Paul's SONG OF THE YEAR 2002: "A Praise Chorus" by Jimmy Eat World Jul 03 '05    Write an essay on this topic. Tweet Popular Products in Music Revelation [Digipak] by Journey From $12 Machine Gun Etiquette by The Damned From $40 The Bottom Line In which the author visits a friend in the hospital. In the Spring of 2002, a close friend of mine starved himself, nearly to death. He would go to the grocery store and buy hundreds of dollars of food, take it home and dump it into a big garbage bag and toss it in the dumpster. He said he wanted to kill it. I remember being furious with him, wanting to physically shake him - wake up and smell your suicide. I told him that once, in one of several late-night-in-a-dark-room conversations, the kind of conversations that lead people into discussions of "big" things like God and existence and spirituality. "You're killing himself," I said. "You have to know that. What you're doing to yourself now is no different than overdosing on drugs or slashing your wrists - it's only slower and more public." By that time, he couldn't eat, even if he'd wanted to. His body simply wasn't taking food. It's a time I think about whenever I hear "A Praise Chorus" by Jimmy Eat World from the Arizona band's 2001 album Bleed American (later self-titled to reflect the newly phobic post-9/11 pop-cultural climate). For a couple of weeks that May, my friend stayed on the 6th floor - the psych ward - of a local hospital seeking treatment for what was ultimately diagnosed as an acute obsessive-compulsive disorder. He'd discovered an .mp3 of the song on our computer a few weeks earlier, and said he liked it. When he asked me to stop by his apartment to pick up his boombox and bring it to him at the hospital (with batteries: no cords allowed), I took the opportunity to make him a mix CD, and the first track I put on it was "A Praise Chorus". "A Praise Chorus" had been finding itself onto lots of my mix CDs around that time. There was a reason, after all, for an .mp3 of the song to be so conspicuously "findable" on our computer. I loved it. Though I'd been familiar with the band since their 1996 major label debut (Static Prevails), beyond a few isolated tracks, I'd never been particularly interested by them. They were, so far as I cared, little more than a boy-band dressed up in (only) slightly more respectable emo-clothes (like Dashboard Confessional!). Still, I'd recently given the band a second chance, picking up Bleed American on the basis of their recent single "The Middle" (a song that betrayed the sort of secular humanism I hadn't heard in song since the heyday of Howard Jones), and crossing my fingers. - - - - - As wild and youthful as the song sounds, with its breakneck beats, the barely contained shakiness in Jim Adkins's voice on the frenetically paced verses, and on the chorus - I'm on my feet, I'm on the floor, I'm good to go - a six pack of Red Bull's worth of nervous energy, the song is actually a celebration of adulthood, an exhortation to pro-activity, the urgent prayer of a first-time bungee jumper getting ready to leap off that bridge called Love. My favorite part of the song actually made me feel a little old the first time I heard it. It's that part after the second verse where they start quoting lyrics to a miscellany of "old songs" - "Our House" by Madness, "Crimson and Clover" by Tommy James (but you know they really mean the Joan Jett version), and the real kicker, "Don't Let's Start" by They Might Be Giants - songs I remembered from my own adolescence that my not-quite-thirty-something self wasn't quite ready to accept as golden oldies. That said, the preceding years for me had been full of big changes, and beyond the music I'd grown up with, there was plenty of personal history, a lot of hard feelings and scarred relationships that I finally was retiring to golden-oldie status - these things I'd worn on myself like a cabaret singer wears a feather boa - and loading them up into the attic like a box of scratched-up 45's. For instance, that cozily one-sided blame-dad story I'd been using to excuse my own lack of fiscal discipline was about as fresh and convincing as the video for the Jets' "Make It Real". My friend's anger at his own dad for his vacation on the 6th Floor - we joke about it now - was no less moldy or misguided. One day, while I was visiting him at the hospital, he asked me to read a letter he'd written to his dad, calling him out for every last fatherly misdeed or shortcoming, blaming his dad for his eating disorder, basically doing everything he could to shift responsibility for himself away from himself. While I was with him in his little room - you mean you can't have electrical cords, but you can have a sixth floor view? - I nodded thoughtfully, ambiguously sympathetic, but inside I was thinking, "Dude. Grow up." Everyone's got their sob stories, and everyone's got a choice to either let their sob stories define who they are, or to take ownership of them, learn from them, put them back in their proper place and move on. Which, of course, is what "A Praise Chorus" is all about: "I wanna always feel like part of this was mine..." Later that night, he called our house, and I told him I thought he was off-base, that he shouldn't send the letter. He didn't. Speeding toward our thirties like crash test dummies with all of that song's roaring chords lit up like flames under our dragging asses, we were both growing up, becoming our own people, holding ourselves responsible for our own happiness, our own well-being. Finally. - - - - - SONG LYRICS: Are you gonna live your life wonderin’ Standing in the back Lookin’ around? Are you gonna waste your time thinkin' How you’ve grown up Or how you missed out? Things are never gonna Be the way you want Where's it gonna Get you acting serious? Things are never gonna Be quite what you want Or even at 25 You gotta start sometime I’m on my feet I’m on the floor I’m good to go Now all I need is just To hear a song I know I wanna always feel like Part of this was mine I wanna fall in love tonight Are you gonna live your life Standing in the back Looking around? Are you gonna waste your time? Gotta make a move Or you'll miss out Someone's gonna ask you What it’s all about Stick around nostalgia Won't let you down Someone's gonna ask you What it’s all about Whatcha gonna have To say for yourself? I’m on my feet I’m on the floor I’m good to go Now all I need is just To hear a song I know I wanna always feel like Part of this was mine I wanna fall in love tonight Crimson and clover Over and over Crimson and clover Over and over Our house in the Middle of the street Why did we ever meet? Started my rock 'n roll fantasy Don't don't, don't let's start Why did we ever part? Kick start my rock 'n rollin' heart I’m on my feet I’m on the floor I’m good to go So come on Davey Sing me somethin’ That I know I wanna always feel like Part of this was mine I wanna fall in love tonight Here tonight i wanna fall in love tonight Here tonight I wanna always feel like Part of this was mine I wanna fall in love tonight - - - - - SONG CREDITS: Written by Jimmy Eat World Produced by Mark Trombino and Jimmy Eat World Performed by Jimmy Eat World Jim Adkins: vocals, guitar, percussion Rick Burch: bass Zach Lind: drums Tom Linton: guitar Davey Vonbohlen: vocals - - - - - CHART INFO: #16 Modern Rock (Billboard) - - - - - OTHER IMPORTANT (TO PAUL) SONGS OF 2002: "Party Hard" by Andrew W.K. "Fight Test" by the Flaming Lips "Growing Up" by Peter Gabriel "Ashes of American Flags" by Wilco "From a Balance Beam" by Bright Eyes

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