My Favorite Century — IV
When I started this endeavor, I joked with my friend Alex that I might just put every song that ever played on the OC (specifically S1 and S2) on the playlist and call it a day. Luckily, I went deeper with the introspection to find more music I like and have experienced that did not come from a TV show that aired from Summer 2003 - Winter 2007. But here are some bands/artists that it stands to reason I first heard (or heard about) because of the OC, and more specifically, Adam Brody’s character Seth.
Jeff Buckley, Spoon, Death Cab for Cutie, Dandy Warhols, Jet, Rooney, Damien Rice, Ryan Adams, Interpol, Modest Mouse, Aqualung, Franz Ferdinand, Iron and Wine, Keane, Sufjan Stevens, The Walkmen, The Killers, The Beta Band, Phoenix, The Black Keys, Elliott Smith, Air, Louis XIV, Beck (specifically his work on the Guero album, which debuted 5 songs in one OC Episode), Eagles of Death Metal, Bloc Party, LCD Soundsystem, Of Montreal, Wilco, Coldplay, Jose Gonzalez, Imogen Heap, the Bravery, and of course Phantom Planet.
That was a selection of artists played JUST in the first two seasons. You could do worse than making a top 100 song featuring just those bands’ playlists.
An Oral History of the OC came out last fall, and I’ve resisted reading it because you never want to meet your heroes. Despite my reluctance, excerpts have made their way across my sight paths. I was primarily correct in not wanting to read this thing. Let me explain. (Missed last week’s installment? Get it here.)
I rewatched the entire series with my friends during my first year in Qatar. You have to understand that living in Qatar was odd in that we worked from 2 PM til 10 PM and had a half-hour commute, if not more, each way. So while going out after work was an option, by the time we’d get our acts together, it would be close to 11, and the lure of a $12 Heineken or $27 Gin and Tonic sometimes didn’t match the shine of hanging out friends drinking Apple Fanta, eating Chips Oman and watching Seth, Ryan, Marissa, and Summer.
Even then, with about a decade of distance between debut and rewatch, I started to sense some flaws in building a lot of my persona around Seth Cohen. Still, I was enamored with the guy who convinced Summer to fall in love with him despite his nerdy, needy, sarcastic ways.
If he could get Summer, I could get, it stood to reason, someone like Summer. Dream big.
It’s not an exaggeration to say the first thing I ever bought using eBay in 2005 was a Penguin brand polo. I would have never purchased this brand if not for Seth Cohen. I wore t-shirts over long sleeves, sweater vests, and ironic t-shirts, all because of him! I did not take up sailing or longboarding, but that was probably more of a time and place-thing than anything else.
Hard to sail or longboard in Reedsburg, I reckon.
Also, it is not an exaggeration to say that because Seth was fond of Grand Gestures to show his love or contrition for Summer, so was I.
Did I once write “I love you/I’m sorry” on as many Post-it notes as it took to cover someone’s entire windshield? Grand Gesture? More like: Grand Red Flag. What was I doing? My early 20s. Yeeeeesh.
It seems Seth, once my icon and role model, was actually pretty terrible. And worse than just being a bad character, the Oral History makes it clear that Adam Brody was actually a shit heel on set too.
Writing this feels like a breakup. And I’ve known it’s been coming.
He had good taste but was snobbish in explaining or defending that taste.
He could have been a better boyfriend. He was a terrible communicator despite being really good with words!
He was insecure. He was needy. He turned everything into a joke or a barb.
And the thing is, What if I am, too?
What if I am all of those things.
I’ll save you too much of the existential dread here (that’s what pages and pages of journals I keep in my closet are for) because, frankly, I am not a 16-20-year-old trying to find out who I am or what it means to have personality. There is a long list of differentiators between that Sam and this one, but one of the biggest is probably a piece of advice Seth Cohen gets from Anna Stern in S1E4:
“Confidence, Cohen.”
Who I am today is impacted by who I was back then, but who I am today has the confidence in so many things that that dweeb didn’t have. Of course, I am still unsure what to do with my bald spot, and I fret about money from time to time. I panic that the pairs of skinny jeans I have in my closet will never return to style, and I wonder if they’ll fit when they do. I wonder what my kids will be like and if I’ll be able to care for them when a bully comes for them for one reason or another.
But these issues don’t cause me the stay-awake type of dread anymore. Because I have the confidence (or naivety?!) to believe it’ll all work out if I keep pushing on.
And now, the music in my century, as featured in the OC.
That song isn’t even on the list, but in what world did you think I could an entire selection of songs about songs featured in the OC and not kick them off with Phantom Planet?
It wasn’t happening.
I’m never entirely sure if it’s well-known that Jason Schwartzman used to be the drummer in this band and actually wrote this song before departing for good in 2003, right before it was selected as one of the most instantly recognizable theme songs ever. And now in the era where you can skip intros, I can’t imagine there are many songs that will hit that zeitgeist again.
Okay now seriously, the actual entries.
