he needs some cool tunes, not just any will suffice

"pretty fly (for a white guy)" by the offspring & my current hyperfixation

Me last week: What are you thinking, wanting tickets to see the Offspring live this summer? We’ve got the Offspring at home.

Me this week, after eating, drinking, sleeping, living, breathing the Offspring at home: . . . how much is the VIP experience¹?

If I had to name the ONE band that was so formative to me, that’s so nostalgic, I almost can’t say anything objective about them because that’s how ingrained they are in my very identity . . . it would probably be the Offspring. I know, I know! Paramore is the band of my heart; I love Tegan and Sara to death; there are so many musical artists I deeply respect and admire . . . but I was raised on the Offspring. And this past week, I have gotten so hyperfixated on them that this is literally the only thing I can possibly write about because it’s almost all I’m thinking about.

So please enjoy a very self-indulgent journey through the Offspring’s discography (5/11 of it anyway), featuring random bits of memories and lyrical analysis and evidence of how increasingly unhinged I’ve gotten about this subject:

The Offspring (1989)

A darker and more explicitly political album than some of their later ones (although they’ve always had political songs). The first track “Jennifer Lost the War” starts with two lines that were so incendiary to me as a pre-teen hearing them for the first time I couldn’t believe you could say them in a song. There’s a line in “Crossroads” I think about all the time —but is the best you can be/the best thing to be. It’s just one of those straightforward lyrics you think you understand but then the more you turn over in your mind, the more you start seeing different corners of meaning.

“I’m probably more familiar with some of the Offspring’s older songs than they are at this point,” I told my husband on one of our many back porch conversations on this subject over the last week, and he agreed that yeah, probably. This is something I think about even with books — how a person who’s just read my first romance that came out three years ago might be carrying around things about it in their brain that I’ve already forgotten. It’s a weird feeling, but kind of cool in a way.

I used to have a punk compilation album that also had “Beheaded” on it, and I was literally about to type here that I’d forgotten what it was called, and then it just came to me! Go Ahead, Punk . . . Make My Day. It also included songs by some of my other favorite bands like The Vandals and AFI. This song shows the Offspring’s range! They can do funny/satirical songs alongside the more serious ones. I mean, rhyming blade falls, gonna need a casket with watch your head plop in a wicker basket, wtf. I can’t even quote a lot of lines from this song because I find it legit gross but it’s also so catchy and the music is so good that I find myself singing along . . .

The song I really sing all the time tho is “Blackball.” Win the battle, lose the war/I know I’ve played this game before/When people were still real . . . And that cracking beat of the drum — dun dun Dun! I have to air drum to it every time lol I just can’t help myself. So if you ever see me gazing out in the middle distance, know that I’m thinking In the style of forgotten men, I look to my horizon, I see nothing . . . but then here it comes, I’m powerless to resist that drum beat. dun dun Dun!

Ignition (1992)

The album that begins the way every thirteen-year-old punk wants a record to begin . . . with a shouted Ah, fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuuuuck! Nowadays I have to turn it down when it comes on *right* as I’m pulling up to my almost-thirteen-year-old daughter’s school to drop her off because of course it does, that’s how the timing always works. “Session” begins the trilogy of songs I like to think of as the ones where Dexter’s Getting Laid and Feeling Conflicted About It, a trilogy I have wanted to write about for this newsletter for a long time now. In this one, Dexter says, Session! I’ll never learn/Session! God knows I try/Session! Keep coming back for session, and I don’t know why, and by “session” he means sex lol. There are no strings, he knows he should think he has it made, and yet he seems deeply unhappy to be pulled back into it. Dexter!!! If it’s fucking you up this bad! (Dexter Holland’s now-ex-wife cowrote this one! As an interesting piece of trivia.)

“Hey, you’re a riddle,” I say as I move aside/Like I really need your advice from “Kick Him When He’s Down” is one of those little bits I find myself singing while I make my morning coffee. I also have started quoting this bit from “Get It Right” a lot: Like Holden Caulfield, I tell myself/There’s got to be a better way. I don’t know why I find it so funny that he references Holden Caulfield like that.

