He Developed a Begrudging Respect for the Goo Goo Dolls

Music can be time travel and philosophy and diplomacy and a balm for the soul, all at once, if you get past the ‘radio song.’

I say “The Goo Goo Dolls,” you say… “Iris,” right?

Yeah, of course! That’s what most people say.

I hadn’t really listened to The Goo Goo Dolls in years when I got the email alert that I had free tickets to see the band, if I wanted them, but I’d heard familiar strains of their music coming from my 17-year-old son’s room lately, so I clicked through and nabbed three tickets.

I was expecting a little nice nostalgia while I watched my son enjoy ‘my’ music (that’s always fun as a parent, right?).

I wasn’t expecting to time travel.

The year is 2001 in Columbia, SC.

I lived in what is now a quasi-high-end apartment building that was converted from an old textile mill. It was not high-end in 2001. The carpet was brown, the fixtures were old and dated, and the interior always, always smelled of curry. Almost half the apartments were inhabited by families of foreign exchange students in the Engineering program at the University of South Carolina, most of whom were from India.

I personally like curry and don’t mind the scent, but as a permanent odor, it can get old.

Anyway, it was definitely affordable, quirky, and cool. This was before the massive movement of the renovation of old mills to make loft apartments, so, at risk of sounding like a Super Hipster, I had a loft apartment before it was cool.

Yeah, yeah. I know.

But that year was my year of freedom. I finally left my abusive home and got away from my hyper-controlling, mean adoptive mother. I didn’t have much to my name at all: a mattress, a handful of clothes, odds and ends, but I had freedom and literally nothing else mattered.

In that vein, I was particularly excited when I had the extra scratch to go pick up a little CD player so I could play the handful of CDs I’d brought with me. A friend had re-gifted me a Goo Goo Dolls CD, and one day I was sitting by the pool at my apartment building when I popped the CD in and hit play.

I smoked cigarettes, I dangled my feet in the pool. I lifted my feet out of the water, looked at the sunflower toe ring on the second toe of my right foot, the one I got my senior year of high school and had been on my toe so long there was an indentation, and I lowered it back in the water. I listened. The CD ended. I pushed play again.

I smoked cigarettes. I listened.

For the third time, I pushed play again.

Over the next few months, I wore that CD slap out. I sat on the roof and listened. I rode around town and listened. I lay in bed, and I listened.

“You know the lies they always told you And the love you never knew What’s the things they never showed you That swallow the light from the sun inside your room, yeah…” ‘Black Balloon,’ John Rzeznik, 1998

I lost the toe ring in the pool one night. It was technically against the rules to go night swimming, but no one was enforcing it and anyway, REM told me to. I couldn’t not.

It was nearing the end of summer. The water was cool at night; when I pulled myself out, I shivered a little.

I pushed play and dove back in.

“Forgotten but not gone You drink it off your mind You talk about the world like it’s someplace that you’ve been You see, you’d love to run home, but you know you ain’t got one Cuz you’re livin’ in a world that you’re best forgotten, around here” ‘Broadway,’ John Rzeznik, 1998

I pushed play. Listened.

“They painted up your secrets With the lies they told to you And the least they ever gave you Was the most you ever knew… And she wonders where these dreams go Cuz the world got in her way What’s the point in ever trying? Nothing’s changing anyway” ‘Acoustic #3,’John Rzeznik, 1998

Popped the CD player open, took the disc out, put it in its case, and reluctantly slid it into a bag with all my other CDs to sell at the record shop to make sure I had the rent money that month.

The year is 2023 in Portsmouth, VA.

I find to my surprise that I remember almost every word of every song The Goo Goo Dolls play. To my much greater surprise, so does my son.

I look to my left to see him singing along. He smiles. I smile.

I look to my right. My husband, who professed vehemently as we were walking to the venue that he hated The Goo Goo Dolls, was watching and listening intently. His eyebrow raised when Robby Takac approached the mic and belted out a punk sound.

My husband didn’t know about The Goo Goo Dolls. He only knew ‘Iris,’ and ‘Slide,’ and other radio earworms. He listens to Flogging Molly, Jimmy Eat World, Blink and Greenday, even a little Bouncing Souls. He’s too cool for The Goo Goo Dolls.

And yet. Here he is, no longer scoffing but listening… intently.

“You always said it could be great But I hadn’t time to waste Now it seems that I’ve gone too far As bright as you are, don’t get burned by your lucky star Bright as you are, don’t get burned by your lucky star” ‘Lucky Star,’ George Tutuska / John Rzeznik / Robby Takac, 1993

I look over again and he’s on his phone, reading about the band. Reading about their punk roots, their persistent friendship, their unexpected changes in sound, tone, and popularity.

He raised his eyebrows in that way that means one thing: The Goo Goo Dolls have earned his begrudging respect.

Liking The Goo Goo Dolls hasn’t reached the level of liking Nickelback in terms of the hate you get, but there’s always a little eye roll and dismissive shrug when you mention it.

