Song of the Day: Plush (by Stone Temple Pilots)


My latest pick for “Song of the Day” takes me back….way back to those early days post-high school. Only a couple years removed from graduating high school and maneuvering my ways through the turbulent seas of what would be my college years, it was only typical that music would be one of the few things that would anchor things for me during my Adrift Years.

Stone Temple Pilots is part of what I consider as the Big Four of alternative rock of the 1990’s or as some would label that particular sound as “grunge”. Alternative rock, grunge or just plain old hard rock, Stone Temple Pilots made their mark in the early 90’s rock scene with the second single off of their 1993 debut album Core.

“Plush” has always been one of my favorite songs of that era. I played that song on repeat and was one of my go-to Stone Temple Pilots track until “Interstate Love Song” a year later came along. The song was carried by Scott Weiland’s iconic vocals and its dark lyrics. I never knew how dark a song “Plush” was until finding out from a Weiland interview that it was based on a true story of a girl who had been kidnapped and murdered in the early 90’s.

Whether a song inspired by a true-crime story or a metaphor for a failed relationship (as Weiland has said the lyrics represented), “Plush” will remain one of those songs from my young adult years that I would revisit every year to reminisce.

Plush

And I feel that time’s a wasted go
So where you goin’ ’til tomorrow?
And I see that these are lies to come
So would you even care?

And I feel it
And I feel it

Where you goin’ for tomorrow?
Where you goin’ with the mask I found?
And I feel, and I feel when the dogs begin to smell her
Will she smell alone?

And I feel so much depends on the weather
So, is it rainin’ in your bedroom?
And I see that these are the eyes of disarray
So would you even care?

And I feel it
And she feels it

Where you goin’ for tomorrow?
Where you goin’ with the mask I found?
And I feel, and I feel when the dogs begin to smell her
Will she smell alone?

When the dogs do find her
Got time, time to wait for tomorrow
To find it, to find it, to find it
When the dogs do find her
Got time, time to wait for tomorrow
To find it, to find it, to find it

Where you goin’ for tomorrow?
Where you goin’ with the mask I found?
And I feel, and I feel when the dogs begin to smell her
Will she smell alone?

When the dogs do find her
Got time, time to wait for tomorrow
To find it, to find it, to find it
When the dogs do find her
Got time, time to wait for tomorrow
To find it, to find it, to find it

To find it
To find it
To find it

Song of the Day: Big Empty (by Stone Temple Pilots)


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Tonight the music world found out that Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver frontman Scott Weiland passed away at the age of 48 while on tour in Minnesota.

The years after graduating from high school was a chaotic time for me. not knowing what role I had for myself moving forward and afraid of the world beyond the regimented, secured, but understood confines of high school. While I enjoyed the freedom of being a young adult after graduating in the summer of 1991 the reality of it all was that I wasn’t that far removed from still being a teenager a couple years later.

I call these my adrift years.

From this time in my life I was drawn to the music that every young adult trying to leave his teen years behind. Whether it was hip-hop, metal and, the genre of the era, grunge, I was listening to it. While I wasn’t as huge a fan of grunge as the rest of my contemporaries of the time I did gravitate to a couple of the titans of the genre: Soundgarden and Stone Temple Pilots.

It was with Stone Temple Pilots that I was introduced to one of my favorite frontman of my Adrift Years: Scott Weiland.

Weiland encompassed not just the brooding, alienation that made grunge such a popular genre of music during the 1990’s but also had a touch of the wild and dangerous aspect of what made rock frontmen so-called Rock Gods. He was the Axel Rose of grunge. An enormously talented vocalist, but one who was also scandal-bound with his off-stage drug use and self-destructive behavior.

Scott Weiland helped make those years adrift during the early 1990’s with his singing. It’s a shame and a loss to the music world that like other rock legends before him his early years battling his inner demons would take him away too soon.

Nothing epitomizes who Scott Weiland was to me better than the song “Big Empty” which was the first single off of their second album Purple.

Big Empty

drivin’ faster in my car
falling farther from just what we are
smoke a cigarette and lie some more
these conversations kill
falling faster in my car

time to take her home
her dizzy head is conscience laden
time to take a ride
it leaves today no conversation
time to take her home
her dizzy head is conscience laden
time to wait too long
to wait too long
these conversations kill

to much walkin’, shoes worn thin
too much trippin’ and my soul’s worn thin
time to catch a ride
it leaves today, her name is what it means
to much walkin’, shoe’s worn thin