Song
Hallelujah
Artist
Jeff Buckley
Released
1994
Lyric
Maybe there is a God above/
but all I've ever learned from love/
is how to shoot somebody who out drew ya.
One Word
Hymnal
More Than One Word
Outside of the theme song, the song I'll most attribute to discovering via The OC is Jeff Buckley's cover of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah.
Seth was always out here talking about Death Cab for Cutie, and frankly, I never really got too far into them but this song?
Yeah, it resonated with me.
Hallelujah plays over the final heartbreaking scenes of the Season 1 Finale. My guy Seth Cohen is steering his boat — the Summer Breeze (speaking of grand gestures, he named his boat after a girl he was pining after. Again red flag.) to somewhere after a devastating breakup. Ryan is leaving the OC, heading back to Chino to care for someone who may be pregnant with his child but could also be pregnant with someone else's child. Kiki is crying. Marissa is drinking.
Sadness all around.
Indeed, the final shots of the finale are crushing, and Jeff is singing a love song over all of it.
This song is gorgeous, and I think this version elevates over the original primarily because of Buckley's ability to provide some emotion into the lyrics, which Leonard sings more like a dirge than an epic.
Again, I never took up boating, but if I ever do and make a nautical playlist, this song will be on the list because I think it's probably an excellent song for sailing, but also pretty good for crying. It’s versatile like that.
Song
Specialist
Artist
Interpol
Released
2002
Lyric
I love the way/
You put me in the big house
One Word
Lasers
More Than One Word
Picking an unreleased bonus track from Interpol’s debut album to showcase how fucking cool Interpol is ranks pretty highly on the list of awesome musical choices The OC made, especially in Season 1, which didn’t even feature the Bait Shop plots. This song rips.
It’s honesty time (lol: now it’s honesty time. Sure):
The first concert I attended was Avril Lavigne — Bonez Tour (sweet name, honestly).
I am not entirely sure how I ended up at an Avril Lavigne concert, but I know that I went with two friends who were in the middle of falling in love, and I was just along for the ride.
One thing led to another, and yadda yadda yadda, you’re third-wheeling on your way to an Avril Lavigne in Milwaukee.
This is not where anyone should be, so I’ve mostly blacked this event out of my mind.
Whenever someone asks me, “What’s your first concert?” I am torn.
Because, again, the answer is Avril Lavigne. But… I don’t remember anything about it, so if you don’t remember something, did it really happen?
The answer I want to give is: I saw the Strokes and Interpol perform pretty close to the same time, but I can’t tell which came first.
I swear to God I just spent 20 minutes trying to find the chronological order of this whole anecdote, and it seems possible — if not likely — I saw the Avril Lavigne third, after Strokes and Interpol. That should make you wonder: With those answers at my disposal, why would I even consider telling anyone that Avril Lavigne is the answer to that question?
And you might also say, but Sam, why not just delete this entire diatribe about Avril Lavigne and stick to discussing Specialist I by Interpol?
Good question.
Are you aware there’s a conspiracy on the internet that Avril Lavigne, the one from the Skaterboi video, etc., is dead? I learned about this theory recently (adds new meaning to Bonez tour, non?) and think about it frequently. The rumor goes that Avril died in 2003 and was replaced soon after by a lookalike named Melissa Vandella, and no one’s been the wiser (save for all of us in the know) for over 20 years. I’m going to link to the conspiracy. It’s not particularly compelling, but it makes you go, “Huh, well, that’s something.”
Which, if we’re being honest, is another way to describe this entire exercise, isn’t it?
Twenty years as a body double, look a like, pretending to be a professional musician with a penchant for skateboaring?
Talk about a Specialist, huh?
Listen to Interpol.
Here’s what I recall about the Interpol concert (despite having no idea when it happened, apparently): Lasers, smoke, and bright spotlights.
The guys came out backlit to shit. You could not see them against the blaring spotlights and smoke machines. But then they started to play, and all you could see was the shadowed men + instruments and hear the shredding. It looked cool and sounded even better.
We should all be so lucky to have Interpol as the first band we remember seeing.
Why did I have to go and make that all so complicated? (Maybe just so I could make this joke,)
Song
For the Widows in Paradise, for the Fatherless in Ypsilanti
Artist
Sufjan Stevens
Released
2003
Lyric
Like a father to impress/
Like a mother's mourning dress/
If we ever make a mess/
I'll do anything for you
One Word
Optimistic
More Than One Word
So many plots in the OC leave you wondering what this show could have been if not for the need to do 20+ episodes per season. Do you realize, or remember, that we were committing to spending something like 28 weeks a year wondering: Ryan and Marissa: Will they, won’t they? This is more commonly associated, in modern TV, with Jim and Pam, or Nick and Jess.
But we also just kept wondering how Ryan and Marissa were ever going to figure this whole thing out.
They didn’t. She died. But not before the writers introduced her to Jonny, and through a series of plot devices I don't entirely remember, other than that he was somehow more of a wet blanket than Seth, he died, and Marissa was broken to her core.
