Each Friday I pick a song–new, old, borrowed, blue–that’s been on my mind and in my ears, and write a short post about it.

This week, “I Am a Rabbit” by The Lemonheads:

The Lemonheads– “I Am a Rabbit”

Trying to stay topical on Good Friday, or at Easter time generally speaking leaves your correspondent with a conundrum: Jesus or the Bunny?  So I’ve chosen the bunny.  “I Am a Rabbit” comes from the 1988 album, Lick.  I’ve always been enamored of the cover art on this album.  Before the band became Evan Dando and whomever he could get into a room with him long enough to record an album, The Lemonheads, as you hear with this one, were a scrappier, punkier band, cloaking their poppy melodies (mostly, Evan Dando’s poppy melodies, though Ben Deily wrote the occasional gem as well) in razorblade guitar sounds in the vein of Hüsker Dü or early Replacements.  The Lemonheads of the era before It’s a Shame about Ray (which, incidentally, I still rate as one of the best guitar pop albums ever) is a different kind of candy to the one marked by that album (or really, its predecessor, Lovey) and after, but there’s plenty to love about those early albums, before Evan Dando became a heartthrob and started lying about being the outdoor type.