“Burn It Up” is one of the best songs on the album, even if I forget it’s not called the titular “Ignition” because that’s what he repeats in the chorus. Some of my memories of the Offspring are tied to this massive crush I had on this guy from like 8th through 11th grade, until I realized he was one of those guys who thinks being an edgelord is the same as having a personality. One day I just woke up and was like, why am I PRESSING THE PHONE SO TIGHTLY TO MY CHEEK (he talked so quietly I stg, or the connection was bad) so I can hear him say shit like if a kid had hit him with a rubber band on the bus he would’ve lit that rubber band on fire like lololol no the fuck you wouldn’t? What are you even talking about? Anyway, he ruled my life for like four years and then one day I was just like WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU and I stopped calling him and that was a really good way to realize that I’d been the one doing most of the calling 💀

Like, of COURSE I listened to The Offspring a lot. Look at me.

(The edgelord comment is probably a little unfair, he never did anything to “wrong” me other than making me twist in unrequited agony for years but a lot of that was probably my own fault. I think we were both saying a lot of typical overdramatic teenage stuff — my old journals are full of it which is why I can’t look at them.)

Smash (1994)

Maybe the Offspring’s most iconic album? At least to me it was. This was definitely THE album of my (nitro) youth, although I always went back and forth on whether it was my favorite (more on that later). This is also where they first introduced their little introductions and interludes that I thought were really fun. Just the other day my husband had been working all morning, helping my sister load some stuff into a dumpster, and when he came back to the house he mentioned something about wanting to rest and I said, Ah, it’s time to relax —

and he was like, god, exactly, that’s just what I need

but little did he know I was just quoting the Offspring again so I continued as if he hadn’t rudely interrupted me — a glass of wine, your favorite easy chair, and of course, this compact disc playing on your home stereo . . .

(to which he was like, jesus christ, but affectionately I think)

And then bam, it goes right into the first song “Nitro (Youth Energy)” with those rolling drums. I’m obsessed with the Offspring’s drum sound, it’s some of the best there is in my opinion. I just love those fucking drums! And what a fun song to sing!

Every song on this record is, to be fair. Like their satirical road rage anthem “Bad Habit,” which my mom used to make me turn down during those five seconds when he just yells a bunch of curse words.

I wrote an homage to this in Never Been Shipped, although they’re referring to a different song by a different band:

(John respects Micah’s dad so much, which always breaks my heart a little when I think about why.)

I have a hard time listening to the Offspring all shuffled up because I really do love their little interludes — Mmm, I especially enjoyed that one. Let’s see what’s next. — and feel like I NEED the riff that’s supposed to follow those words to come next. I can’t listen out of order!

“Would you call what I’m on an ‘Offspringa?’” I asked my husband on the back porch just now, and he almost spit out his soda. I’ve been talking about this so much with him that he had a DREAM that someone was talking to him about the Offspring’s tour and he was like, “Oh, you should really talk to my wife about that, she’s the one who would know.” Is it weird that this is romantic to me. That’s a my wife moment as far as I’m concerned.

“Come Out and Play (Keep ‘Em Separated)” could be one of those songs that you’ve heard so much you’re sick of it, and I wouldn’t blame you at all, but it’s fresh as a daisy for me. It’s just a banger! So sorry the Offspring are out here writing hits!

Then we come to “Self Esteem,” aka the Empire Strikes Back of the Dexter’s Getting Laid and Feeling Conflicted About It trilogy. This is the song that opens with that iconic La la la la la, and I’m going on a bit of a tangent here but do you remember that part in Forgetting Sarah Marshall where Russell Brand calls the food “mundane” and Jonah Hill is like, excitedly, “It is mundane. It’s great, I know.”? This would be me if you called the Offspring “obnoxious,” but I do know what that word means, I just . . . kinda like when music is obnoxious. I’ve learned this about myself!

Anyway, “Self Esteem” is a little obnoxious, definitely felt very provocative to me as a teenager, and remains one of my favorite songs to sing in the car. I really do appreciate the Offspring’s sense of humor — the lyrics This rejection’s got me so low/If she keeps it up, I just might tell her so are hilarious to me.

