had to say it. And in 1996, millions of sullen teenagers out there needed to hear it. in 1996 at least very few of those sullen teenagers heard it. If you know Jimmy Eat World only from their radio songs, then static prevails is going to be quite a bit screamier than you might anticipate. This song is called thinking,

that's all. That's thinking, comma, that's all. And that too is a pleasingly super emo song title. And I've got a Reddit thread you should visit if you ever figure out what these people are screaming about. Yes. Message received. This sort of poppy, punky, hootin and hollering, colliding in midair with all the Become Your Dad type wholesome earnestness, combined with Jimmy Eat World's growing audible, natural inclination to slow things down, to chill out, to get lusher, to sprawl, to flaunt their ambitions. In the sellout book, Dan Ozzie very astutely summarizes all of this by saying,

quote, they were landing somewhere between the band they wanted to sound like in the band they thought their record label wanted them to be end quote my favorite song on static prevails is called episode four roman numeral four this is a slow jam this is a slow dance jam this is a slow dance jam for the historically slow dance a verse this one's for the wallflowers tom linton guitarist and singer is slowly seating jimmy eat world frontman status to singer and guitarist jim But we got Tom singing here. His voice just slightly buried in the mix in time-honored emo fashion. We've got two people here dancing, awkwardly, tentatively, perhaps even amorously.

And I go back and forth on whether these two people are alone or whether they're out a high school dance or whatever. And they're surrounded by cooler people. And therefore, these two are even more alone than if they were actually alone. You get me? Two young tentative lovers. I'm assuming this is a crush type situation, but come on.

Two young, awkward, amorous people alienated by the social scene, alienated by the cool kids, alienated by the popular songs, the popular movies, the very notion of popularity. This alienation brings our two tentative lovers closer together. Their alienation renders them both invisible and invincible.

Yeah, this song's about to get louder. not much louder but louder. This song, Episode 4 was Tom DeLong's wedding song. Tom DeLong from Blink 182. He's the UFO guy in Blink 182, Tom. This was his first dance at his wedding with his wife, his first wife, but never mind that. Whenever I hear episode four,

it makes me think of a song by Yolat Tengo, the critically beloved veteran indie rock band Yola Tango, the pride of Hoboken, New Jersey. I think of a Yola Tango song from the year 2000 called Last Days of Disco. Another, even more explicit slow dance jam for the historically slow dance averse. And here also are awkwardly dancing couple.

Usually they don't like the song they're dancing to, but now, for some reason, they do. I think about this Yola Tango song, Last Days of Disco a lot, if you want the truth. This is a song about all the stuff pop songs tell you to do and when you actually do it.

This is a pop song about grudgingly interacting with other pop songs, about disliking and distrusting other pop songs until a crush-type personal encounter compels you to hear that untrustworthy pop song differently. The tentative pauses that Yola Tango singer

Ira Kaplan takes here, singing these words, the slow acceptance, the surrender, this shit gets to me. And the song said, let's be happy. And then a pause that lasts a few seconds, or maybe your entire adolescence, until I was happy. And then another pause, as the monumental T-shirt can into the head impact of your crush finally fully hits you, the romantic capitulation that lasts a few seconds, or maybe the rest of your life. It never made me happy before. I picture this whole scene.

These two people stumbling through their dance together, blinded by their own personal spotlight, and they've both got two left feet, but now, crucially, together, they've got four left feet. And the noisy, vapid, oblivious crowd, the stupid party raging all around our two dancers is blurring, is falling away, is disappearing entirely,

is rendered invisible, and irrelevant. That's where this song ends up with Ira singing where I belong several times, slowly and tenderly. It's a beautiful song, Last Day is a disco,

and I get that same vibe from episode 4, and really from Jimmy Eat World's whole catalog. Jimmy Eat World mostly sidestepped the usual tired old conundrums about indie versus major labels, selling out versus authenticity. This band's

authenticity is never at issue. And to my mind, Jimmy World's larger project lyrically is about belonging. It's about your sense of belonging. It's about how to long for togetherness without losing your sense of individuality. It's about when you personally should melt happily into a crowd versus when you should resist the crowd. Yes, you, you, you, you, you. Jimmy World sing sing in the second person a lot. You, you, you. You, you. you, you. For example, hey, you know they're all the same. You know you're doing better on your own. So don't buy it. Okay. Okay. Static Prevail sells very poorly for a 1996 major label rock album. Perth of the sellout book, Static Prevail sells fewer than 10,000 copies in its first year. That is

Megalopolis level bad. The band very rightly assumes that Capital Records is going to to drop them and the band is quite shocked when capital records doesn't the next jimmy e world album is called clarity comes out in 1999 oh boy i can't decide how to handle this we're going to figure this out together here you can be anything should we do first lines from songs let's try that this song's called just watch the fireworks dig the tentative quivering strings there the broad the sonic palette, the outsized ambition. Clarity is one of these. We're definitely getting dropped after this record.

