Give It A Chance with Kevin Devine and Casey JostKevin and Casey take on Hanson’s MMMBop to answer life’s big questions: Is it a vibe? A warning about mortality? A flower metaphor gone rogue? Kevin considers joining the band, Casey challenges the lyrics, and together they decide — bop it or drop it?
Give it a chance, give it a chance, give it a chick. Good morning, Give it a chance, Give it a chance, Give it a chance, Give it a chance. Good morning, Give it a Do you want to give it a chance? Give it a chance, give it a chance. Just give what's up?
You know me? Is that y'all know me to the same LOGI but I've been low key until I've been low key. Well you got a little basketball hoop going on right there.
Yeah. So I'm in somebody else's office because I needed some peace and quiet for my podcast and my listeners who I love and I'm obsessed with.
Send me money. Oh are you in mister Belding's office? Are you in by the bell?
I'm in so much I'm gonna get expelled.
Dude, you are you about to get expelled? Like today?
I'm about to get expelled right now because I want to focus on my music career with my two brothers.
Wait, I think answers. I think that's a clue. It's like Blues Clues or not Blues Clues, Door the Explorer, so chancers, Yeah, I know it, you do, Hanson?
Oh my god, yo, our minds are intertwined.
I know. It's like it's like it's like a new episode of Severance. I mean, I'm out of your any you'r any. I'm Audi. I'm out of your any you'r any I'm Audi.
That's a big spoiler. Guys, very excited for this one because this is on a lot of like people's lists of like songs they like can't listen to, and I've kind of always thought it was a bop.
They're they well done, You're welcome, well done, Beef Wellington. I feel like, uh yeah, look, I mean we'll get into it. We'll get into it obviously before we go any further. Must it's it's mandatory for me to point out these three little boys at this point, especially a lot of like just esthetically teeny bopper Cobanian vibe. So gotta point out Nirvana within five men, just to point out that, you know, I do think I used to see there was a T shirt, like a bootleg T shirt or some probably some kind of like niche like skater brand or something that had them on it, and said Nirvana.
Yeah, that's really fun, that's really good.
Okay, So without bring this is of course system of it, dount, No, this is this is bop by Hanson. I mean, listen, yeah, before we get into anything. Holy cow, I just kept scrolling and scrolling so many lyrics, and the lyrics were all the same lyrics. I'm not don't we'll get into the lyrics. These people were eight years old and they wrote it. You can't really judge it too harshly, but my goodness, there's two parts of the song. How much can be said? How many times you gotta say it?
I will say though, that we talk about bridges a lot. I thought this bridge was very successful. I liked it.
I want you to tell me what the bridge is? What is the bridge in this song? Which part do you identify as the bridge?
Well, it kind of becomes several different things in one, but I think it begins with can you tell me? No, you can't because you don't know. Can you tell me? You say you can, but you don't know.
So there's some things I want to talk about about that. But I feel like it's like really coming at this the wrong way. If I start with my anti chancy being the lyrics of a fourth grader.
Well here my other thought is, I don't think that this was written by them. I mean, I think elements of it what were But if you listen to this recording, that kid's not playing drums, and then there's a whole pretty good bass on it that no one seems to.
Do you think it's not them performing.
Oh no, I mean there's a huge bassline there that so it's a guitar player, a keyboard player in that childhood plays drums.
Yes, And then now I was probably thirty one years old, thirty four years old, it's forty years old. I don't know how old he is something.
Like that, but I think that that's definitely like studio musicians playing maybe everything. I even don't know if they wrote it, because maybe they did. Look, maybe they did. I give benefit. I want to give them the band.
I mean, yo, look, I'm telling you. It says right here on my streaming platform of choice. It says Isaac Hanson vocals, guitar, it says ih Isaac Hanson, Okay. Then it says thh Taylor Hanson vocals, piano, guitar, keyboards, lead, vocals, drums, guitar, and then it says z Hanson drums, vocals. The Dust Brothers produced this, which is.
So crazy because because because the drums make me think of that I was thinking of Beck. I was thinking of Beac Boys in the drums. Like the way it started, I was like, oh, this is a sample. It felt like a sample. I think he's but he's playing that and yeah, wow.
