The roller coaster ride's a lonely one - I'd pay the ransom note to stop it from steaming.
Guess I'd call this this one a bit of a guilty pleasure.
I'm not a fan of the band and, if you looked up the word "Superdouche! (if that was a real word) in a dictionary (well, I guess, pictionary - if such a thing exists!), you'd see a shot of head honcho Scott Weiland! However, I've always liked the beautiful "Sour Girl" - a song from a century ago now.
Well, it does have a great title!
The song was written by Weiland and guitarist Dean DeLeo for the band's fourth album, imaginatively titled, erm ... No. 4 back in 1999. Released as the second single therefrom, it charted at #78 on the Hot 100; oddly, their only song to appear on that chart.
"She was a happy girl the day that she left me", indeed ... I guess someone had a premonition of what Weiland's performance in this vid would be. More of which anon.
Though containing glints of lightness - like the self deprecating "I was a superman; the looks are deceiving" - this is a dark, evocative, meditation on a painful love breakdown - a long relationship "she was a teenage girl when she met me."
In a stream of consciousness style lyric, an obsessive ("what would you do if I followed you?") brooding protagonist meditates on the moment this love first sparked into life and on the moment of its final demise.
He's coming to the very painful resignation that the special thing they had once, had to end. He realises the relationship was damaging his partner emotionally, and begins to accept "the girl got reasons; they all got reasons." The rocky relationship ("the roller coaster ride's a lonely one. I'd pay the ransom note to stop it from steaming.") was in fact doomed from the start ("she was a sour girl the day that she met me.")
There are some autobiographical inferences that can be brought to bear on the song given that Weiland's marriage had broken down before the song was written. He married Janina Castaneda on September 17, 1994 and, after a separation, the couple officially divorced in early 2000.
However, before 2000 was out, Scott had wed again - to a model, no less - so I guess he managed to get over that pain real quick!
Apparently, he was so fucked up in 1995 that he apparently moved into a hotel room for two months next door to professional widow - and queen of all douchettes - Courtney Love and "shot drugs the whole time" with her!)
Yap, if you looked up the phrase "fucked up" in a dictionary (well, the ones I read) you'll find the definition "willing to spend two months with Courtney Love"!
Yap, here's topless ponce Weiland wildly gyrating around like he's got a pair of hamsters up his caboose!
So, it seems, this guys girl has left him so now he's lost in another dark dimension, going gaga like a junkie Alice in a nightmarish LSD wonderland!
However, as well as erm ... loads of nefarious Teletubbies, giant sinister rabbits, a black witch, a blonde entranced pricess and other weird shit - the creepy video has a certain young stunner called Sarah Michelle Gellar (how the fuck did she end up in this?); so therefore it's not too bad!
One big issue though - why the hell didn't they have a topless Gellar wildly gyrating around instead of Weiland?