Miserable Retail Slave

by RFP

Here we are with a menage a trois of alternative rock sonic sex circa '94-'95. Believe it or not, these three songs have some threads that can connect them to each other. Yes, two of the songs are by the same band, but the threads I"m talking about aren't that superficial.

We're going to dig a bit deeper, jumping between songs, flash forwards, flashback, flash sideways. It's gonna be like an episode of "Lost' up in this mug, secrets revealed, more mysteries raised, storylines that require your full attention to follow, and an emotional ending that is open to interpretation.

Here come the completely superfluous numbers...

1. "Mr. Jones" and "Round Here" both come from my favorite album ever, August and Everything After. One single was more commercial than the other. I believe you know the one.
2. "Mr. Jones" is about two struggling musicians (Durtiz and his friend, Marty Jones) hanging out in the bar, dreaming about what it would be like to become big time rock stars.
3. In a 1994 Rolling Stone article profiling the band, reporter Mark Siegler noted how a fan ran up to Duritz in a Paris museum saying, "Hey, Mr. Jones! Hey, man. You're Mr. Jones!"
4. "Believe me, that's not so bad," Duritz said later. "I mean, someone came up to me and said, 'Hey, man, I think I finally figured the whole thing out. Mr. Jones is your dick, right?"
5. Probably not. But, Mr. Jones is the main character in Bob Dylan's song, "Ballad of a Thin Man".
6. Line from "Mr. Jones": "I wanna be Bob Dylan". 
7. When I was a kid, I always heard that line as "I wanna be popular." Maybe that was my own subconscious talking or something.
8. BTW, that interview took place on April 8, 1994. The day that Kurt Cobain killed himself. What a journalists dream. He was able to catch Duritz's reactions firsthand. You should definitely read it.
9. "Only Wanna Be With You" was the 3rd single from Hootie & The Blowfish's Cracked Rearview.
10. Released in July 1994, Cracked Rearview is -believe it or not- the 15th best selling album of all time.
11. This song also features a more blatant tribute to Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tracks album.
12. The tribute was so blatant that Bob Dylan sued the group for plagiarism.
13. Lyrics: "Put on a little Dylan/Sittin' on a fence" references Dylan's "You're a Big Girl Now" ("Bird on the Horizon, sittin' on  a fence)
14. The narrator of "Only Wanna Be With You" says his girlfriend asks what the following lyrics meant:
15. "Said I shot a man named Gray/ Took his wife to Italy/ She inherited a million bucks/ And when she died, it came it to me/ I can't help it if I'm lucky"
16. Those lyrics, word for word, are from Dylan's song, 'Idiot Wind'
17. Lyric from Mr. Jones: "Yeah, y'know, Gray is my favorite color/ I felt so symbolic yesterday"
18. Bob Dylan and Hootie & the Blowfish reached an out of court settlement.
19. Of course, the lyrics after that plagiarized section are "Ain't Bobby so cool" and later "Yeah, I'm tangled up in blue" a reference to one of Dylan's most popular songs, "Tangled Up in Blue"
20. Since all these tributes were going on, it makes me wonder....
21. The line from "Only Wanna Be With You": "I'm such a baby cause the Dolphin's make me cry."
22. I wondered if that inspired Live's song, "The Dolphin's Cry"
23. A song that Adam Duritz of Counting Crows regularly performed onstage with Live during a 2000 tour.
24. Probably not.
25. Lines from "Round Here" by Counting Crows: "Maria came from Nashville with a suitcase in her hand/ she said she like to meet a boy who looked like Elvis"
26. Lines from "High Lonesome" by The Gaslight Anthem: "And Maria came from Nashville with a suitcase in her hand/ I always kinda sorta wished I looked like Elvis"
27. Other song referenced in "High Lonesome":  Springsteen's "I'm on Fire" (And at night I woke up up with the sheets soaking wet/ It's a pretty good song/ Maybe you know the rest)
28. The Gaslight Anthem have covered Springsteen's "I'm on Fire" numerous times in concert, but not "Round Here"
29. Panic at the Disco and Dustin Kensue of Thrice have though.
30. I karoaked "Only Wanna Be With You" with Paulie Walnuts at Beerwad's wedding, which was one of the best nights I have ever had.
31. "Round Here" is one of those songs that I have always listened to whenever I felt sad. 
32. Usually listening to that song makes it worse. But something about the emotion in that song....
33. I have listened to "Round Here" a lot over the last few months.
34. Part of the reason Beerwad's wedding night was so great was because two of my best friends were getting married. And I was surrounded by every I know and care about. And...I was with someone who had been the end-all, be-all for a very long time.
35. It was all downhill from there.
36. I'm fine now. And the period hasn't been place on the final page of that chapter yet.
37. But I apologize for the mess I had been during that time and the people that had to deal with me. Specifically, Beerwad, Tic Tac, Xena, and Trigger.
38. Life is nothing without good friends.
39.