Says it's a combo of Taylor and z Now on my streaming platform of choice, doesn't even tell tells me, tells me. It doesn't even tells me Z's name, just as z dot Hanson, what is his name? Their name is Zach Zach Okay, Zach Hanson, Zachary Hanson, and it says, Look, it doesn't say like, I'll tell you this. There's a guy, the mixing engineer who I think was a very famous and successful mixing engineer. The name always this name always kills me. Tom Lord Algae.
Oh great name, great name.
I think he worked. I think I met this person. I think he worked on this, this songwriter, Rachel Yamagata's music that I did some touring with. I think, like, I'm I feel like I met this person. I remember like being incapable of maintaining an inner seriousness about meeting a person whose name was Tom Lord Algae. I was just like that, come on, dude.
I love it.
This is impossible for me.
A name you would make up like in a song and exactly improvised.
And then there he was, all six two of them. Don't drink a wabble if my mind remembers correctly. Sorry, back to the chancy. We don't need to give a chancey to Tla Tom Lord Alge. We all know he's got the chancy at the wazoo. Okay, so yours your contention is because we can get come back to the lyrics. I love this is already in a beautiful way chaotic. Are we chancing? Are we anti chancing? It's hard to tell right away.
Yeah.
My question is your contention is that you don't think they're performing this on the track.
I mean, there's definitely I think it's sweetened. I think it's sweetened with other studio musicians. I don't doubt that they probably all played something on it. And I don't even doubt that they're not good at playing their instruments.
They're very good apparently at by all accounts, at all of those things they've aged into. It continued. I have like there are grown ass people. I know there are still like active Hansen fans. They like go see them live and.
Stuff No I and I bet you that they've created like a whole you know, discography of of stuff that has been good and in fact, like the chancey I give this song is that I like it. I even think that the chorus, which which in a a in a good in a bad and good way, feels like when you know, when like dummy lyrics, like when you're like, oh, I know what the song's gonna be. And I think if you forced lyrics onto it, which you could have, I think it like kind of pulls back the curtain and shows like the process of a songwriter. And I think it's really fun that they like they whoever decided this took the risk to be like, let's not just fill it in. It's so infectious and I give I give them flowers for it does kind of taste it like Ellen Apple released as a phone and they're like, it takes a brave choice to remove the headphone jack it's brave to put in the thing that's like not finished totally. And I can't help but get Jackson five vibes and that's like my favorite era of you know, Michael Jackson and his his singing is like it's it's the you know, it's pop music is is always kind of best when it's like four children by children. It's the fubu of music for kids.
This is I want that shit to get aggregated. That is so good. Pop music's always at its best when it's four children by children.
I know what You're right.
Though, because it ultimately is a confection, like pop music is. Look, I don't know what. I don't know enough sort of like musicology historically or whatever to know about Like, I don't know, I even I'm not super well versed in this, like like other people who've made like careers out of it, even from like the fifties forward, but I do know, like, let's start with things like Elvis and stuff like that, you know, like the Big Bopper and Chubby Check or all that kind of shit, and then obviously through the Beatles and forward. Pop music is kind of I mean, these kid kids are even kind of younger than the demo in some ways. But pop music is a like it's a confection. It's supposed to be something sweet and kind of like sugary and kind of like best served to and digested by you know, young, excitable people. That doesn't mean that there's not sometimes things that become that move around in that space that are like a higher concept or higher quality, or that there's not like relative you know, better and worse versions of it. But I do think even for adults, like I think part of what like the whole like poptimism movement in like music criticism, with trying to like rest back the kind of like the way people write about, like writing about Sabrina Carpenter, the way one might write about like Bob Dylan and Neil Young or something. I think that was a corrective to be like, we can actually also engage with texts like this that aren't just like by like you know, canonical old white guys or whatever. I think sometimes there's an over correction with that, where we're now supposed to talk about Taylor Swift the way we talk about like Mount Eerie or something like that. I think those are like really different things. But I digress with this. What I think the point of this music is is almost for adults, it's actually to reconnect to that inner child part in you that like sweetness, that like and so I think part of why this appealed because this didn't just appeal to like twelve year olds. There were like grown ups that like this, and it's because of what you're saying. It's obviously a Jackson five homage that like open faced major chord kind of like joyful and yearning. The quality of the vocal performance, it's totally going for that kind of like it's a kid pantomiming R and B. But kids who can like sing and play and they know the source material. And I think that that's really You're right, You're right to point out that's its like strongest suit. This is like infectious inarguable pop music for kids by kids.