And one chilling thing about listening to punk music from any decade is that the lyrics are often only . . . more applicable now than they even were then. In “It’ll Be a Long Time,” for example: When will the world listen to reason?/I have a feeling it’ll be a long time/When will the truth come into season?/I have a feeling it’ll be a long time. It WILL be a long time, Dexter! I also always like when songs play with tempo. Speed up, slow down, I’m into it. The bridge for this song is so good for that.

Once — months ago, before this Offspringa — my husband and I were driving around and I randomly said, “That’s some ‘Killboy Powerhead’ type shit,” and my husband almost stopped in the middle of the neighborhood street. “Did you just reference an Offspring deep cut?” Yes. Yes, I did.

I often rate music by how much it can make me feel the “I’m in a room full of people and yet all alone” of it all, because it’s one of those sentiments that is so CHEESY, has been done SO MANY TIMES, and yet. It’s so universal? You know that feeling, you’ve felt it before, there’s nothing lonelier than being surrounded by people and yet feeling isolated and outside from everything. Anyway, no wonder teenage me was listening to “So Alone” in my bedroom.

Speaking of the Offspring deep cuts, if you want to know a time when I was having the most fun possible in Never Been Shipped, it was when John reveals that he played in an Offspring cover band and it leads to a little banter between Micah and John back-and-forth riffing on song titles, including one of my favorites “Not the One.” I love this song and it is SUCH a challenge to sing because of the way Dexter cuts up the words and changes the syllabic emphasis to make all the lyrics fit. Another song that was almost too prescient, too, because the whole point is that *we* are not the ones who polluted the oceans and let children starve and invented nuclear bombs, but then it ends with And even if we try and not become too overwhelmed/And if we make some contribution to the plight we see/Still our descendants will inherit our mistakes of today/They’ll suffer just the same as we and never wonder why. Which. Yeah. The only part of this section I can even sing is “never wonder why” so I mumble a lot and then come in real strong at the end. You see even how he says “we” instead of “us” in that lyric to make it fit better, this is the kind of weird shit he’s doing in this song.

When I want to get pumped up, I mean PUMPED UP, I put on “Smash.” I love a song that starts with a drumstick count and then gets RIGHT into it. I remember listening to this song on the bus when that aforementioned crush asked what I was listening to, and I gave him my headphones and watched, heart in my throat, as he listened and nodded along in approval. My first sign that this relationship was never going to happen was that he obviously should’ve fallen HEAD OVER HEELS the second he heard “Smash” coming through those headphones.

Whatever. I STILL fuck with this song. To my fellow writers dealing with publishing bullshit, rejections, reviews, etc. in particular — may I recommend putting this song on and scream-singing I’m not a trendy asshole/Do what I want, do what I feel like/I’m not a trendy asshole/I don’t give a fuck, if it’s good enough for you/’Cause I am alive. It’s cathartic! You’re too punk rock for a starred review! You’re too punk for likes on an Instagram post! You’re not a trendy asshole!!!! You are alive!!!!!!!!

Ixnay on the Hombre (1997)

I’ve written about this before, but you may recall that Asa from With Love, from Cold World was named in part for a friend of my older brother’s I had a very mild crush on, in that way where you just kinda have to crush on at least one of your older brother’s friends, it’s the rules. (Romance readers know this!) I thought it was a cool name! And his most swoonworthy moment (to me at 14) was when he stood up to my brother to controversially proclaim Ixnay as a better album than Smash. To have such an edgy (/incorrect?) opinion!! To stand up to my brother!

The album opens with another of those intros, which I will be reciting with perfect inflection even into my nursing home years:

Actual age-enhanced photo of me circa 2065

In case your “fuck conformity!” energy started waning once the last notes of “Smash” rang out, this album picks up right where they left off. In “The Meaning of Life,” Dexter says he knows people are always trying to shove their plans for your life down your throat, and Thanks, but no thanks! He gives you a perfect anthem for when you walk into the hair salon and your stylist STILL won’t listen to you that you want bangs, no but FOR REAL²: On the way, tryna get where I’d like to stay/I’m always feelin’ steered away by someone tryin’ to tell me/What to say and do/I don’t want it, I gotta go find my own way/I gotta go make my own mistakes/Sorry, man, for feelin’/Feelin’ the way I do.

