Skammentary: 2017 marks twenty years since the Summer of Ska, 1997, the summer in which both Reel Big Fish & The Mighty Mighty Bosstones had hit songs on the radio & television: "Sell Out" & "The Impression That I Get," respectively. ("The Impression That I Get" & "Sell Out" kicked off that very first SKApril, way back in 2011: Wayback Machine SKApril 1 & Wayback Machine SKApril 2.) I mention all this not out of nostalgia, but to provide necessary context: "Everything Sucks" describes a lost world, the thriving SoCal ska scene of the 1990s, when Aaron Barrett of R.B.F. dated Gwen Stefani of No Doubt, & that was no big deal because no one had every heard of either band. It sounds alien to us now in these woebegone years of the twenty-first century when pop-crap rules supreme, but in that vanished world of yesteryear being in a ska band was a route to prestige & social standing, of a kind.
"There's a ska band on my street,
A little ska band, everything thinks that they're so fuckin' neat,
There was nothing on the radio,
Was gonna make my own band, play my own show,
That don't work, so I'm givin' up again.
"She said she loved me 'cause I played guitar,
That's O.K. I didn't love her at all,
And I sing, givin' up because—
"I know everything sucks, yeah,
I know everything sucks, whoa-oa-oa,
I know everything sucks, yeah,
And this is gonna be the last time you hear me complain!
"Well, I went down to the show,
Everybody was there, I didn't wanna go,
(Here we go)
'Cause everything they do is so fuckin' cool,
Every song is a hit and the girls like 'em, too,
I can't do that, so I'm givin' up again.
"I don't know why I learned to play guitar,
Nobody's gonna know who we are,
And I sing, I'm givin' up because—
"I know everything sucks, yeah,
I know everything sucks, whoa-oa-oa,
I know everything sucks, yeah,
And this is gonna be the last time you hear me complain!
"She said, 'Someday, we'll get back together, maybe,'
She said, 'Someday, things'll be much better, baby,'
But I don't believe her,
And I don't think I need her anymore,
Yeah yeah yeah!
'Cause I know everything sucks, yeah,
I know everything sucks, whoa-oa-oa,
I know everything sucks, yeah,
And this is gonna be the last time you hear me complain!"
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