I love the vocal quality of the lead singer Tailor.
He's singing his ass off, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, And it's like there's like a squeakiness that like that Michael Jackson had when he was like a kid, where it's like, really what he sounds like is what like a woman in their twenties, like like a what's what's uh?
Who?
Who was Gladys Knight? Like you know what? It's like these like these like high vocal like it's John Lennon also wanted like to sound like the.
The the Cherrell's.
Because like if you look at songs like Happiness is a warm gun where a bang bang shoo sho. Totally like that stuff is like all do wop inspired, and obviously Michael Jackson was and this is you know, it's it's definitely the next iteration of that. But I just was, can I read something?
You can? Just I don't know if you can. You might be under arrest.
Yeah, okay, well guess what I'm risking it? So all right, So this is what the Hansen Bros.
Said.
What the song talks about is you've got to hold on to the things that really matter. Umbop represents a frame of time or the futility of life. Things are going to be gone, whether it's your age or your youth, or maybe the money you have or whatever it is, and all that's going to be left are the people you've nurtured and have really built to be your backbone and your support system. I'm laughing because that's so funny, because like, as much as that is really beautiful, that you're like, you remember when.
I said boo boop, Yeah, I was gonna say the.
Futility of life is you know, it's so funny, But also.
I need to have a critical question about that quote. When is the attribution of that quote? Is that quote that cannot be like nineteen ninety six or whatever this song gotten before, Okay, because I was gonna say that must have been for like any a VH one thing or something.
Like for the interview by song facts like to like and I.
What I was gonna say, it's funny. I'm glad it was affirmed by the writer. I never knew until I was reading the lyrics along with listening to the song that umbop was used at one point in this song as a stand in for the passage of time, like as a measurement of time. There's a part where he says he says something done, yeah, and he says something yeah exactly mbop it's done. Uh umbop they're in an umbop they're gone, and an umbop they're not there, and an umbop they're gone, and an umbop they're not there until you lose your hair ooh, which you don't care. Look, there's some stuff I want to talk about a lot of the lyrics, but that being said, yeah, it does seem they are like there is this thing moving through the song. I think that's correctly identify by the writer, which might sound like a funy thing to say because you're like, of course it is, they wrote it. I think there's sometimes they hear songwriters talk about their songs and I'm like, I don't care if you think that's what it's about.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah totally, or like that might be what it's about, but you did not execute at the level of writing with like metaphor or whatever that You're like, there's things someone might be like.
Yo, that's supposed to stand in for, like the passage of time, and you're like, no, it's not what How explain break it down for me? How this one? I can see it? I get it.
Sure. The other side of the coin of that is like chocolate rain, which we discussed, which was like it's I didn't even realize it was about that, and it's so to the point it's clearly this is what it is about, and you're like, oh wow, like they beat it overhead and I still didn't. Well, the truth is I never really listened to it, but from like the memes you see it around, like I didn't put it together, and it's like got such meaning behind it and it's very obvious.
But that was almost too, like that was also like a dare in some way. I wonder about his intentionality with that too, because it's like that's he effectively wrote like a hard rain's gonna fall, yeah yeah or something, or like uh, it's all right, mom, only bleeding. But then he made it into like a cartoon mimified, like no one was gonna find the meaning in that, because it was like completely presented as a I mean, that's like such an effective trojan horse that like you forget to push the horse through the gate or something like you just leave it outside. It was like too good for its own it's album good. It was too good for its.
Own own good. And that's the next Hanson song.
It's like no.
The other thing that's in this is that they said the lyrics weren't inspired by one one artist in portrayo, the first music that got into was fifties and sixties. If anything. Mbab was inspired by the Beach Boys. And you can see that, right, and so that definitely I see that too.
Would and it be nice mbomb your hair's gone wood and it be nice mumbob it's back.
It wouldn't it be nice though, if you lose your hair and it comes back.
That's a nice mashy.
I'm actually trying to find some anti chances because I give it so much of a chance because it's by children for children and.
But CDC, Yeah, DC.
