“Clumsy″ by Our Lady Peace – Song of the Week
After about a six month hiatus, Rizzo Music is back and better than ever. Armed with the new Wordpress platform, www.rizzomusic.com is here to bring you more of your favorite 90s music.
This week's song, "Clumsy" by Our Lady Peace, was chosen in honor of Our Lady Peace's fairly new album, Burn Burn, that I have seen advertised heavily throughout imeem.com. The album was released July 21, 2009, their first album in about four years. Needless to say, it was a welcome return to a band that has topped the Rock Charts for the last decade and a half.
By now, you probably have heard the single, "All You Did Was Save My Life" and I can't say that it blew me out of the water, but it takes a step back in the right direction from the singles released in their previous album, Healthy in Paranoid Times, a album in which I found to be fairly disappointing at times.
Unlike, most of the songs on Healthy in Paranoid Times, "Clumsy", off of their album of the same name, is a song that has an undeniable likeness. Released in 1998, "Clumsy" has been their biggest hit on the Modern Rock Charts, peaking at #5. While packed with rather dark lyrics, the song itself is formed with a change of pace rhythm that keeps you coming back for more. It starts out with a memorable repetition of four simple notes on the piano, before breaking into the first verse. The song really embodies the sound of Our Lady Peace and shows why they have been so popular for so long.
According to the Wikipedia page on "Clumsy" (no citation) guitarist Mike Turner and vocalist Raine Maida have said this about the song,
Clumsy is about making decisions. There is a connection between the song Clumsy and it being the title of the album. The lyric; 'I'll be waving my hand/watching you drown/ watching you scream' is about seeing something, but not seeing it for what it really is. You may decide to help... or to just wave back."
A little food for thought. Something the band hasn't shied away from in their lyrics.
"Clumsy" is just a taste of what the band has to offer and most of their stuff from the 90s is rock solid. Their album, Happiness is not a Fish That You Can Catch, still remains to be one of my favorite rock albums from the 90s.
The music video has that classic 90s rock vibe to it. Also a little dark, like the lyrics but if you like to see your favorite band play with a strobe light going and see a ordinary spilt glass of water fill up a room, then this is the video for you.
Check it out below and be sure to check in next week for another classic 90s song of the week.
"Thief" by Our Lady Peace - Music Video Tribute
This is one of those songs that not many people know about but it is one of my all time favorites. The music video itself isn't anything tremendous but the song is something to be treasured. The video basically just shows the band members getting drenched by a downpour. They don't seem phased and they have some pretty cool slow motion shots of the water falling on their faces. The song itself is actually about a young girl they knew that had a brain tumor. The "Thief" inside her head refers to the tumor itself.
The video does a good job to portray the mood of the song and you can almost see the helplessness in the band member's eyes. The rain doesn't seem to bother them because they are too concerned for the young girl's life and feel that they can do nothing to help her. The song starts out with such powerful lyrics, that if you listen carefully to the words, it almost gives you the chills. "I don't want to understand this horror / There's a weight in your eyes that I can't admit...". It is such powerful song and the video does a good job of capturing the essence of the song. Without further explanation, here it is... Hope you find it as moving as I did.