So let's spend a shitload of money records. Let's make our label guy buy us a glockin' spiel. I love this album. Deeply, profoundly, almost embarrassingly. I internalized this album to a disquieting and severe. And yeah, I'm going to say embarrassing degree back in 1999, back when I was a junior in college, back when I was 21. back when I was on the nominal precipice of adulthood and I could be anything and everything

scared me. The sincerity of clarity, the electrifying earnestness. Just watch the fireworks. That's what that song's called. I get that emo bands don't like being called emo, but that is the emoest shit that ever emowed. Let's do another one. This song is called For Me, This is Heaven. I am dead serious. Phenomenal opening line. Phenominally emo opening line. Those are two different phenomena. You almost never get an opening line

that's both phenomenal and phenomenally emo. Usually the good lines ain't emo. And the super emo lines ain't good. Would you believe me if I told you the chorus to this song is, can you still feel the butterflies? Of course you'd believe me. Anybody who knows clarity loves clarity

to an unhealthy degree. The ringer's own. Andy Greenwald. In his 2003 book, Nothing Feels Good, Punk Rock, Teenagers, and Emo. Andy tossed to this dude Matt Watts, who plays guitar in an emo band called The Starting Line. And Matt is enthusing about clarity. And Matt says, quote, every single emotion that a person can go through

is captured on that CD. End quote. I was going to make a joke about that, but I'm not going to. Actually, that is my experience with clarity as well. A brazen and unapologetic and galactically sincere guitar rock record is a rare and precious and life-changing commodity in 1999, or really any time. Commodity is the wrong word. Sorry, sorry. Ooh, let's do the song about how the radio sucks. Bring the standards in a process selective, the formulas to live in.

Ooh, this is the grouchy song with palm muted guitars about how they won't play Jimmy E. World on the radio. This song is called Your New Aesthetic, which is a phenomenal angry emo song title. We got to do the chorus of this one in which our heroes make a direct appeal to the FCC. Man, these dudes are pissed. Look, I'm being glib about this record because I love this record too much. this is all a defense mechanism. I didn't want to go back and listen to clarity again because I just assumed that playing clarity again

now would do weird things to my head. And it did. I feel all weird now. I feel vulnerable. I feel confused about my place in the world. And yes, I feel all those feelings all the time, generally. But I extra felt those feelings when I was 21 and listening to clarity 24-7.

You want to know how about that life, I was in 1999 with this record. The last song on Clarity is called Goodbye Sky Harbor. Sky Harbor is the Phoenix Airport. This song is 16 minutes long. 16 minutes and 13 seconds. Pick a number between 1 and 16. You got it?

Okay, 12. Here's what's going on in minute 12 of goodbye sky harbor. Sintillating. Here's how heavy I was into clarity back then. Back then, I read an interview with by now fully legit Jimmy Eat World frontman Jim Atkins, where he said that this song, Goodbye Sky Harbor, was inspired by a 1989 novel called A Prayer for Owen Meaney, written by John Irving, who also wrote The World According to Garp and the Cider House Rules. He writes dad novels, John Irving, but they're like all Emo Dad novels.

The famed Emo Dad novelist John Irving, I loved Clarity so much. that I went out and bought and read a prayer for Owen Meaney. The whole thing. That book's like 600 plus pages. I'm in college, dude. I'm busy. I don't remember anything about this book, except that Owen Meaney,

the character is super earnest and sweet and inspiring, and he talked in all caps. It's like an emo dad novel, affectation, his dialogues in all caps. And also the ending is super poignant, melodramatic. And I cried. Also, one time my junior year of college, I stayed up all night studying for a history final. And at like five in the morning, I thought, I'm going to go take a walk and sit on the bleachers near the soccer field and watch the sunrise while listening to Goodbye Sky Harbor by Jimmy E. World.