It's by a c DC. I think it's so lovely in certain ways, and I can understand how if you know, I think probably the hatred of it came at the time, like you know, like it's it's this happens where there's like you know, whether it's like justin Bieber peaches on the radio every day or just like everywhere you go you start to be like, Okay, maybe do we have to hear that song again, or like a Taylor Swift song like Shaken or Saturated. Yeah, And I mean it happens with everyone. It's like it's like the White Stripes had a like a football game. Now it's like damn d like every time you're like, okay, it's you know. But I bet that's where most of that, at the time, the hatred of umbab came. And I do believe that people probably now hear it and they're like, oh yeah, remember this.
Oh absolutely, I mean I think and I do think there's a few things I think it was there's a saturation point that gets hit and then people can't. It's yeah, it's like anything that becomes ubiquity. People love it on the way, and then it's the ubiquity and then everyone's like, I cannot hear this again, And of course there's some people who never love it on the way. I think the other thing with them, though, is with something like this, exactly what is its super strength is it's simultaneously it's super weakness. These are three like clean cut. This is like the most vanilla shit in the world. Like it's like three clean cut young like sort of like there. It was like the whole tagline with them was almost like it's like Disney. It's like a disnified kitty pop thing that you can actually like if you're a music head, you could stand by it because these kids actually wrote and played this shit like it's not like it was handed to them and it's like they're just like standing there, you know, doing some sort of Corey gra They wrote this stuff in there.
And that's even more at Jackson five, right, because like totally they played those instruments and you're so right and and stuff like this, especially in the nineties and the mid nineties, like Hanson walked to that Hannah Montana could run right, it's like that we're.
Still come out what was six? Okay. So the other thing is they're also serving they were what whatever knives were drawn at this song when it happened. It's also a transitional thing, like this was before Backstreet Boys and the nunk and all that stuff. Just thinking at it's so it's actually yo in a weird way, they're a crazy bridge where the two halves of the nineties happened because they are in a way referencing the kind of authenticity porn that surrounded like grunge and all that stuff. Because these kids are playing their own instruments, they're making music with the Dust Brothers. They're like, it's got to be post odlay but pre this stuff becoming like a Dust Brothers go on to do like the Fight Club soundtrack, a bunch of music in the late nineties. But like so they're and you know, okay, they are like a band. They're a band. They're they're three people playing they write songs, they play instruments. They probably rehearsed in their basement or their garage or whatever, and they were and so there's that, but they're they're also becoming What's about to take over, which is this title wave of like literally Disney sort of Disney Farm League Pop Sensation. And so actually that's funny listening to it. It really does. They actually are some weird hinge between like this is like and I bet all these kids liked like, yes, the Jackson five and all that stuff, But I also bet they liked Pearl Jam and still in Tumble Pilots and Nirvana. I bet they played those songs too with each other.
I bet you they still got the stigma of like industry plant, you know, which like gets thrown around a lot in the nineties. Would even be like Weezer's an industry plant, and like, uh, you know, because it was like one guy and they built a band around it, right, And then obviously Silver Chair was like a big one. They're like, that's the.
Industry and that's funny. Silverchair is like the grunge version of Hansen.
Kind of crazy like, and they got a lot, they got a flak just because they were like coming on the after Nirvana as he look like he was.
Yeah, I also think it's funny you talk about industry plant, because that does lead me to the one thing I do need to talk about lyrically. I don't know that I think they might have bitten off more than they could chew or gardened more than they could harvest from this whole plant metaphor this movie. Through the song, I don't really understand it. They keep talking about like will it be a rose? Will it be a daisy? You don't know. You should know you could do their seeds like it are replanting roses or replanting daisies. It's not a fucking mystery.
Yeah, yeah, but you gotta you gotta think, like even even like Elton John is like, you know, if I was a sculptor, But then again no, you know, like.
Well then that's that's of course Bernie Taup. So yeah, you know, we can't even give Elton. We can't hang the l on Elton for that one. Although that's I always thought that was kind of conversation. It is funny that he left that. It's like, so that's a bit of a day or two. It's conversational, you know what I mean, he's like fires sculpting, But then again no, yeah, but no, I feel like there was something specific that they kept the fact that they kept coming back to the plant and flower thing. It's like there's like seventy parts of this song where he's like, I mean that's give or take. It's not scientific. Which flower is gonna grow? You can't because you don't know. Is it going to be a daisy or a rose? You can't because you don't know. Come on, that's the game. What is that? I mean like you say it's the good that you're lost in contemplations about it, but I was. I was setting off some alarms for me.
