228. Song No. 3,437: “Flagpole Sitta,” Harvey Danger
Where Have All the Merrymakers Gone?, 1997

I could prattle on endlessly about how Harvey Danger is so much more than a one-hit wonder, how Little By Little is one of the most solid-from-beginning-to-end albums this century—nay, millennium—has blessed us with, how The Dead Sea Scrolls is a strong contender for best retrospective collection of B-sides and alternate versions ever, how “The Show Must Not Go On” is as perfect of a swan song as a band can hope for. For a bunch of broke college dudes who began this band with less of a drum set and more a collection of junk from which a percussion section was inventively wrought, three studio albums, a compilation record, a smattering of EPs and covers, and one instantly recognizable mega-hit isn’t that shabby of a legacy, but I still think they deserved better than being victims of the music industry’s insatiable maw and insistence on manufacturing an image when a perfectly good one has already naturally blossomed. (Though, in retrospect, who really knew what to do with a Seattle-area band that’s more pop-punk than grunge in the mid-‘90s? But I’d still love to know what kind of trajectory this band could’ve had if “Carlotta Valdez” was their follow-up single from this album like the band wanted.)

Whether you know its name or not, if you were even vaguely aware of popular music in the late ‘90s, you know “Flagpole Sitta” as soon as you hear it coming—and probably more of its lyrics than you realize, too (“I’m not sick but I’m not well / And I’m so hot / ‘Cause I’m in hell;” “Been around the world / And found that only stupid people are breeding / The cretins cloning and feeding / And I don’t even own a TV;” ” Iiiiii wanna publish ‘zines / And rage against machines / I wanna pierce my tongue / It doesn’t hurt, it feels fine”). And while I will forever, obnoxiously remind everyone that there is so much more to Harvey Danger than this compulsively singalongable earworm that’ll get a roomful of 30- and 40somethings sing-shouting every lyric they have even a nodding acquaintance with, I have to admit that any band would kill to have made a song this good, this instantly recognizable and so eternally etched into at least two generations’ brains.