I am entirely out of my mind at this point. And I went and did it. And it was beautiful. And then I marched right into that classroom for that history test. and I bombed it. That's enough of that. We are moving on. Clarity sold better, but not by much. And this time, Jimmy Eat World did get dropped by Capitol Records, but the band found another label. DreamWorks.

Don't worry. It's fine. They're fine. Because then, in 2001, Jimmy Eat World took back the radio. It sounds better when he sings it, when Jim Adkins sings it. I will concede that.

Hey, quick fun fact about the song the middle by Jimmy Eat World from their 2001 album primarily called Bleed American. There are 11 songs on this record, Bleed American, and the middle is the ninth best song. Ninth best. Two songs on this album are worse, the authority song, which annoys me, and the closer, my sundown, which is whatever. If the last song on a Jimmy Eat World album isn't 16 minutes long, I'm not interested. Those two songs are worse than the middle. and eight songs are better. The song called a praise chorus, better.

You, you, you, you, you. Get off your ass. You. I was only 23 when this record came out, so I still had two years before I had to get started. The song called If You Don't, comma, don't, that includes this super emo line, better. Perfect.

That song is better than the middle. I didn't say the middle was bad, per se. didn't say the middle was the third worst song on this record. I said ninth best. That is an important distinction. The version of the song Cautioners that's not as good as the split EP version of Cautioners that I mentioned earlier, that less good version is still better than the middle. What's the best song on this record, you ask? Oh, don't be ridiculous. You ain't got to ask. Oh, when I pronounce Nevada wrong, I get sassy emails about it, but then Jim Adkins pronounces is listening like the saddenin and everyone loves it.

Huh? I see how it is. Yeah, that makes sense. Sweetness is the best song on this record. Sweetness sounds like it is all chorus. Sweetness is oops, all berries, cap and crunch, except it's delicious. I did not like the middle very much when the middle was huge.

I may have resented the middle for being the song that made Jimmy Eat World Huge. I may have been on my I like their earlier stuff. bullshit with the middle. But I would skip this song often when I'd play this Bleed American record, which, surprise, I played constantly. Perhaps I felt I didn't need the motivation at the time.

I assure you I was already very much trying my best, and in fact, trying everything I could. It is very hard, actually, to sing the words just try your best in a pop song and not sound ridiculous. And yet Jim Adkins does so.

with ease. And apparently lots of people did need the motivation. The Bleed American album comes out in July 2001. The album is quickly retitled after 9-11. But the middle does not become a massive hit until the following summer. The middle peaks at number five on the Billboard Hot 100 on June 22nd, 2002. Now, it does not surprise me that a fun, upbeat, motivational, and above all, comforting rock song flourished at this particular moment in American history, but let's not psychoanalyze or over-dramatized or melodramatically historicize this. Because the middle could also be an enormous and potentially life-saving source of comfort if you were just, you know, a teenager.

In Andy Greenwald's emo book, Nothing Feels Good. He quotes a high school senior from Texas named Jesse. And Jesse says, quote, Last summer was a horrible time for me. I go to a small private school and everyone was spreading vicious rumors about me. All my friends turned against me and I was so lonely and upset. I couldn't understand it. Then one day I was sitting in my room and the middle came on.

I hadn't paid attention to the lyrics that much, but all of a sudden I heard Jim say, everything is going to be just fine. I broke out in tears. It was like Jim was speaking right to me because every word he said related to what I was going through so perfectly. Now, whenever I'm upset, that song helps me through it. End quote.

I hate to admit it, but I may be part of the someone else in, it doesn't matter if it's good enough for someone else. There is the matter of the video. You may recall that the music video for the middle, directed by Paul Fador in an MTV staple for much of 2002 depicts a raucous house party full of teenagers in their underwear. What I personally did not recall

is the truly alarming quantity of teenagers in their underwear in this video. Seemingly thousands. I started watching this video at a Starbucks. That was a harrowing five seconds. My wife had to come bail me out of jail I am far from the first person to say this, but the video for the middle belongs in the having your cake and eating it to Hall of Fame. In that it depicts seemingly thousands of scantily clad partying teenagers, but the plot, the narrative, the moral of the video is how gross and synthetic and emotionally unsatisfying an environment that is.

