Albums In The Day: The Records Of My Life - Pt. 26

Big Head Todd & The Monsters - Sister Sweetly (1993)

I've hesitated a few times when it came to posting this album. On it's own merits Sister Sweetly is a great album top to bottom, but this record came into my life at such a critical time and has remained quite relevant ever since. As I've noted before my Dad really got into Gin Blossoms and Big Head Todd right after the divorce, and I in turn got into them. The Big Head Todd appealed to me more just because it was the first real break-up album I'd ever heard. Right from the get-go you have "Broken Hearted Savior", a song about a guy who still loves a woman who continually bounces between him and other guys, only because she can't make up her frickin' mind about what she wants. Still, he laments not having her, but recognizes how much of a mess she is. Then you have "Tomorrow Never Comes", where a couple is stuck in this perpetual dance of apathy and loneliness, though they can't reconcile themselves to fix their problems. All they do is, quite literally, exist around each other, providing each other with at least someone to come home to. The line "...so we'll just learn to love our sorrow" still stabs me every time, mostly because that's one aspect of relationships I never want to settle on, though if you talk to enough married couples it's nigh unavoidable. "It's Alright" is the sympathetic friend theme song, which is a far too typical situation. Two good friends, one disappears for awhile while they're involved with somebody, something happens with that relationship, the friend comes crying back to the other looking for a shoulder to cry on, then the whole cycle repeats with their next relationship. (Yeah, I can identify with that far too well.) "Bittersweet" is along the same lines as "Tomorrow", though it takes the more wistful "I used to have such sweet dreams of us, but now reality is way WAY different" approach. "Circle" is essentially the narrator begging another to not turn their back on them, to stop being so terrified of what life really is and can be, just turn and face reality and just, well, get on with it. These are all my own interpretations of the songs (though I'd like to hear what others have to say), but to have this album still speaking to me the way it does 13 years after I first heard it is still amazing to me. If you ever get a chance to catch these guys live do it, and if you have yet to download an album in this series then please PLEASE download this one. You won't regret it...

Give It A Try:
"Broken Hearted Savior"
"Tomorrow Never Comes"
"It's Alright"
"Bittersweet"
"Circle"