The thing that I give the most chance to it with all this is like it's a child and I don't mean it is like to get away with it, but it gives me. Like you know, your your mom plants does a lot of the work for your mom plants the seeds, and you're just like, what is it? What's it going to be? Totally like you don't know yet, like even though she knows, but she's like, let's see. And it's like it's like from the perspective and you know, it's.
You're talking about childlike joy and wonder and that's look, what's what more to give a chancey to than that that's you're right, But just just for the record, I do I would be remiss as as the litigious, of course, the reltigious, the litigi the litigator in our binary.
Here, Rick, come over the coals.
Plan a seed, plan a flower, plan a rose. You can plan any one of those. Actually, this seed will become the flower, and a kind of flower is a rose, so you can't. I mean, it's kind of one. Yeah, I guess maybe they're talking about the Holy Trinity seed flower rose.
That's what it is. Oh, I think they do. They are like the Christians now or something.
That's probably why they got a little bit of blowback in that period of time too, from like more discerning critical people keep planning to find out which one grows. It's a secret. No one knows. It's a secret. No one knows. Oh, no one knows. I'm sorry.
I could like here, it's crazy though. I could hear the harmonies even though you're not even singing.
I know it's really good. There is no I feel like, what would you what kind of heartless bastard would you have to be to be like like unmitigated in your criticism of this. It's it's it's extremely likable. Maybe the thing I think what IT got the most flack for was just it again, it's super strength, is it's Achilles heel, it's open face kind of like there's actually more kind of even if I don't think it's it's as deep as you're going to get for three children, right, although sometimes of course kids say the darnedess things cases you know, you know, but I do think there are there is actually more happening in the lyric than might be evident through just the sunshine of the chord progression and lyrical thing and the top of it all. There is actually stuff there like wrestling with about like what matters and mortality and whatever in whatever nascent ways. But I do think like it probably that the things that are it's most shining attributes are also like yeah, there's probably just audies of people that were just like this shit's fucking cheesy, dude, like I can't, I can't get in for It's like that story. We've talked this probably on the podcast before. I must have about Tommy Lee Jones, right, and my brother got me the shirt. It's that there are people who are just gonna be like I can't, I don't give it can be the best version of this. I cannot fuck with this on any level because it's just too and to those people I understand there is a certain kind of person who's just like, I don't care if bops a measurement of time. I don't care if it's a rose, a daisy, or an accidental sunflower. I'm not interested in hand Man times three. That's what I call hand send hand Man times three, hand Man Montanas.
Right, that's a thing, yeah, right right, no, no, no, yeah, that is a thing. I feel like really like you're you're in the home. Yeah, you're taking your asylum.
Yeah, right, that is a thing.
Come on, that's definitely that. Yeah. Or like it's like an improv scene where like one person's off the rails and everyone has to be like.
Yes, yes, and hand Man Montanas and the hand three? Did they what was it? What did they know each other? Or was she much later? This is I lose track of this kind of stuff. She came much later, right, like ten years later?
I think, so, yeah, I don't yeah, I'm trying to think, so this is this is ninety five.
This it's crazy that this is ninety five music in the nineties really was wild, Like what's happening? Oh yeah, like this was on MTV, but this.
Is also Presidents of the United States of America.
And is that that different? Actually that's what you're talking. Yeah.
Remember the plant was the plant Man. It was like the original drummer of Pavement.
Oh he had a I don't even Steve West, right, that was that, and.
Then he made this thing.
Do you do not remember the plant plant Man? No? God, if I know this at all, it's the dude from it. I mean I remember he was. I feel like he's no longer with us. I feel like he might have been a heavy hitter with the drink. Steve West.
Oh, Gary Young? No, Gary Young.
Steve Young was Steve West to replaced the second drummer.
I don't remember, but Gary maybe.
There was no one in Pavement who's ever been named Steve West.
Yeah, I actually I didn't recognize it. So Gary Young plant Man is something you need to check out.
Okay, I'm surprised.
