(The) Harvey Danger Database

Old Hat

Recorded

Release history

Credits

Lyrics

Call me disruptive
Say I break your concentration
Familiar pattern, like the waves that break too fast
What do you do when it’s so brand new that it kills you?

Came on too strong, couldn’t stand it slow
But now I know
She can knock me back like a champ

Disembodied ringlets
from hair that looked like yours
Call me the looming shapes of winter dusk impending

She barely fits inside my head, but I feel something
Every element but one is in my thrall
Stop traffic as I lie down in your footpath
Like a simile, I paint suggestive pictures
of me and you

Disembodied ringlets from hair that looked like yours
Call me the looming shapes of winter dusk impending

Call me freaky, call me childish
Call me Ishmael
Just call me back, call me back
Call me back and I’ll follow you around

I forget (I forget) what my friends look like
(what they look like) and they forget why they like me
(why they like me) but that’s old hat; I’m so happy
(I’m so happy) How do you write about that?
(I’m so happy) How do you write about that?

Disembodied ringlets…

Quotes

SCN: “Old Hat” was the first good song we ever wrote, after about two years of near (and broad) misses, and the first time I ever tried to reconcile the fact that being in love felt better than singing about not being loved; had to change a (bad) line (to a better one) after the girl I’d been seeing when we wrote it turned out not to be so lovable after all; Abby Grush’s joyous, out-of-nowhere countermelody on the bridge is probably my proudest musical moment on the record; for reasons that defy reason, we never played “Old Hat” even once during all our Merrymakers touring; infuriating!10A

AMH: This and the original version of “Carjack Fever”, which was written at the same time, were our first legitimately good songs. Sean’s nascent talent for coming up with amazing harmonies and backing vocal parts is highlighted.10A

JJL: In the first band house (the one pictured on the cover of the album) we built a practice space in the basement. I remember coming downstairs one of the days right after we’d finished putting in carpet and finishing the drywall and Aaron and Evan had come up with what seemed like thirty different parts which ended up as this song. (For the record: The magical distorted bass sound is a Rickenbacker bass through a “classic” Rat pedal into a SWR Workingman’s 15).10A

ECS: I think that my favorite song on Merrymakers is “Old Hat”; nothing else sounds so much like the pure joy of figuring out how to write a song. It makes me wish that “Love Bug,” our first real song, had made it on the Little By Little… B-sides list.10A

SCN: “Old Hat” is the oldest song on the album, and was the first all-the-way-good song we ever wrote. It was also the closest I ever got to communicating the uncomplicated thrill of being newly in love. Abby Grush’s out-of-nowhere countermelody in the bridge is my proudest musical contribution (somewhere there’s a video of me conducting her singing it.)MMV

References

Notes

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