And then, finally an Offspring love song! Finally something to break up the trilogy, where this time Dexter is like hell yeah I’m having good sex and it’s with my wife, she’s no ball and chain, this shit is awesome. “Me & My Old Lady” is such a weird and crass song but I do love it. Once again it said some shit I just DID NOT KNOW you could say in a song as a teenager, and definitely had lyrics where I only vaguely understood what he was talking about. (I remember not fully getting that “head” had a double meaning, for example.)

I already wrote an entire newsletter about “Cool to Hate” — it was one of my early ones when I had like 30 subscribers lol. If nothing else, it’s proof that I’m consistent! I was also on an Offspringa back then! Obviously this song felt WRITTEN JUST FOR ME as a thirteen-year-old, and now it’s funny because I genuinely think I try to build my life around the stuff I like rather than the stuff I hate. The latter just takes so much energy and for what.

“Gone Away” might be the Offspring’s best song. I’d make an argument for it. One way my husband has indulged me this week has been talking me through some of what he hears on these albums, because he’s a musician and has worked in audio engineering and generally knows about this kind of stuff. We talked about the drums to start off this song, for example, how there’s an effect on them to let the snare ring out that you can do when the song is mid-tempo but then have to take off when it speeds up or else it all gets muddy. (All I wanted to do was talk about drum sounds!!!) He held up fingers to indicate when another vocal track was added to the mix — apparently part of Dexter’s signature sound is that his vocals are almost always double-tracked, which you can kinda listen for on the consonants that start a line or if there’s a vowel that trails off and you can hear slight variations in the takes. I don’t know, I have a hard time hearing this shit!! But I love having it pointed out to me. We talked a lot about the dynamics in the vocals of this one, how low and underneath the guitars he goes with Leaving flowers on your grave and then how the vocals cut through with I reach to the sky . . . I have genuinely cried listening to this song before. I think it gets at the desperation of grief so well. You might not have thought the Offspring had it in them, but they do!!!

Then we get to “I Choose,” which has maybe my favorite Offspring lyric ever:

Now if I wasn’t such a weenie, do you think you’d still love me?

lol I’m sorry I’d cross-stitch it on a pillow if I could get past the fact that cross-stitching wants you to PULL OUT YOUR OWN THREADS like just give me two threads if that’s what you wanted me to do! Haven’t the cross-stitch companies been listening to the Offspring, don’t they know you gotta keep ‘em separated?!?

After the intermission, we get right into “All I Want,” which you already know is going to be an instant Alicia Thompson hall-of-famer because it’s another that IMMEDIATELY rips from two seconds in and involves Dexter yelling a lot about how he doesn’t want to be controlled. So back off your rules/Back off your jive/’Cause I’m sick of not living to stay alive. I blasted it when I was mad about doing chores at thirteen and I still blast it when I’m mad about doing chores now! This is the song that got me so fired up about cleaning the bathroom last week! That’s the power of music, baby.

The Venn Diagram of my prime Offspring years, the years when I had that terrible crush, and the years when my suicidal ideation was the worst is a circle, so I have no doubt that I had the lyrics to “Amazed” written all over the inside of a notebook somewhere.

I’m already getting a notification that this post is too long for email (I’m 3,200 words deep into my Offspring analysis with another full album to go!!!), so if you expanded the email to keep reading, thank you, and once again I’m just talking about the fucking drum sound lol because I love the drums in “Change the World.”

I really miss little things like hidden tracks and stuff like that which were more a feature of CDs. This one has a fun one tucked in at the end that just says, I think you guys should try heavy metal! Kiss my ass, hahahaha.

Americana (1998)

If you’re really looking to annoy your partner, just ask out of the blue, Have you ever walked through a room? But it was more like the room passed around you, like there was a leash around your neck that pulled you through? Or at least that’s how I like to do it, by quoting the opening lyrics to “Have You Ever,” another entry in the Offspring’s “surrounded by people but still alone” oeuvre.

