The 1st Time I Heard, pt. 1 - Undone (The Sweater Song) by Weezer.

I’ve been wanting to do this somewhere online for a while now, and now that I have this schmancy new blog, I’ma do it here.

So there are a handful of songs about which I remember EXACTLY where I was the first time I heard them.  And that’s unusual for me because my memory is generally shit.  This isn’t to say that these are the most amazing songs in the world, but something about the way I heard them that first time has embedded them in my memory.

I was driving my first car, an awful Dodge something that had belonged to my dad before he upgraded to something only slightly less awful, home from my job at C&S Music in Ft. Worth.  C&S was a typical suburban instrument and sheet music store that made most of its money renting band instruments to high school marching band members. I was eventually fired for spending, like, all shift every shift dicking around on the electric keyboards and being a goof.

Anyway, I don’t think that The Edge, D/FW’s alternative rock station, had been around very long at this point. It might have even been pretty good at this point.  I was driving down S. Hulen when Undone came on. Man, I freaked out. One, these dudes were singing about sweaters over pounding guitars, which is somewhat weird. And the party dialogue that precedes the verses? Also unlike anything else on the radio at that time. Plus, dude seriously knows his way around a melody, right?

But probably it mostly got to me because it’s so simutlaneously angsty, funny and nerdy, while still fucking rocking the fuck out. I was so freaked out that I immediately turned the car around, drove back to the Sound Warehouse near my work and purchased, yes, that’s right, the cassingle. I’d never done that before: heard something for the first time that I had to immediately gain posession of it. I don’t think I’ve done it since. I probably listened to it a few more times on the drive home, but I can’t guarantee it.  Also, the second side was Holiday, which I didn’t think was anything great.

The video remains one of my favorites of all time, too.  I can’t possibly explain it, but I still get goosebumps watching it.