And so two of those teenagers, a boy and a girl, both a little awkward, a little uncertain, a little bit. grossed out about the half-naked crowd roiling around them. The boy and the girls start undressing, but then they make eye contact and they vibe hardcore, and they put their clothes back on and leave the party together, triumphant. And wherever the happy couple ended up after that, I think I know the first song they listened to together. The happy couple with all their clothes on listened to Dashboard Confessional. The 2001 dashboard confessional EP called So Impossible,

and specifically this song called Remember to Breathe, which reassured them and also reassured me once upon a time that every little thing was going to be all right. Sorry, every little thing will be okay. Not all right. Okay and all right are two very different states of being. But, you know, close enough. Dashboard Confessional, the long-running and aggressively teenager-approved project led by singer-songwriter Chris Caraba.

Dashboard Confessional is perhaps another emo institution to be unpacked another time. But I am struck by something Chris Caraba says in Andy Greenwald's book, Nothing Feels Good. Chris is talking about the similarity between Dashboard Confessional and Jimmy Eat World. And he says, quote, together, I think we. we might save the spirit of rock and roll, but ruin the aesthetic for a little while. What I mean is, it's not a fashion thing. Bands like us are never going to be rock stars. I'm not unapproachable by nature, so how can I become that?

Just because I've been in magazines, when I met Jim, he started laughing and said, hey, I've seen you on TV. And I said, me too. It was silly. So if we're idols, we're the most accessible, idols there could ever be. And maybe that diminishes the cool factor, but who cares? At least it's real.

End quote. I agree that the middle is not cool, but I also agree that it's real. It's not my favorite Jimmy World Song. I can think of eight better songs on the album it's on, for starters, but I do not begrudge the middle for its popularity, its fame, its power. I have enormous respect. truly for that power. Simply put, it is a song that says, let's be happy, that actually makes people happy. We are so thrilled to welcome Andy Greenwald, co-host of the Blockbuster podcast, The Watch,

showrunner of the Great USA series Breyer Patch, and author of the crucial emo text. Nothing feels good. Andy, welcome. It's an honor to have you. It is an honor to be here. I feel like this is the first time in a while where that last credit is the most important. It's very important to me. It's always been the most important credit to me. Your book came out in 2003, and there's a whole chapter

where you're just driving around with Jimmy World as they conquer America. Are they the nicest, chillest, least rock star-like rock stars whoever walked the earth? I mean, this is an era of very un-rock-star-like rock stars. So I was pretty familiar with it. I think by 2002, 2003, I'd ceased to be surprised.

There was a very intense divide in the Spin Magazine office that day of like the bands that Mark Spitz would go do cocaine with and the bands that I would go to like vintage Japanese toy shops with and talk earnestly about our lives. I don't know who won that. It's a good question. Did you covet the cocaine experience or were you happier or where you were? Well, I think what was funny is that, you know, I was pretty young, and everyone I told about what I was doing for living were like, oh, you're like that movie, almost famous. And I'm like, in that movie, that's right. That's right. He fell in love with groupies and, like, got baptized into the fire of rock and roll, you know, and I just got to watch the guys in Fall Out Boy get new Nintendo DSs, which is, you know, was a little bit, a little bit of a different experience.

That's a great perk of rock stardom. I would have loved a new Nintendo. but I didn't get one. So what was... Anyway, to go back to your original point, like, the Jimmy World guys were so... They were, like, almost bizarrely normal. They were from Arizona before it became a hotbed of political interest.

It was... You know, like, the drummer, Zach just was like a stocky dude wearing a Diamondbacks cap, you know? And when I interviewed them and I was on tour with them on the bus, just when, like, the middle was blowing up and they were opening for Green Day and Blink 182 on the pop disaster tour. So we were just driving between tweeter centers.

Tweeters center? I don't know if it's like attorneys general. Sure. And they had already gone through this whole experience with their record clarity being beloved but misunderstood. And their drummer, straight face says to me, like, we're not really a lyrics band. I love that line.

I love it so much. Classic drummer behavior. Like, I don't know what the lyrics. So it doesn't matter. I've never, I have to say for a band that I spent a lot of time with, their internal dynamic was always pretty opaque to me. They just seemed like nice guys who liked each other. And I was never really able to tap into whatever it was that caused Jim Adkins to go from being the kind of quiet backup guitarist to the, you know, Trevi fountain of universal Americana emotions. And then to completely take over the band.

