Barenaked Ladies – Pinch Me

Song

"Pinch Me" is a song by Canadian rock band Barenaked Ladies. It was released as the first single from their 2000 album, Maroon, two weeks before the album was released. As such, "Pinch Me" is often regarded as an attempted follow-up to the hit single "One Week".

Background

The song was co-written by frontmen Steven Page and Ed Robertson, but the concept and base for the song came from Robertson. He wrote the song following the "roller-coaster" success of Stunt, and returning to Canada to find people less interested or aware of the success.

"I was trying to get to the root of what I was feeling... 'this is all great, but not right here it's not – not where I live, and not in my heart'... It's this notion that you know things are good – they're just not quite good for you."

The fundamental guitar riff of the song (through the verses) was based on the song "Leaving Las Vegas" by Sheryl Crow. The recording (and most live performances) is based on a drum loop (along with which drummer Tyler Stewart plays). The loop was created by taking the best two bars of Stewart himself playing drums, and then looping them.

The song was originally written with the chorus rap as the less prominent "underpinning" half of the vocal, with the melody being more prominent, but as the writing process went along, the rap became the foreground. Noting that the melody line was now the background, they took the lyric and also used it for the bridge of the song.

According to Ed Robertson, during the Austin, TX concert on July 21, 2012, "Pinch Me" has one of his favorite "fake lyrics". He explained, "Often when we're writing a song, we just put in fake lyrics for a while, just to fill the space, 'cause we know what we want the melody to be, but we haven't finished the lyrics."

The original chorus of the song was this:

"Doesn't anyone, make a Chelsea bun, like they used to back, in the day? Sticky-sweet, it's a special treat. If Chelsea Buns were men, I'd be gay."

Critical reception

Chuck Taylor, of Billboard magazine, reviewed the song favorably, saying that "the production is tight, and the melody alternates between minimalist verses and Ed Robertson's trademark hyperkinetic delivery."

He goes on to say that the "quirky lyric doesn't go for the wit as past hits have, but it still captures the band's friendly side, which had earned it a strong cult following long before it tore up the charts."

Music video

The music video for "Pinch Me", directed by Phil Harder, features Robertson as a fast food worker while the other band members and several extras are customers. Page also acts as the restaurant's mascot in some shots. The treatment was written by Page.

The logo for the restaurant is a thumbs-up logo, which is played in the video by showing the logo upside down in several shots as a thumbs-down. The video echoes the message of depression inherent in the song as Robertson's character seems depressed in his work.

Actor Eric McCormack has a cameo in the video as a customer. He happened to be on the lot in which the video was being shot, and since he was a fan, they let him be in the video. The customers in the video who are not members of the band are dressed like Steve Burns from Blue's Clues.

During the first chorus, it reveals that Kevin Hearn, the band's keyboardist, is playing a Wurlitzer electric piano.

Album

Maroon is the fifth full-length studio album by Barenaked Ladies. The album was the follow-up to 1998's Stunt, the band's most successful album in the United States. Maroon debuted at No. 1 in Canada (their second to reach No. 1 after their 1992's debut Gordon) and No. 5 on the U.S. Billboard 200.

In its first week, the album sold 17,800 copies in Canada and just under 128,000 in the U.S. It has sold at least 1 million copies in the U.S. alone. The album spawned three hit singles : "Pinch Me", "Too Little Too Late" and "Falling for the First Time".

Unlike past albums, the songs came almost entirely from the pairing of Page/Robertson. One track, "Baby Seat", was written by Page with longtime songwriting partner, Stephen Duffy.

This was the last Page/Duffy track that Barenaked Ladies would release, starting a policy of keeping the writing within the band on their next album. "Hidden Sun", written while Hearn was in the hospital, appears as a hidden track on most copies of the album.

As with each of their early albums, the band recorded one song, "Humour of the Situation", completely naked.

Artist

I Barenaked Ladies (spesso si usa l'abbreviazione BNL o BnL) è un gruppo alternative rock canadese composto fino al 2009 da 5 artisti: Jim Creeggan, Kevin Hearn, Ed Robertson, Tyler Stewart e Steven Page che lascia il gruppo per intraprendere la carriera solista (in passato anche da Andy Creeggan).

Si forma a Scarborough (Ontario) nel 1988 e raggiunge il successo a Toronto nel 1990 con una cassetta autoprodotta. Sono molto conosciuti per i loro singoli (Tra cui One Week, Pinch Me, If I had $ 1000000 e Brian Wilson), per la sigla della sitcom The Big Bang Theory (The History of Everything) e per lo stile "divertente" delle loro esibizioni. Hanno venduto almeno 15 milioni di dischi fra singoli e album.