Release Date: 9/97
Album: NEVEREST
Writer: ADAM MARSLAND
Audio:
Lyrics:
She was a tragic teen
In-crowd acted mean
To the young pariah
She worshipped from afar
This season's rising star
Quarterback messiah
She never hung with debuteens but
She didn't see why it should matter
As rejection filled her eyes
She asked them why
And they spat back at her
"I'm OK You're Not OK."
She moved up and away
Big town, a little place
Built in the 1890s
Her new friends
Didn't conform
But they were now the norm
And the ruling clique was tiny
She got a pair of combat boots and
Dyed her hair so it looked real ugly
She put on pretensions and
Obsequious airs that used to bug me
And said "I'm OK You're Not OK."
And she's really turned the tables now
On the past she disavowed
But she won't see the irony
'Cause she won't even talk to me
She never really grew up that much but
She labors under that illusion
She doesn't treat her friends as such
They're just participants in the Grand Exclusion
Singing "I'm OK, You're Not OK."
Musicians:
Adam - vocals, guitars
Rob Cassell - vocals, bass
James Hazley - drums
Adam sez:
My disdain for elitism was never higher than during the NEVEREST era (well, except for perhaps NOW), when Cockeyed Ghost was undergoing a bit of backlash from some of the hipper-than-thou elite in Los Angeles (ironically, we're now retrospectively thought of as being part of that whole scene, but at the time, it was different). Looking back, there were some good reasons for that, but at the same time, it wasn't lost on me then or now that life really is high school, but the people that were excluded then were the ones now ruling the roost, and behaving exactly the same way. Being older, I have to admit that my issue isn't with elitism itself -- because it's good to have standards and know where you fit in -- but with discriminating for petty and stupid reasons.
Anyhows, the song pretty much skewers the whole phenomenon and has some funny lines. Like many songs on NEVEREST it's pretty much a dual vocal between me and Rob Cassell. I like the song a lot though this is one case where I felt like we were too self-consciously "rock" on what was basically a fun pop song.
The oddly timed stop-start midsection is us parodying our friends in Baby Lemonade, particularly with the major 7th tremelo guitar breaks. I love the sound of tremelo guitar and had a pedal for a short while around this time, but I wound up being too lazy to lug it around for just one or two songs, and until 2007, when I started doing sessions and had to get serious about my guitar tone, my entire pedal rig was a distortion pedal, a boost pedal and tuner. The punked out end rips off the guitar riff from "Sloop John B," which is the kind of out-of-place Beach Boys reference we used to throw in. We'd always speed up at this point and so I could never play it right live.
Speaking of playing it live, people would always come up to us and say "I really like that song called 'She.'" It took a while for us to realize they meant this song.