(The) Harvey Danger Database

Remember Pericles?
He democratized the city with his mind
A little wisdom never hurt anyone?
Tell that to Socrates!
Telling the citizens what they needed to hear
But still they fed him hemlock

Now, the Greeks don’t speak my language
I don’t get the relevance
I am irreverent, I have no reverence
Show me no deference, I’ll do the same for you
La-la-la-la

Did you ever know you’re my tragic hero?
You be the pity; I’ll be the fear
And every subscriber will know
What a truly great man you are

In the conference room he said to me, quote
“Avoid your generation’s
proclivity for irony and negativity,
held so commonly.
Don’t let me down, son.

"There was a car, the wheels came off it,
and I know that nobody never made a profit.
Center your gravity, boy,
I’m counting on you to be my protégé.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!”

Cast it off with a wrist flip
Your footsteps are filling up
Every time you turn around
You can see the idols
And you’ll be knocking them down
One, two, three, four
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Did you ever know you’re my tragic hero?
You be the pity, I’ll be the fear
And every advertiser will know
What a truly great man you truly are

Some wear their politics like an aura
Some take it on like a mantle
Some can’t hold a candle
Some touch, some dabble
But not you!

T-t-tragic hero
You’re my tragic hero
T-t-tragic hero
He’s my tragic hero

Sean: Another apocryphal title; I made up "Ballad of the Tragic Hero" right at the last minute and we never once used it; lyric inspired (sometimes word for word) by the six months I spent working at the Seattle Weekly in '95–'96, a time when the paper was seen (accurately) as being hopelessly out of touch with the city, unless by "the city" you meant late-middle-aged white folks with wealth beyond the dreams of avarice; I quit and was fired simultaneously; "some touch, some dabble" is lifted from Lou Reed's poem "If Half the World is H₂O"; "P&F" was very nearly the theme song of the movie Cruel Intentions (originally Cruel Inventions, but the studio was afraid kids would think it was about science), but I was reluctant to change the words and botched the deal; a movie version of the song, contrived after the fact half to please the filmmaker and half to satirize him, exists; it's pretty funny.^10A

Aaron: This song, a favorite of mine at the time, sort of fell through the cracks. It had the misfortune of coming along just after we finished Merrymakers. It's one of our more obvious Pavement rip-offs—and we were fully aware of that when we wrote it—but it still has a certain charm.^10A

Evan: I was so excited about this song's potential that I passed on a 10-week course in Rome (after 2 years of Italian classes!), in large part so that we could keep making more music that sounded like this.^25B

Sean: Clearly a huge breakthrough for us, both in terms of sound and subject matter. Some of the lyrics were direct quotes from my former boss, who was basically a good, learned guy trying to make sense of a world that no longer valued ANY of his most cherished principles. Though I skewered him for being supercilious, I now have a much greater sense of how he feels. This was also the first (and one of the only) times John Goodmanson got us to mess around with drum loops, and also one of the first (and one of the few) times Jeff let me play the keyboard at the end. For many years I've feared this one sounds exclusively like a Pavement rip-off, but at the time I recall thinking what a triumph it was for us to even be able to come close to ripping them off. (We'd come a little closer on Loyalty Bldg., but you can't dance to that one.)^25B