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Totally Crushed Out! explanations
Author: Anna Waronker, Tony Maxwell
Date: c. July 1995
She's feeling like a Ms. Wrong again. Silently she pursues him even though something doesn't feel right. Telling herself, "in the back of my mind, I have a crush again." Either he's kissing Christian or he's being shy. Anymore of this will put her over the edge. She wants to say, "to keep me, things are going to have to change because I keep putting on lip gloss and you won't kiss me," but she's too crushed out to talk to him. It seems like everone[sic] is saying "she doesn't know how to handle another crush."
The holidays are coming and she's getting depressed. But she knows that babe with the side part will show up one summer night and be her Mr. Right. It's time for her to say no to the boys who give up like Michael Jordan, so she can find her very own rockstar... or is it?
Ms. Wrong
Anna:
It's about dating and how harsh it is to be at the right place at the wrong time.
Tony:
It's like, 'On paper, you're the one, but I can't get myself together.'
Anna:
And that's so depressing.
Silently
Anna:
This one refers to an obsessive crush I had on someone for a really long time and we never spoke about it for more that five seconds -- maybe ten seconds.
Tony:
It was acoustic originally, slower, with banjo and lap steel guitar. Petra turned the banjo line into this amazing vocal hook that sits really well with the electric guitars.
In the Back of My Mind
Anna:
I knowingly pursued a relationship that I knew was doomed. I don't know, I just had to.
Tony:
It ends with Fleetwood Mac harmonies. This is my favorite at the moment.
He's Kissing Christian
Anna:
I was witnessing a love triangle. I was seeing this guy. And his best friend -- who is also a guy -- was kissing this other guy. The one I was with was getting jealous...drama drama drama.
Tony:
It wasn't necessarily meant as a rallying of the troops, but its fine if it touches people that way.
Anna:
It was a last minute addition. The record was pretty much done when I wrote this one. All these people freaked out and said that we had to record it. It was a whole new energy at that point.
Anymore
Anna:
It's about breaking up with the love of my life. It's just a breakup song.
To Keep Me
Anna:
This is about closure. It's about moving forward. Finally -- a song where I say, 'No, I'm not going to dwell. I'm going to move on.' It works really well as a rock song.
Tony:
Once we started digging into the song and playing around, we found ourselves pounding it out and distorting it, which gave it a lot more weight. The ending went on for another two minutes or so -- a little too much to ask of the listener.
Anna:
It was really annoying.
Lip Gloss
Anna:
I was driving home from Las Vegas, where we had played a show, and we were just with the guy I had a crush on in 'Silently,' and I just kept on putting on lip gloss and he wouldn't kiss me. It's pretty literal. I remember Vegas. It was windy. And it was Rachel Perry Cherry Raspberry lip gloss. I was obsessed with it for six weeks because it tastes so good.
She Doesn't Know How
Anna:
I think that song is sort of self-explanatory. It sounds like a T.V. theme to me.
Tony:
Yeah, that's because of the piano. When we were recording it, it sounded so serious that we were all just laughing about it. It was almost too pretty.
Holidays
Anna:
I either wrote it on the Fourth of July or on New Year's -- I don't remember. I always get stuck with the responsibility of setting up the plans for the holidays for all my friends, and they always ditch me or are always weird about it.
Tony:
That's probably the least crushy song on the album.
Side Part
Anna:
It's that acceptance in a relationship of who the other person really is, and realizing that they're not going to change and that maybe this isn't going to work. This was written while I was waiting for a phone call.
One Summer Night
Anna:
That's a story about me in ninth grade. The whole thing is true. It's about a senior in high school, a football guy. I was way too young to be having this young man courting me in the middle of the night. He was cute, though. I might as well use my life as material. It's got to be good for something. This song is the first time I decided to mix distortion and prettiness.
Michael Jordan
Anna:
'Turn that noise down!' my friend said, 'I love your record, but I don't really like that Michael Jordan song.' It was written at a time when I was involved with someone and I felt like he was just giving up. And Michael Jordan had just quit playing basketball, but now he's back which might cause a problem.
Tony:
But it's not like,'why did he quit?' It's 'why does he quit?' He's a quitter in general because he quit baseball as well as basketball.
Rockstar
Anna:
It's not from my perspective. I was at a Beck soundcheck after he'd been touring for a few months, and there were kids literally crying outside waiting to meet him. I came home feeling a little weird about it because these people were freaking out over this guy I'm friends with. It was a tribute to the fans, because I can still remember feeling like that about certain people. But I don't feel that way about Johnny Depp anymore.
Tony:
This is our big fuck you to ourselves in terms of our recording ethic. After so much agonizing about how to record the record, wanting to keep it simple, we decided to just let that all go. And by the way, we didn't loop or sample anything!
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