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Executive Producer
Brandon Fugal
Honorary Producers
Holly Hammet, Remnarc, Kevin riley, Paul Moore II, CharleyAnne
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I heard a song the other day that I haven’t heard in decades…and I laughed for a few minutes, remembering the first time I heard it as a kid and not really getting the punchline… We’ve covered Weird Al many times but I thought it would be interesting to cover some of the funniest non-parody songs. Originals that are hilarious… Some are on purpose, some are by accident …So let’s get into it.
Coming in at #7 I know a girl who thinks of ghosts. She’ll make you breakfast, she’ll make you toast, but she don’t use butter…she uses a novel ingredient…. Our first of the funniest non-parody songs of the Rock Era is by The Flaming Lips, with their big surprise…”She Don’t Use Vaseline.” It’s one of the strangest songs ever to break into the mainstream… a quirky, surreal, and hilarious, with lyrics about Vaseline, magazines, and tangerines. Somehow, “She Don’t Use Jelly” became the unlikely hit that brought one of the greatest bands of the last 30 years, the Flaming Lips out of the indie underground and into the pop culture spotlight. But like most Flaming Lips stories, the creation of the song was anything but ordinary:
By the early ‘90s, the Flaming Lips had built a reputation as one of the most unpredictable and eccentric bands in the alt-rock scene. They had developed a significant cult following with a cross-section of garage rock and folk music fans. Frontman Wayne Coyne was known for his imaginative lyrics and experimental sonic choices. But even Wayne admitted that “She Don’t Use Jelly" was flat out…weird. That’s saying something if Wayne thinks the song is weird. It was completely unplanned.
The band was working on their ’93 album Transmissions from the Satellite Heart, and Wayne wanted to write something simple—almost absurdly so—just to break up the heavier tracks they were working on. What he came up with was a three-chord ditty full of bizarre character sketches: a woman who uses Vaseline on her toast, a man who fixes his hair with magazines, and a girl who thinks of tangerines when kissing. Yeah, it was meant to be a fun little anomaly: Wayne elaborated that the lyrics to “She Don’t Use Jelly” were intentionally nonsensical, describing it as “a dumb song… written in like 20 minutes.” The band didn't give it much attention. There was no reason to give it any attention. In fact, they thought it was kind of a joke. Wayne & his bandmates came darn close to not including it on the album at all. It was added late in the process, only as filler. But producer Keith Cleversley sensed its potential and encouraged them to record it with more…
To appease their producer, the Lips gave it a warped, fuzzy production with a whimsical, psychedelic touch—part bubblegum pop, part weirdo