The Freshmen by donnica59

donnica59 - The Freshmen

donnica59

Aug 06, 2023 10:42am

clearing my to do list 🗞️ <ul><li>The Verve Pipe's lead singer, Brian Vander Ark, wrote this song based on a real-life event: his ex-girlfriend getting an abortion. </li><li>He did take some liberties: In the second verse, she overdoses on Valium to commit suicide, but this part never happened.</li><li> </li><li>In a <a href="https://www.songfacts.com/blog/interviews/brian-vander-ark-of-the-verve-pipe" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">Songfacts interview with Vander Ark</a>, he explained: "Part of the story was true in the fact that I had gone out with a girl and my buddy had gone out with her after I went out with her, and then I went out with her again and then she ended up getting pregnant and having an abortion.</li><li> But from there, there's poetic license that happens and makes the story more dramatic. </li><li>A neophyte writer that I was, I ended up having her commit suicide, and that never happened."</li><li> </li><li>The band formed in East Lansing, Michigan in 1992. Critics loved them, but they didn't crack the charts until 1996 when "Photograph," the first single from their third album, Villains, made #53 US. </li><li>"The Freshman" hit big in the summer of 1997, climbing to #5 in June, but that was their last chart entry. </li><li>They released two more albums - The Verve Pipe (1999) and Underneath (2001) - before taking an eight-year hiatus, returning in 2009 to make children's music. </li><li>They made two albums for kids before releasing another rock album, Overboard in 2014, followed by Parachute in 2017.</li><li>"The Freshman" was five years old when it became a hit. </li><li>The song was first issued on early copies of the 1992 Verve Pipe EP I've Suffered a Head Injury, which they released independently. The second recording appeared on the 1996 album Villains, and the third recording, which was the hit, appeared on a 1997 single and in the video. </li><li>The song later appeared on various compilations.</li><li>In 2001, Brian Vander Ark explained what the song means to him:</li><li> </li><li>"When I was young I knew everything" - We all think we know everything at a young age. I thought I did. I realize I didn't know sh*t until I was 36.</li><li> </li><li>"And she, a punk who rarely took advice" - How many people do we know like that?</li><li> </li><li>"Now I'm guilt-stricken, sobbing, with my head on the floor" - Something happened that caused this reaction, but I wouldn't want to give that away this early in the song, so let's throw in an some ambiguity:</li><li> </li><li>"Stop a baby's breath, and a shoe full of rice, no" - First of all, forget the NO. Stop a baby's breath is just that. Abort the baby. A shoe full of rice is a result of a wedding. So - stop a baby's breath AND then you stop a wedding. She's pregnant, get her to abort, and then there's no wedding. And you know what?</li><li> </li><li>"I can't be held responsible, cause she was touching her face" - When I wrote this song, The Divinyls had a song out called '<a href="https://www.songfacts.com/facts/the-divinyls/i-touch-myself" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">I Touch Myself</a>.' The TV was on, she was touching her face in the video. Very sexy. So, I can't be held responsible because she was trying to be sexy, trying to seduce me, etc.</li><li> </li><li>"I won't be held responsible, she fell in love in the first place" - I didn't tell her to fall in love.</li><li> </li><li>"For the life of me, I cannot remember what made us think that we were wise, and we'd never compromise" - What was I thinking back then? Who am I to put a girl though that? Why was I unable to compromise? Guilty feelings.</li><li> </li><li>"For the life of me, I cannot believe we'd ever die for these sins, we were merely freshmen" - We were just kids, let it go, we all make mistakes, etc.</li><li> </li><li>"My best friend took a week's vacation to forget her" - He needed to get away because of what happened.</li><li> </li><li>"His girl took a week's worth of Valium and slept" - This is why this song is not that strong literally - it's confusing. HIS girl is MY girl. The same girl that had the abortion has now killed herself.</li><li> </li><li>"Now he's guilt-stricken, sobbing with his head on the floor, thinks about her now and how he never really wept he says" - He has the same guilty feelings that I do about the abortion and death.</li><li> </li><li>"We tried to wash our hands of all of this, we never talk of our lacking relationships" - We rarely spoke after the incident - we just tried to forget it. </li></ul>