"Better Things" is a series of weekly posts, each about one song I really love, by an artist I haven't featured in the previous This Year or Portions For Foxes series. See the introduction for more.
This is a song, and an artist, that I kept contorting myself to get into the original This Year list, but it never quite worked. (That's the problem with a Procrustean framework like that - you end up working the framework more than you do picking the stuff you like best.)
Well, there's no Procrustes this year, so I can share this early, propulsive, magnificent song by The Judybats, a great '90s alternative band from Tennessee that never got the recognition and fame that they should have.
From their 1991 debut record, Native Son, it's Don't Drop the Baby.
(And now I have to immediately say that their third record, Pain Makes You Beautiful, is much more consistent, and probably the best place to start with The Judybats. But if you want One Song, this is it.)
Please pick me up please put me down
I am growing on you like a weed
It's a song about a baby - a needy, crying, demanding baby. (An actual baby, not a metaphoric one.)
The lyrics bounce back and forth - sometimes from the point of view of the baby, sometimes from the person taking care of it - even from line to line.
It's a quirky, particular song - and, OK, maybe there is something metaphoric about the baby after all. That just gives it more layers to unpick, to think through.
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