Like even he seemed puzzled by it. And then even interviews I've done with them 20 years later, he is still sort of like, it flows through me, man. I don't know. They don't, sorry for the long answer, but I guess my take on them at the time was, maybe it's also crucial to their success, is that they were always kind of emotional generalists. Right.

You know, like you could never pinpoint what Jim was singing about in the middle or who he was singing about. It was just a sensation, which was very different from Chris Caraba, for example, who was singing about a specific shade of red. red hair that he found everywhere. Exactly. Jim isn't rude in interviews when he talks to you, but he's not standoffish, but he's not interested in bearing his soul and like revealing to you, you know, what the magic of this

band is. You know, they're closed off within themselves, you know, they're very careful not to reveal too much. If there is even anything to reveal, you know, did they want you there? Were they happy that you were there? Were they really sort of freaked out by all the attention, you know, all the interviews they're doing now? At that time, they were extremely mixed on me being there.

I think that for whatever reason, they had some level of trust with me. They'd never, some other bands that I would go on tour with, I think, like, it's not so much a hazing, but like, like, one thing I remember about Chris Corab in particular is that he would kind of, like, in La Caree novel, he would like feed me. He would give me some salacious information and then see if I talked about it or wrote about it or shared about it. And I didn't. Okay.

And then I would continue to stay in circle. You had a reputation as you can keep a secret. I guess, which I feel like that sounds like an emo song. Yeah, I guess so. And that I was generally, I think, sort of like credulous of the project. I mean, I was a fan of the band and supportive of them in a weird time. When I think back about that, I do sometimes wonder what my experience would have been like if I had been with them specifically on a Jimmy World Tour.

Right. They're opening. You know, the wall of indifference that they're facing every night is a very different prospect. And even the dynamics of the tour itself were weird because it was a relatively strange moment where it was a co-headlining tour between Blink and Green Day and Blink was ascendant. And Green Day was kind of an afterthought and they were kind of feeling it. This was before American Idiot.

I was going to ask. It was. That's right. So it was a strange moment. with three very different types, three different, to use a wine term, expressions of punk terwar. Yeah.

But I just love the vibe. Like, you're backstage with them and like the Jimmy World roadies are wilder than the band. It's like they're going to strip clubs or whatever and like Jim's playing Xbox like on the bus. Like is it central to this band's appeal that they're just not wild and crazy at all?

I mean, it's, I think it's certainly central to their endurance. You know, They continue to exist. They continue to make very good songs. Like they had a single last year, the year before I thought was fantastic called Something Loud, which was also kind of generally about what it feels like being them, I guess. I think that's, yeah, I think it's more that it was crucial to their survival.

You know, I also think that they just presented a blank canvas for the fans to paint on or to reflect them. see themselves in. I'm losing the mirror metaphor. It's why the middle is such like a ziplessly perfect pop song and why the video I think is as crucial to its success almost as the song. Because just in terms of writing a perfect pop song, like Lucky Denver Mint from Clarity is also pretty perfect. Pretty great. But it didn't have that same, uh, just rock solid messaging, you know, that the middle did at the moment that it came out. I was going to ask you about the video, because you write about it.

It's like the most having your cake and eating it to experience possible. It's just like a house full of naked teenagers, but the point is that you shouldn't want to be one of them. Like, is this song nearly as big the middle, if not for that video? Even the outcasts were hot. That's right.

They looked good in their underwear. They just chose not to be. Exactly. It was a moral choice. And I respect it. it was perfect for that time. I think it's a, you know, like with many pop songs and just songs generally that you've covered, it's contextual.

It's a convergence of a lot of things culturally and musically at the exact moment. I think that it definitely came at a time of renewed national earnestness. It definitely came also at a time. And this is what I was trying to write about in the book. And I think that I, I think I got some of it right. but I also was just incredibly optimistic about how awesome the internet would be in terms of building community. Yeah. Yeah.

So, as well, where we all. I have some regrets. I think that it was a moment of, like, expanded horizons for very natural teenage instincts of seeing yourself in art, of identifying small things in your life in something larger, you know, and putting. putting yourself into the story. And whoever, I forget who made that video. Is it like a Marco Seaga original? I don't even remember who made that.

