"Like Junior High" is my most-downloaded song (although not this demo version). It's a favorite at shows. It's irresistible. It's depressing.
"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?"
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 Isoprolific,
released August 21, 2016
vonHummer: vocals and bass.
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
Long split up, but not forgotten. Some say the Winebirds functioned as an ersatz Fleetwood Mac, and that's more than fair, but to me, they functioned as a real-life Partridge Family. vonHummer
Continuing the rock tradition of talking about awkward, intimate minutiae and nerdy obsessions via mammoth guitar lines. Bandcamp Album of the Day Sep 12, 2017