You don't remember it, because you actually might once you like, see, do.
You have like a semi hit with it? Like a I.
Think we should we should watch it right now. I'm gonna I'm gonna drop it in this chat, and I think we should watch it and then just find the rest of this to talk about it, because I want to take people back.
But I feel, okay, God, he's gonna send it, click and.
We'll play a very small amount, but then you'll go and watch it.
All right, I'll mute it. Plant Man, Gary Young is his name?
All right?
You guys watched this at home?
Plant Man?
No, the plants will go plan the plants. Who yo.
I have zero recollection of that, So okay, that's crazy because I remember it and I was like a fan of the band, and like, listen, I know who he was, like used to stand on his head on.
The drum, Yeah, throwing at their shows. Was great drummer, but they had to get rid of him because he was nuts. Basically.
I met him once in Rhode Island, where I think he like was living, and and it was yeah, he was like, you probably want to talk to me about Pavement or something like. It was like he was like that. It was he was cool, but.
So you just want you saw him in the wild somewhere and just went up to him.
I was on tour with Bonds. Yeah by Straanberg and Joe and Bergio, and he was at this bar that he I think the bartender was like, yeah, that's carry young over there. He works here sometimes where he's here all the time. Whoa, But it was kind of a it all feels surreal to me now. But anyway, so that song and music video, it's indicative of the time. Even the look of it feels.
Like totally like it could be on What's the show? Yes exactly? Is that what you exactly? Yes exactly.
It all feels like Pete and Pete, Like even even umbab feels like it could have been on Pete and Pete.
Like totally happy People. Is not that different from is not that different from plant Man, is not that different from presidents of the United States.
Like in the Daylight, like you know what I mean, like totally yeah yeah, but but yeah, there's something very you know, uh, California about it all too. And I don't mean like la, I mean like like northern.
Yeah, like the weird the good cool weird shit like a.
Yeah, but it all nineties like that stuff that's not like the obviously like the massive you know, Nirvana's and smashing pumpkins and whatnot. Like aside from all that stuff. The the other stuff that's like was one hit Wonders but like weird ones like Presidents, it's in America and so on. That stuff is so fun I love and I'm too sexy. It's like these are all such like what a strange decade of music. And maybe I feel that way because it was like my decade. But it's it's really funny.
No, I think so, And I think maybe that's a good place to kind of land the plane is it feels like I do think maybe my biggest takeaway from this because I don't know that it's changed how I felt about I mean, I've always kind of felt like Hanson was of a slightly different character than the things with which it is often associated, just by dint of the fact, I think, even the fact that somebody like the Dust Brothers was involved with this at that time, not that the Dust Brothers are like I don't know that the upper echelon of objective taste or anything, but they made some very cool stuff and worked with some cool people. I think that the besides money and besides whatever else changes hands to get people to work with people. I think part of it is that you know, these are these what was always the selling point was like they were actually like good musicians who could sing and play and wrote their own stuff even from a very early age. And that's like credible and cool in its way, but it also really does it's funny they are positioned in this funny lineage of yes novel t nineties hits, but also they become this weird hinge between the like live band early nineties and the like pop confection late nineties, and that's wild. Actually I'd never really know, And now it also reminds like makes me I genuinely do mean, I feel like the biggest chance of all to them, just from a career perspective, Unlike some of the other things we've moved through, they still they like really there's like a love of music and writing and performing with these people. They still tour. They've had like a like a rich career of a long discography. I know people who come to shows of mine that you'll be like, have you seen anything cool? And you're like, well, I saw Hanson two months ago, and you're like, really, like, people still.
Go and so but a lot of ways you are the fourth Hanson.
I mean, I wasn't gonna say it.
You are though you are, You're Kevin Hanson.
And I definitely also appreciate that you're on a computer and I'm on a computer, because not only did you just say it, but you sprayed it too. That's gross. You need to clean off the screen.
Sorry, Yes I do, Yes, I do, Kevin putting the jacket on.
Come on, Hannah's montanis.
Padded walls.
Yeah, give you a chance anyway, I saw, I say, ultimately shouts the Hansen shouts.
You know, shouts of the dustiest thing.
We'll see you next time or if you if you want, I'll see you in tournaments. I'll come right over.
Praise Kevin will be there.