But whoever did understood that. And also understood that the band themselves were just going to kind of sweat and sway and not really bring anything else narratively to it. And you could just sort of build on top of that. It's never something I want to hit too hard. But I don't think it's a coincidence that this song gets huge after 9-11, right? In the months and like the year after 9-11. Like, is it hacky of me to say,

that in late 2001 and 2002, that's the ideal time to put out like a super fun, super positive, super chill pop song. Yes. I mean, well,

I think there were two things. The other thing that was definitely happening in 2000 and 2001, not geopolitically, and I know you remember this well, was that like, there was a cycle that I think, again,

I think probably you and I thought this was just a natural cycle. The way people are like, yeah, the earth's always warming and cooling. Where like after a period, of pop bands and boy bands, guitars would come back.

Rock is back, dude. And we had been like primetime high schoolers for the grunge alternative time. And so it was like, okay, well, now it's time again. So what do we have? And we had the, what we had was the Mark Spitz bands and the Andy Greenwald bands.

I love that divide. That's a really, it's really helping me visualize all of it. We had, so there was, you know, because the 2001 was also the strokes. you read Lizzie Goodman's book or if you live through it, the post 9-11 times in New York, which is like hedonism and rock and roll and let's get after it. So that was equally a part of it. So I guess what I'm trying to say is I feel like it was a ripe moment for guitars generally. But I also do think it was a very earnest moment. And I think that it would be too glib to

suggest that high schoolers are younger who had gone through this national trauma weren't suddenly turning into their feelings or at least trying to explore them. I think it's inevitably the case that they were. Because it was the death of irony, right? At least for a little while. And so did Jimmy World at least make sincerity cool again for a little while? There's a moment, you know, and I tried to be honest about this in the book, but like in the late 90s when I first was becoming aware of the term emo through our mutual friend,

Chris Ryan, who was the one who was buying. promissoring albums and playing them for me. And I just was not really getting it because, you know, why I listened to that when Bell and Sebastian was dropping EPs every three months? It's a good question. Yeah. I was pretty cool. I kind of had a raised eyebrow about it.

Sure. But there is, but Jimmy World had an ability to communicate the things that Chris was getting from basement shows in Boston to the masses and even to the skeptics. And there's a song on Bleed America. American, which by the way, as I know you know, changed it. The title had to be changed after 9-11 briefly. They changed it and then changed it back, which I don't think I'd ever realized. Like, I would be fascinated to know the moment where they're like, okay, we're going to go back to bleed America.

Like, don't say anything, but like this is, yeah. So thanks, Obama. That's probably going to happen. But there's a song on there called a praise chorus where Davy from the Promise Ring sings. And the entire song is about feeling alive only when you're. friends gang vocals sing with you your favorite songs on the jukebox, whether it's Crimson and Clover or Our House or whatever. Don't let start. Yeah. Yeah. And it's that song is transcendent. I mean, that song is an incredible, incredible, it's just an incredible song. And I think that that spirit of

collectivism and a kind of a nascent feeling of we might not be huddling up around the flag, but we are huddling up around something. And again, I regret it entirely, but the sort of blinkered optimism of that era of like the internet was allowing us to connect on a larger scale that we were finding people of like-minded taste and interest. The whole premise of my book was like when I was in high school, which was, you know, 10 years before this book came out or less, I had to go to the scary record store or my friend had the seven-inch.

And then like you had to sort of take a leap. but that the internet was allowing subculture to come to you. And I was, again, very optimistic about that. It's great that kids everywhere can hear the Smiths. What could possibly go wrong? I think what I find so funny about Zach Lynn, the drummer, saying they're not a lyrics band, is like, I disagree.

I think the lyrics are incredibly important. You know, a praise chorus, as you say, and the middle. Do you think the lyrics were the most important thing to this band, ultimately? Yes. I mean, I do because one thing, it's lyrics meeting the moment, you know, if you will, because I have a, not to brag, but I have an extremely well curated Jimmy World playlist on Spotify with like bangers that go up until last year. Would you be willing to share that with us or is that more of a private experience? It's fine if you want to keep. I would be honored to share it. But to my years, like their songwriting has always been, Jim, songwriting has always been incredible. And there are songs from the last 10 years that are as good as anything from the previous

15. But there was something about the, yeah, the sincerity of that moment, the desire for unity in that moment, I think that caused a song that said, everything is going to be all right to just transcend. I mean, I do think that at the moment we may have overlooked that because it is an undeniable pop song with a great chorus. and many of us in the media were like, well, rock is back, so it's going to take a lot of different forms. But I do think it was lyrically the case.

