 |
| "Army" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Single by Ben Folds Five | ||||
| from the album The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner | ||||
| Released | 1999 | |||
| Genre | Rock | |||
| Label | 550 | |||
| Songwriter(s) | Ben Folds | |||
| Producer(s) | Caleb Southern | |||
| Ben Folds Five singles chronology | ||||
| ||||
"Army" is an alternative rock song by the band Ben Folds Five from their 1999 album The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner . It reached number 28 on the charts in the UK.
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Army" | 3:25 |
| 2. | "Air" | 3:20 |
| 3. | "(Theme from) Dr. Pyser" | 3:15 |
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Army (clean version)" | 3:25 |
| 2. | "Leather Jacket" | 3:20 |
| 3. | "Birds" | 3:15 |
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Army" | 3:25 |
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Leather Jacket" | 2:15 |
| 2. | "Birds" | 2:08 |
The song deals with indecision, independence, conflict, and freedom in describing the narrator's struggles to find his way in life as he contemplates joining the military, enrolls in college and soon drops out, and joins a band. The lyrics contains many memorable moments, including the opening line ("Well I thought about the army / dad said 'Son, you're fucking high!'") and the bridge, which includes a horn section. The song is popular among fans, and has remained part of Folds's concerts in his solo career.
Folds has explained at live performances that the entire song is based on personal experiences, with a few exceptions. He never grew a mullet, though the song's lyrics say "Grew a mustache and a mullet / Got a job a Chick-fil-A."
Here is Folds's explanation from a recording at Enmore:
This one's about my really horrible experience trying to get through college. And I got a scholarship and then I lost a scholarship... after a semester cause I flunked a class because I flunked one test. The class was based on one test. The one I flunked. I flunked the test because I got delivered to the test in a police car at six o'clock in the morning with stitches in my nose and stitches in my mouth. And I was still drunk. And I had a broken hand, presumably because I had clocked that ass. I hit the wall.
So I threw my drum set, which is the instrument that I flunked on, into Lake Osceola in the middle of University of Miami and I took a Greyhound bus, I don't shit you, it was a Greyhound bus back home and I worked with a bunch of old ladies in a grocery store for about 18 months. It was at that time that I decided in my bedroom I decided while listening to Elvis Costello in 1986 that maybe I shouldn't wait tables and do this old lady job anymore, maybe... I should join the Army.
And umm, for those of you who know the lyrics from the song I derived them, except for the rhyming part which I setup myself, I derived it from the way it actually went down.
My father knocked on the door. I'll just be dad for a second:
[Knock, knock, knock] "Benjamin, what are you doing in there?"
"Well I was thinking about joining the army...""You're fucking high"
The clean version is sometimes referred to as the "We Got the 'Fuck' Out edit".
On the live album Ben Folds Live , Folds introduces the song to the audience by saying: "This one goes out to anyone who actually signed up and is in—is gone into the armed forces. Thanks a lot. I tried, I went down to the recruiting center and I talked to them, and I thought about it, but at the end of the day, I think I was genetically inclined to be a musician." He then goes on to instruct the audience in singing the horn parts: "We've got enough people in here to get a bitchin' horn section, so let's cut the audience down the middle. This side, saxophones, this side's trumpets." Later live audiences were split into "bitch and whore sections" by Ben, an auditory spin off of the phrase "bitchin' horn section" heard on Ben Folds Live. The ensemble parts are often performed by the crowds during concerts in an audience participation bit which Folds "conducts". In addition, the audience customarily sings the line, "God please spare me more rejection." Folds also frequently changes the last line from "the army" to "your mommy" or, on occasion, "all y'all's mommies".
In the DVD Sessions at West 54th, in the Spare Reels footage, Ben Folds Five can be seen recording the song. The lyrics are slightly different, and the horn parts are either scat sung by Folds or omitted.
In the Freaking Out DVD shot in Tokyo in 1999, Robert Sledge changes the line "God, please spare me more rejection!" to "God I've got a HUGE erection!"
"Army" was performed by the Legally Prohibited Band as Conan O'Brien's introduction music on his Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour.
The song is featured in the Viceland comedy series Nirvanna the Band the Show as the end credits theme song.
Funkadelic is the debut album by the American funk rock band Funkadelic, released in 1970 on Westbound Records.
Benjamin Scott Folds is an American singer-songwriter, musician, composer and record producer. Folds was the frontman and pianist of the alternative rock band Ben Folds Five from 1993 to 2000, and again in the early 2010s during their reunion. He has recorded a number of solo albums and performed live as a solo artist. He has also collaborated with musicians such as William Shatner, Regina Spektor, "Weird Al" Yankovic, and yMusic, and undertaken experimental songwriting projects with authors such as Nick Hornby and Neil Gaiman. He has frequently performed arrangements of his music with uncommon instrumentation, including symphony orchestras and a cappella groups. In addition to contributing music to the soundtracks of the animated films Hoodwinked!, and Over the Hedge, Folds has produced several albums, including Amanda Palmer's first solo album.
