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Like Junior High

from Abbey Damned by vonHummer

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about

"Like Junior High" is my most-downloaded song. It's a favorite at shows. It's irresistible. It's backwards. I mean, it was created backwards.

"Like Junior High" was written for Helvetica Bold. (We'll call her that, but you know who I mean.) Right at the start of our relationship. That's how I felt about her: a crush on someone who's way cooler than you are. I was married to someone else at the time, however, so that's probably why the love song is cloaked in a story. Plausible deniability.

Helvetica loved it right away. I think. I mean, she said she did. She probably did. Despite the unhappy ending, which I never thought much about then. Why did I do that? Why put an unhappy ending on this very happy love song? The kid in the song worships this cool chick. It's not mutual. Or is it? He writes her a love note. He finds it ripped up on the floor by her locker later. Why? Disgust? Sorrow? Maybe she loves him, too, but she knows a relationship isn't possible? Maybe her self-esteem is too low to allow a love? We don't know.

So, I wrote that song in 2000, and recorded it for the first time in 2001. I knew it was great, so...I saved it for the right moment. I probably imagined it would be the centerpiece of some great album. I definitely had a whole movie written around it at one point. (Well, not written, PLOTTED.) How else to explain that this song never appears on the original run of "The vonHummer Hour?"

Finally, in early Summer of 2002, when I first ran out of songs for the show, I got in touch with an old drummer pal of mine from back East. He had a digital 12 track or something (which was a big deal to me then. I was still recording on cassette.) He suggested I record some songs, send them to him, and he'd upload the tracks and record drums on them.

So I recorded five songs—of which "Like Junior High"—was one. I knew his reliability for getting projects like this done on his own was highly suspect, but he swore he had two weeks blocked out just for this. No fail. Two weeks, and I'd have my hot tracks back.

Took him a year and a half. No kidding. And even then, he only worked on three of the songs. His parts were good, but he also went and messed with my guitar parts, adding distortion and such which I was rather against at that point in time. I shelved the tracks.

Fast forward to the end of 2003. "The vonHummer Hour" is no longer in production, but still in reruns on cable access. A good friend is in film school and needs to produce a music video for class, STAT!

I probably wasn't he first choice, but whatever. He asked if he could shoot a vid of one my songs. As luck would have it, I'd just run across the master tape of the guitar tracks I'd recorded for "LIke Junior High" to send to my pal back east the year or so before.

I figured I could add some drums, some vocals and it might be pretty good.

This was a first for me in terms of drumming. I didn't record the original tracks with a click track or anything, so programming drums (as I usually did) wouldn't work. Instead I had to drum along with the finger pads on my drum machine. Took awhile, but I think I really nailed it. Come on, admit it. You thought that was proper drummer didn't you?

So that's why I say this is a backwards recording. You're SUPPOSED to record the drums first. Oddly enough, I've done the last two albums the same way, tapping out the drums last of all. I don't know why, either. It's different, I guess. One gets sick of being a slave to the beat right up front in the recording process.

So "Like Junior High" was not a part of the "Abbey Damned" but I've added it here because...close enough. It was recorded both before AND after the seven songs on this album. Weird, huh?

lyrics

"Like Junior High"
(vonHummer)
Finally wrote you the ultimate love note, gonna slip it in the pocket of your pea coat, loved you all year, it’s time to let you know, cafeteria theory says it’s so…
In the girls room, you are a smoker, which makes me an impractical joker, you’re so hot, you walk by and I’m all “whoa!”
Way cooler than me, maybe, but who knows…
You’re all high school, but I love you like junior high,
You’re all high school, but I love you like junior high,
You’re all high school, but I love you like junior high,
You’re all high school, but I love you,
See you roaming the hallways cos you always have a pass, can’t sit nearby you no more cos you crack me up in class, there’s sparkle in your eyes like streetlight on broken glass, you could stop an assembly with your laugh…
Someone said that you got detention for telling truth too ugly to mention, I’m so into you I’d risk suspension just to play hooky all day with you…
You’re all high school, but I love you like junior high,
You’re all high school, but I love you like junior high,
You’re all high school, but I love you like junior high,
You’re all high school, but I love you,
Finally wrote you the ultimate love note, gonna slip it in the pocket of your pea coat, loved you all year, it’s time to let you know, cafeteria theory says it’s so,
Still thinking about you in Social Studies, after Math, you’re still the topic sentence in my perfect paragraph, though you left my love note for the janitorial staff on the floor by your locker torn in half…
You’re all high school, but I love you like junior high,
You’re all high school, but I love you like junior high,
You’re all high school, but I love you like junior high,
You’re all high school, but I love you,

credits

from Abbey Damned, released August 1, 2003
vonHummer: Drums, bass drone, high drone guitar, vocals.

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vonHummer Portland, Oregon

vonHummer is a Portland music/cable access legend whose career spanned from Fall of 2001 to Fall of 2011, during which he recorded a hundred or so songs for use in his absurdist show (and feature film) and played only a handful of concerts. Currently retired, his work shines on for the ages. Or will he someday return...? ... more

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