Blind Melon are My Most Over-Indexed Band
I co-own a trivia company. Chuck, the other guy I own it with introduced the term “over-indexed” too me. He says that Trivia Mafia over indexes on rivers. You grab 1500 trivia question from some other joe-schmo trivia company and maybe they’ll have four questions about rivers. We’ll have seventeen. We love rivers. And I’m the same way with Blind Melon. You ask for my top five bands, it looks a lot like yours. But Blind Melon is on there, and I bet they’re not on your list. Here’s some things:
Blind Melon combine the groove of southern rock like The Allman Brothers and the Band with the lyrical content of Sylvia Plath. I listened to Blind Melon a lot in middle school. I remember listening to Blind Melon on a Walkman while my Dad was driving my brother to a guitar lesson in Albany, New York. ‘Bout an hour drive each way for Steve to get a guitar lesson and for me to look at a bunch of Champion sweatshirts in the store next door. But, I never wore headphones on that drive. I wanted to hear what my brother was playing and picking to put on the stereo. But there was time’s where I just needed Blind Melon. I remember holding that Walkman like I was afraid it was going to leave me. I needed those words, I needed that spirit. I felt out of place so much in middle school. I felt artsy, ambitious and humorous in a school that counted all those as strikes. I knew there was a world of music. . .but it wasn’t where I was. Remember, we were driving an hour just to get a guitar lesson from a musician who was really out there gigging. In that first album from Blind Melon I found a kindred spirit in Shannon Hoon. He hit me in a way my other potential heroes, Vedder and Cobain, just didn’t. In Shannon Hoon’s lyrics I found this self-assuredness against a harsh, unforgiving environment. It comforted me. Throw on the song “Change” by Blind Melon.
I found something in this song.
I don't feel the sun's comin' out today
It's stayin' in, it's gonna find another way, yeah
As I sit here in this misery
I don't think I'll ever know, Lord
See the sun from here
And oh, as I fade away
They'll all look at me and say
And they'll say, "Hey, look at him"
"I'll never live that way"
And that's ok, they're just afraid to change
When you feel life ain't worth living
You've got to stand up
Take a look around, look up way to the sky,
And when your deepest thoughts are broken
Keep on dreamin' boy, 'cause when you stop dreamin' it's time to die
And as we all play parts of tomorrow, Lord no
Some ways we'll work, and other ways we'll play, yeah
But I know we can't all stay here forever
So I wanna write my words on the face of today
And then they'll paint it
And oh, as I fade away
They'll all look at me and say
They'll say, "Hey look at him"
"And where he is these days?"
When life is hard, you have to change
When life is hard, you have to change, mmm
This song is both about the validity and durability of your own way of doing things, and the fact that you’ll have to pivot from those values. What helped me in the tune was that combination: trust yourself, change is constant.
I also was really connected to the Blind Melon song “Drive”. This was a rare 90s song for me that was basically a third person story. It’s a song about a lovable guy who is slipping away into the dark side of the drug life. It’s harder still to know that just a handful of years later it’s drugs that would kill Shannon himself.
But the music actually having a Southern groove to it, so important. The band is mostly from Mississippi with Shannon Hoon coming from Indiana. Brad Smith and Glen Graham are a hell of a rhythm section. Glen Graham gives me strong LeVon Helm vibes all over this record. And I’ve never loved the Rock with a Capital R experience. I’m not falling hard for The Foo Fighters or Aerosmith. But rock with some syncopation, some sass and some focus on prioritizing groove over bombast. . .I’m in. Man, just writing Aerosmith reminds me how much I don’t enjoy Aerosmith.
That music that you get at the beginning of your journey. . .I’ve spent so much time with this record, with these drum fills, with these grooves. Take some time with Blind Melon today and see what you find.