So naturally, when someone who styles themselves as an emo sad surfer dies, who are you going to turn to for music to play at the beach funeral?
Sufjan Stevens.
Googling “what does Sufjan” translate to yields some pretty wild results ranging from “the one with a sword” to “the one who walks fast.”
Sufjan Stevens probably does neither.
Or both.
Who is to say.
Sufjan fucked around and released two albums about states, leading to speculation that he was going to do one for all 50 states. While this would have been amazing, and frankly, I am still hopeful he will, I am content if we only get Michigan and Illinois.
Like most Sufjan albums, the Michigan album is stunningly beautiful and full of music and lyrics that paint pictures and make you think mostly about pain and death, but oddly, maybe also, about life? This song wears all those hats. It was inspired by a trip to Paradise, Michigan, where Sufjan saw what he thought were many husbandless women and fatherless children. It’s one of those songs that reading the lyrics as opposed to hearing them can really change your understanding of what’s happening. For a long time, when Sufjan speaks about “a mother’s mourning dress,” I assumed: morning dress. That paints one picture.
Mourning dress though?
Totally different picture.
This playlist cannot be all uppers. Sometimes, you need to wonder what a city in Michigan without any fathers would be like, and thankfully, Sufjan’s here being like: I’ll do anything for you (I assume the you here, is like, all the people in the city who are now husbandless and fatherless?) Good to know Sufjan’s got you covered.
Song
Fix You
Artist
Coldplay
Released
2005
Lyric
And I will try/
to fix you.
One Word
Paltrow
More Than One Word
Towards the end of Season 2, before the wheels really come off, Summer is crowned at prom queen dance. Zach (side note: what happened this guy? Talk about handsome!), Seth’s once comic-book writing partner but now turned Summer’s ex-boyfriend, is crowned king, but he is a no-show. Again, it is all very sad. But who is there to step in in Zach’s absence?
My guy Seth.
As he walks on stage to jeers like “Seth Cohen is a tool,” (we gotta bring “tool” back as an insult. It’s harmless but mean.)
Coldplay’s Fix You starts playing. And you know the next four minutes are going to be great.
Is it weird that this song is on this list? No. I don’t think it is. I am in on the joke. This song is an anthem. This song is meant to be screamed with your friends at like 1:45 AM after 7 Heinekens and two rounds of shots. It’s overwrought. It’s a perfect driving song (assuming you are driving alone and are a bit sad but want to be made happy through song. Bonus points if it is dark and the lights can guide you home.
So why does this song exist? And why do I like it? Here’s my theory.
Recently, it’s become rote for celebrities to name their children wild things, like Riot. But in the early 2000s, it was more sensational.
Apple Paltrow was the tip of the spear for me. I remember the jokes about Gwenth and Chris Martin naming this child Apple; frankly, it seemed insane. Now though? Apple is old-hat. Normal almost. People are naming their kids things like Storm, Jett, and Enid.
I think we are post-name bullying. Bullys are not going away, mind you, but this time around, the bully will not come for you because your name rhymes with something or is weird.
And so I used to think that when Chris Martin sang about trying your best and not succeeding, he was tacitly acknowledging that he fucked up by naming his kid Apple. “You get what you want (the name Apple), but not what you need (a good name).) But time has wizened me, and now, I think: Nope. Chris (and Gwenth), you nailed it.
You were merely a pioneer.
The light we needed to guide us into a new era of baby names.
Suppose any of you are considering or have given your child a non-traditional name. In that case, I think you must pay homage to Chris Martin.
Turn on Fix You. It’ll make you feel better, I promise. Even if you didn’t know you were feeling down.
Song
Hide and Seek
Artist
Imogen Heap
Released
2005
Lyric
Hmm, what'd you say?/
Hmm, that it's just what we need.
One Word
Manslaugher
More Than One Word
There's not much I really need to say about this song.
It’s perfect.
As far its use as an OC song , it famously plays when Marissa has to shoot — but not kill— Ryan's brother.
That'll mess you up.
The way that shooting takes place is pretty absurd (Ryan’s brother is about smash his face in with a telephone, and Marissa, with no options left, grabs a gun, and shoots.) This was famously parodied by Saturday Night Live in a skit that even people who never saw the OC still identified as absurd and hilarious.
During my research for this, I came across Imogen’s pretty whacky Tiny Desk Set. The showstopper is obviously at the end (9:32 mark) when she puts on a pair of gloves and then rips out a wild rendition of Hide and Seek. I recommend that. I’ll throw it at the bottom,
Even if you don't like the song, the gloves are pretty cool. Give it a gander.
I've written close to 2500 words about the OC, and I would love to find the person who has gotten this far and is indignant that I paid Hide and Seek less attention than I paid a different song.
Come find me. I’ll fix it if this is the case.
Hide and Seek.
Ransom notes keep dripping from your mouth.
Enjoy your weekend.
Back with more next week
