Serendipity

Ran some errands down in Redlands. Ended up stopping in to an antique store on a whim. Was about to leave disappointed when I discovered this.

It's not that I'm a fan of oddities from 1974. Although I'm not sure these were oddities as I didn't exist then, but 3M Games published these from the 60's to early 70's. I am a fan of Ween, however, and this was the inspiration for the album cover of their 2003 album Quebec.

Aside from their biggest hit and a few songs here and there, I never got immersed in Ween until this album came out.  Two years earlier, I'd moved to Atlanta sight unseen to start portfolio school. When this album came out in August of that year, I was one month away from graduation.

I remember being a bit scared for the future. September 11th was still fresh in everyone's minds, the dot com crash had only recently ended and demand for people in advertising had dropped along with budgets. It was a horrible time to enter the market.

Quebec was the soundtrack to that unease. With the exception of "Hey There, Fancy Pants,"  and the Lemmy send up "It's gonna be a long night," almost all of the songs were dark and sad.

At the time I didn't know that "Chocolate Town," was autobiographical in nature and was inspired by a sometime member of the band getting busted for buying drugs. All I knew from the opening stanza was that things were very morose.

I couldn't taste the taste that I was tastingI couldn't hear the waste that I was makingTired of the life I was facing

Songs that initially sound happy take an abrupt turn. "Zoloft," and "Happy Colored Marbles," are the sounds of anti-depressants no longer working. "The Argus," and "Captain," sound like they tapped into Roger Waters' more gloomy moods. And the ending "If you could save yourself, (you'd save us all)" is an epic song about emptiness.

Considering the themes running throughout the album, the cover is a compelling juxtaposition.