And even just a few years later with futures, their follow-up, which was a lot darker, a lot like, is Bush going to get reelected vibes? You know, of course, that's the one the real heads think of as the masterpiece. And it is fucking amazing. I didn't know that. Do you agree with that? I don't think you can call it. When you have in your catalog, when you go clarity, bleed American, I was going to say, yeah.

But in the same way that Tusk is my favorite album, I get it. Okay. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Like, because futures is darker and they were famous and they had a bigger budget and George W. Bush might beat John Kerry, but also we like the cure. Like, there's a lot of stuff in there for especially people of that age to be like, I'm going to take one step further down this staircase.

Yeah. Were you a huge clarity guy when the middle, was big because it's not that I resented the middle, but it wasn't my favorite. You know, and clarity is always going to be the one for me. I was starting to someone yesterday. I'm like, yeah, I'm going to do the middle. And they're like, oh, clarity. I love clarity.

Like, that's the one everybody goes to. Is that the case for you? I can say yes, but I'd be lying. I could only say it retroactively. Because, again, in the spirit of full disclosure, Rob, looking into your honest and trusting eyes, I could say that, like, Chris Ryan was all about clarity. Chris Ryan. He was all about get-up kids.

He was all about promissoring. And I was like, I don't know. I don't know. I had some ironic remove or distance or I wasn't quite sure about it. And what woke me up to the band and then got me into clarity backwards was when Chris was hanging out in the early days of Spin.com and some lead American tracks were available on Napster. I don't know if they had leaked from a, I don't know what the story was. You know, famously they crowdsourced the recording of that album themselves. by touring it.

And when I heard a praise chorus and probably a middle and I forget which other song was on there, it made me go back and realize what a dope I had been. But you know, you don't get a lead American without clarity, which is just Jim just trying out everything and suddenly being like, I mean, it does seem like it's like a sports movie. It's like a kid suddenly being able to throw 102, you know, like off of a raised mound, having never been an athlete before. I was thinking air bud, you know,

I don't know if that analogy quite works. So let's go with you. Personality-wise, it does. It does, kind of. It does. And poor Tom, like, you know, was the songwriter in the band. It's interesting. You know, there are other bands that happens.

Like, I feel like that Goo Goo Dolls started at least as equals, you know, and then became not equals. But this is a weird case. Like, going all the way back to the beginning of Jimmy World, it's Tom. You know, it's Jim on one song out of 10. And it would be fascinating to know how exactly that happened. But I think part of the allure is that we're never going to really know how that happened. No.

And also, again, maybe in the spirit of community, like, they were straight with each other. They were like, these are the better songs. Yeah. Maybe Zach Lynn just put on his hat and his trademark scowl and was like, sorry, let the market decide. Knock it off, guys. Tom, you could play Blister every night for the rest of our careers, I promise. but you can't stop this freight train. Is that the walk across the United States song?

They play it every night. Okay, good. Just for Tom. Here's one for Tom. Just to wrap up, there's a quote from your book, I love it. It's Chris Caraba. Chris Caraba says something like, I think we might save rock and roll,

but ruin the aesthetic for a little while. I just loved that. I love the self-awareness and the self-deprecation. That seems so crucial to me. You know, as you say, there are major differences between the, two bands, but I think collectively, you know, I'm just returning to this idea that like just earnest, nice guys, you know, were rock stars now. And it was just such a wild moment that

maybe we can't replicate ever again. It was super, super weird. And I think that we had come from a history of rock stars who had their lives changed, obviously, by music or by rock and roll, and then wanted to change other people's lives, too, whereas the emo kids had their lives saved by music, and then at the very least, we're going to save other people, or at least provide a space to participate in the ongoing revival meeting that is that kind of punk rock. And to be clear, also, I want to draw a line between this generation of bands

and then Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance, who I always wanted to, I mean, I wrote about them a lot for magazines, but they weren't they weren't in this book and then that was a little bit more like okay we're gonna we're gonna pick and choose some of the trappings of celebrity now we're going to fallout boy like deeply influenced by hip hop culture and like being famous but winking but also making mixtapes and you know like hoodie collabs and then my chemical romance being like we like art rock actually and i'm you know in comic books and we're gonna do all that so although that said i was also on a tour bus with my chemical romance for a long time where I found one dusty hynican and I quietly drank it.