“If at the end of the year I’m not in the Offspring’s Top 100 listeners,” I said to my husband just now, “I want to meet the people who are.”

“I don’t think you do,” he said.

“Staring at the Sun” is another one that’s really fun to sing — There’s more to livin’ than only survivin’/Maybe I’m not there, but I’m still trying, Dexter loves this theme and he’s right to, it always hits.

Listen, I love “Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)” and I’m not ashamed to say it. I love it ironically; I love it unironically. It is PRIME Obnoxious Music. Give it to me, baby! I have thought about getting a 31 tattoo just so I could say I asked for a 13 lol.

“The Kids Aren’t Alright” is also in the running for the Offspring’s best song. That iconic opening riff alone! I mentioned having fun with this scene in Never Been Shipped where they banter a bit in Offspring song titles, so I thought I’d just drop it here:

The Knock-Offspring!!!! I’m sorry but I was fucking INSPIRED! Let me COOK! The way I think John is so hot for playing a bit of “The Kids Aren’t Alright” off the cuff like that, the way I have lately been daydreaming about like, wait, that could be me if I practiced my guitar more, should *I* start The Knock-Offspring?!?!

Actual age-enhanced photo of me circa 2065

It’s funny, for all this love of the Offspring, they’ve always been one of those bands to me where I don’t really care to know about them. I don’t mean that to sound as harsh as it does, maybe. I just know next to nothing about them other than the basics about them being from Orange County, Noodles is the lead guitarist, Dexter has a PhD in molecular biology, etc. I didn’t even know Dexter’s real name was Bryan Keith Holland until I started looking at the writing credits at the bottom of a lot of these songs lol³. I also know there’s always debates about bands like them, or Green Day, or AFI, or whatever — how “punk” could they be if they had a contract with a major label, that kind of thing. I don’t really care tbh. It doesn’t interest me much.

I happened to come across this quote from Dexter about recording Americana when I was looking up info about the record for this newsletter, though, which I did find interesting: “The idea wasn’t to reinvent the wheel. We expanded our horizons on our last record and that’s okay, but I don’t feel like you have to be a completely different band on every record.” That’s the kind of thing I think about all the time when it comes to writing books — at what point should you stretch and challenge yourself to do something different; at what point is it okay to deliver the exact kind of story that you’re good at and that people expect from you. How do you keep things fresh for yourself but also at some point why invent the wheel if the wheel is great and people like wheels. I don’t know. I thought about all of this while “Feelings” was playing in the background.

“She’s Got Issues” is the third and final installment in the Dexter’s Getting Laid and Feeling Conflicted About It trilogy. In this one, he’s seeing this girl who’s got baggage, (doesn’t sound too bad, maybe she’s going on a trip!) but then he clarifies and it’s all the emotional kind. Ahhhhhh, okay, I see the problem. You told me a hundred times how your father left and he’s gone/But I wish you wouldn’t call me daddy when we’re gettin’ it on. Not to pull one of Ask a Manager’s moves but have you directly told her that, Dexter? If your relationship is making you unhappy I want you to be able to say so!

“No Brakes” is instantly certified platinum in my listening history — the tap of drum sticks one-two-three-four and then Dexter bursts in with Lay awake, I don’t give a shit/If I even ever wake up in the morning?!?!? You know I’ve got this one on repeat. I just want a song to put me through the fucking wringer.

I’ve also written about “Why Don’t You Get a Job” for this newsletter (relatively recently!) so I won’t belabor the point. But this is prime Obnoxious Music territory which you know means I GENUINELY love this song, not even as a joke.

(My cat jumped onto my desk when this song came on and I SWEAR she started grooving to it! She was moving her little head and everything. She gets it! Well, I guess it ain’t easy doing nothing at all, oh yeah/But hey, man, free rides just don’t come along every day . . . you KNOW she feels these lyrics! She’s the biggest freeloader there is!)

I love the titular track “Americana” and can already tell it’s going to be fun to play live with the Knock-Offspring once I get it off the ground. Now give me my cable, fast food, four-bys, tats right away/I want it right now ‘cause my g-g-generation don’t like to wait, I love this little nod to “My Generation” by the Who.