Slip Stitch and Pass is the second official live album by the American rock band Phish. It was released on October 28, 1997, by Elektra Records and has nine tracks from the band's March 1, 1997, show at the Markthalle Hamburg in Hamburg, Germany, which was part of Phish's 1997 European Tour.
Mark Edward Kozelek is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, record producer and occasional actor. He is known as the vocalist and primary recording artist of the indie folk act Sun Kil Moon, and founding member of the indie rock band Red House Painters, with whom he recorded six studio albums from 1989 until 2001.
The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner is the third studio album by Ben Folds Five, released April 27, 1999. It represented a departure for the band from their usual pop-rock sound to material influenced by classical and chamber music, with darker, introspective lyrics on subjects such as regret, death, and loss of innocence. It was the final full-length album from the trio until the release of The Sound of the Life of the Mind in 2012. It was produced by Caleb Southern.
Ben Folds Live is a live album by Ben Folds, released on October 8, 2002. This album marked the first official release of the Ben Folds' improvisation, "Rock This Bitch". The song, which changes with every performance, is now a staple of his live performances, with recorded versions also appears on his later albums Songs for Goldfish and on the Live in Perth DVD.
Walter David "Wattie" Buchan is a Scottish punk rock musician. He is the lead vocalist for the punk rock band the Exploited.
"Rockin' the Suburbs" is a song by Ben Folds on the album of the same name.
"Rocket Queen" is a song by American rock band Guns N' Roses, featured on their debut studio album, Appetite for Destruction (1987). The song is notable for incorporating moans from a woman, Adriana Smith, who was recorded having sexual intercourse with the band.
This Note's for You is the 16th studio album by Canadian / American musician Neil Young, released April 11, 1988 on Reprise. It was originally credited to "Young and the Bluenotes." Part of the album's concept centered on the commercialism of rock and roll, and tours in particular. The music is marked by the use of a horn section. It also marked Young's return to the recently reactivated Reprise Records after a rocky tenure with Geffen Records.
"Surf's Up" is a song recorded by the American rock band the Beach Boys that was written by Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks. It was originally intended for Smile, an unfinished Beach Boys album that was scrapped in 1967. The song was later completed by Brian and Carl Wilson as the closing track of the band's 1971 album Surf's Up.
"Get Up Sex Machine" is a song recorded by James Brown with Bobby Byrd on backing vocals. Released as a two-part single in 1970, it was a no. 2 R&B hit and reached no. 15 on the Billboard Hot 100.
"Devils & Dust" is the title track on Bruce Springsteen's thirteenth studio album Devils & Dust, and was released as a single in 2005. Concerning the Iraq War, the song gained critical praise as well as a Grammy Award for Song of the Year nomination.
"Underground" is a song from Ben Folds Five's 1995 self-titled debut album. It was written by Ben Folds. The song is about geeks and social outcasts looking for solace in numbers in underground music and art scenes. It peaked at #37 on the UK Singles Chart. The track was #3 for the year of 1996 on Australia's Triple J Hottest 100.
Ben Folds Live at MySpace is a DVD featuring a live performance by singer-songwriter and pianist Ben Folds. Filmed on October 24, 2006, at Folds' personal studio in Nashville, Tennessee, this event was the social network MySpace.com's first ever live webcast. It launched "Hey, Play This", an exclusive series of in-studio all-request concerts webcast for free through the MySpace website.
They've Actually Gotten Worse Live! is a live album by punk rock band NOFX. The album is their second live recording, following their 1995 album I Heard They Suck Live!!
Mullet Fever is the fourth album by Canadian grindcore band Fuck the Facts originally released in 2001. It was released on Topon's label Ghetto Blaster Recordings with only 200 CD-Rs being made. The album was reissued in 2005 with bonus tracks on Sonic Deadline Records.
"A Mind Beside Itself" is a three-part song cycle by the American prog metal band Dream Theater, comprising the songs "Erotomania", "Voices" and "The Silent Man". It was first released on Dream Theater's 1994 album Awake.
My Father Will Guide Me up a Rope to the Sky is the eleventh studio album by American rock band Swans released on September 23, 2010; it was their first studio recording in 14 years. Swans founder Michael Gira funded the recording of this album by creating the limited-edition album I Am Not Insane and chose several collaborators from previous Swans line-ups as well as his side project Angels of Light to record and tour for this album. My Father Will Guide Me up a Rope to the Sky has received positive critical feedback for the return of Swans as well as the rich spiritual themes of the lyrics.
Oliver Scott Sykes is a British singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist of the rock band Bring Me the Horizon. He also founded the apparel company Drop Dead Clothing, and created a graphic novel.