I was going to ask if you drank it. I knew that you did, yeah. I had to. I was like, somebody's got to do it. Somebody's got to fall on the grenade of this one year. Jard was mostly excited about his skeleton pajamas that he was sleeping in the bus. And I was like, great pajamas. I'm sure they were great pajamas, yes. They were pretty cool. They glowed. Um, anyway. Rock is back. To your point, like, I mean, Emo was an embarrassing term. at the time, and maybe it still is. And a lot of the people who were labeled with it were embarrassed by it. And that was, Jimmy World got very twitchy and annoyed about it.

Karaba kind of understood that he was now the face of it, and it meant something different. But they were very adamant that they were not cool, which is not something that rock stars in the past tended to lead with. That's true. You know? And I don't know. Sometimes I think about how, yes, that allowed a intimacy with the fans that was crucial to the music and to the fandom. But did that also in some way lead us to this awful valley of parissocial obsession intensity?

And like now we have pop stars whose whole goal is to present themselves online as normal when Taylor Swift's just like, in the pandemic, I drank a lot of wine. Like in your Newport mansion. Yeah, yeah. Jimmy ruined everything. I think that's what you're saying, and I think I agree with you. I think that might be part of it. No, what do you think? Again, I'm really intrigued by the Spitz-Greenwald divide, you know, and I, it's,

Jimmy World, like, it's not surprising at all that they're still touring, that they're still making great albums, that they're still adding songs to your playlist even now, you know? And obviously, Emo has gone through multiple phases and, like, reboots or whatever, and it's mystifying. But I do think that a fundamental earnestness and a fundamental, where just like you, quality, has persisted. There's a sincerity that I do think, I can still hear, you know, in rock today that I do think is partly they're doing, you know, and something really beautiful, you know, that they brought and that has, we've retained in some way.

I agree with you. I also think the devil's advocate, like, when I was with them 22 years ago, and to this day, they're just like, we're a rock band from Arizona. Right, exactly. You know, and, and I get that. And I think their career and the stability of it and the fact that they probably own decent houses and are fine in their lives bears that out. I think there's a world in which if they come out in a different decade, they are, you know, FM radio staples. And they have a couple hits and they have some fans and they're talked about and the, you know, the great lineage of good rock bands.

You know, many of them in my mind are named after places like Boston or Kansas or whatever. But Jim's lyrics are the difference maker. And it's the thing that he won't talk about that still are relatively unexamined. And you can go dumpster diving for clues about, you know, substance issues or relationship issues or crippling self-doubt or whatever. But you're not going to come up with much other than some nice similes and then the intensity with which he delivers those lyrics and the music. That is what separates them. And yet it's also the thing that they are the least comfortable with, almost as if he just has a weather vein and can tap into it. But it has led to their long-term success, whereas I think Karaba was such a, and this is what I tried to write in the book, like he was trying to stretch a intimate guy on stage with an acoustic guitar, 30 people singing equally as loud as he is moment.

He was trying to stretch it like a rubber band across the country. To an arena. Singing about his own heartbreak. And the rubber band snapped at a certain point. He still has a great career and is a very happy and healthy guy, but I think he would acknowledge, too, that there was a moment when his exact heartbreak matched the heartbreak of the country. And then that is not something you can,

that's not something you can bank on. That is not a long-term career strategy. Thank you so much for sharing your playlist with the world. Andy, we need your, we need your wisdom. How many songs are on this playlist? How many bangers does Jimmy World have, ultimately? I have 23 tightly. curated songs here. Wow. All right. Efficient.

23. That's a lot, man. That's an hour plus. Yeah. But what a great and deeply emotional hour. Absolutely restorative. That's beautiful. Andy, thank you so much for talking. This has been awesome. Thank you. Thank you for getting me back in my feelings. Thanks very much to our guest this week, Andy Greenwald. Thanks as always to our producers, Jonathan Kerma and Justin Sales. Thanks to Olivia Creary for additional production help and Juliana Rest for fact-checking.

And thank you very much for listening. And now, let's all go listen to the middle by Jimmy Eat World. We'll see you next week.