Then they put “Pretty Fly (Reprise)” on there?!?! I’m sorry it’s just too good. You’re listening to “Pretty Fly (for a White Guy)”, I’m listening to “Pretty Fly (Reprise),” we are not the same. Just kidding, we are the same, because I’m also listening to “Pretty Fly (for a White Guy).”

I ordered these business cards to reflect my last hyperfixation, which I had no BUSINESS doing because I just went through a bunch of stuff and found like 200 cards left over from my Third Eye Blind hyperfixation — a Vista Print sale loves to see me coming!

And thus ends my Offspring fixation. It’s always been about these first five records for me — I love listening to them in chronological order, just letting one flow into the other. I realized that I really dropped off with Conspiracy of One (their record after Americana), and I couldn’t remember why. If I tried the album and didn’t get into it, if I’d just moved on in general by then. When I looked up their discography, I saw that they’d had six full-length albums come out after Americana — a healthy number, but actually not as insurmountable as I’d thought.

“You know, I’m only a few albums away from catching up on the Offspring completely,” I said excitedly to my husband when he walked through the kitchen, to which he pointed to his ear because he was on the phone lol.

Anyway. One thing I’ve started doing now is after I’ve listened to the first five albums in a row, I go and add the next chronological album to my library to tack on to the end. So far I’m up to Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace (2008). I figure it’s a good idea to get my listening up to date. You know, for when I inevitably buy tickets to see them on tour⁴.

Currently reading . . . I just finished The Truth is in the Detours by Mara Williams and enjoyed it so much! It also features estranged-former-best-friends-to-lovers, much like Never Been Shipped, which is a specific trope I’ve realized *I* really enjoy. In this one, Ophelia and Beau go on a road trip together while he works on a nonfiction book about deception (the EXACT thing I’d love in audiobook format I gotta say) and she’s seeking to uncover the truth about a family deception of her own . . . but on the way they uncover a lot more of the secrets between them and all the things that have been holding them back from being together for all these years. It comes out in August!

watching . . . I’m between shows (I finished Cunk on Earth and Kevin Can F**k Himself; we’re still watching LOST but that’s a family show), so I saw that Emily in Paris was on Netflix and had two more seasons added since I last watched it . . . and you know what, even while watching the recap I felt my body just deflating lol. Like. I am not trying to pile on this show, I PROMISE, I do not think it’s “cool to hate” anymore, I know this show was a bit of the Nickelback of its time. I watched two seasons because it was fun and visually I really enjoyed the fashion and French setting and stylized way they put the show title into every episode . . . but my body just told the tale that I really didn’t want to watch this show any more. So please tell me a) if Seasons 3-4 of Emily in Paris are worth it, or if I can let myself off the hook despite being a Completionist at heart; and b) if there’s any particular show you’d recommend. My sweet spot is one that hasn’t been around for seasons and seasons tho. I’m not looking for a Grey’s-level commitment, ya feel me, I already did that for like 15 seasons, way after about eight different moments I told myself were my in-or-out moments (the plane crash; George; McDreamy, Owen Hunt just existing on my screen, etc.)

listening to . . . Here’s where I just start the newsletter all over again from the beginning. Me last week: What are you thinking, wanting tickets to see the Offspring live this summer? We’ve got the Offspring at home . . .

1. I shan’t be purchasing the VIP experience! But only because you don’t actually get to meet them lol; if there had been a Meet & Greet I can’t say I would’ve been strong enough to resist the urge to overpay for the chance to humiliate myself in front of someone whose art has meant something to me and take a picture I will never want to look at again because I hate pictures of myself.

2. This is shade on a past hairdresser of mine! I adore my current one, and one of the many reasons why is because she’s pro-bang and also pro-listening to what I say I want to do with my hair at any given time.

3. To be fair, I probably *did* know this at some point when I was poring over liner notes! But it had flown out of my brain until I saw it and was like Brian Keith?!

4. I feel they should low-key PAY ME to go to this tour, I mean what does it take to get a press pass?!?