But I do. I like The Goo Goo Dolls, and I had forgotten that. I had forgotten this piece of myself, this slice of my life that was so sweet and so hard and so transformative. That summer of wearing out ‘Dizzy up the Girl’ and trying to figure out what the hell I was doing but loving having the space to do it. That space was filled with music. That music was largely The Goo Goo Dolls.

John Rzeznik is a pretty boy, and as such a lot of his lyrics have simply been dismissed or overlooked or not taken seriously (much like Taylor Swift, to be frank).

“And scars are souvenirs you never lose The past is never far… We grew up way too fast And now there’s nothing to believe And reruns all become our history A tired song keeps playing on a tired radio…” ‘Name,’ John Rzeznik/ Robby Takac, 1995

Radio earworms are frequently that because they fucking resonate. A magic mix of catchy riffs and words that make you stop and listen is where that ‘radio sound’ lives, and why do we hate bands for hitting that sweet spot?

Radio songs have changed history. When Bob Dylan nasally sang, “Yes, that’s the story of the Hurricane But it won’t be over ’til they clear his name And give him back the time he’s done Put in a prison cell, but one time he coulda been The champion of the world,” the nation erupted in protests (and even fundraisers for the legal fund) for the injustice against boxer Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter in being falsely accused of murder based solely on race.

The Goo Goo Dolls’ lyrics speak for this weird, semi-invisible generation, the “X”, the generation just given a single lone letter, the very least possible that isn’t just a punctuation mark. Merely a comma, between Boomers and Millennials, really, and given about as much credence and attention.

Latchkey kids, latchkey adults, we’ve got it guys, we’re fine.

Some of John Rzeznik’s lyrics speak to this nearly nihilistic attitude so many Gen X’ers have: “We are the normal We live and we die With no reason why” ‘We Are the Normal,’ John Rzeznik/ Paul Westerberg/ George Tutuska/ Robbie Takac, 1993

They speak of heartache, love, missed chances, mistakes, and finding these scenes of beauty and acceptance within all of that because really, what are we all doing here anyway?

More to the point, they speak to this attitude we all have that working ‘the grind,’ the 9–5 office work, is giving up on whatever creative dream we had in our youth. We didn’t become rock stars, or famous journalists, or MTV veejays. We became teachers and nurses and data systems administrators and middle managers and we’re just sort of always a bit disappointed by that.

Gen X never let go of our dreams. Boomers would say that’s pathetic and we need to cut our hair and be adults, already. Millennials say it’s pathetic that we didn’t fight the wage gap and stupid workplace rules like dress codes, but why would we put all that effort in when we were merely using this job to pay bills until our novel got published or we got a record deal with our garage band of other 40-somethings who haven’t yet let go of their dream either?

“Someday you never made it Maybe you never will Hey, you never made it Now, ain’t that unusual?” ‘Ain’t That Unusual,’ John Rzeznik, 1995

We’re all temporarily embarrassed celebrities and millionaires, don’tcha know? And we’re well aware that there are massive problems in the world that need to be fixed but like… it’s hard. And we have bills to pay. And literally no one cares if we’re struggling.

“And it’s not like me to feel so important And it’s not like me to go and wreck your day And I never thought I’d see it so exploited Ah, but I know that somethin’ bad has gotta change Oh yes, I know that somethin’ bad has gotta change” ‘Somethin Bad,’ John Rzeznik/ George Tutuska/ Robby Takac, 1995

The Goo Goo Dolls albums that came after the turn of the century received a diss from most critics, some even going so far as scathing reviews like this: “But the lyrical side of Goo Goo Dolls has never stood up to serious scrutiny- the point is that these songs are swiftly processed, ensuring sing-along potential is realised amazingly fast… They’re not supposed to challenge the gray matter.”*

Ouch. And man, not true. Not for any album prior to Gutterflower, especially, which was written after they achieved commercial success.

I posit that The Goo Goo Dolls are a quintessential Gen X band. They are the punk band that wasn’t, really, the one that wanted to be and so they shot for the moon and landed among the stars — as a radio song band. Did they ‘sell out’? Who fucking cares? They make music that sounds good, that feels good, with accessible lyrics and catchy hooks, and, yes, they make great money doing so.

What more could we actually want in life?

The year is 2016 in Taylors, SC.

My son asked if he could look at my CDs and listen to some, and with my permission, he went back to his room with a CD of a band with a curious name.

“Goo Goo Dolls? What’s that?” he’d asked, and I’d shrugged and told him to listen and find out.

He popped open his CD player. He pressed play. He listened.

He heard the words of his heart.

“And I don’t want the world to see me ’Cause I don’t think that they’d understand When everything’s made to be broken I just want you to know who I am” ‘Iris,’ Johnny Rzeznik, 1998

He still had a few years before he came out to us, but he heard this cry and felt it with his whole being. Music written a decade before his birth traveled through time to find him and give his soul sustenance until he was ready for the world to see him.

That is magic, and if you make music that does that, then at the very least you deserve begrudging respect, but I think you also deserve the money, the fame, and the acclaim.

But what do I know? I never did become a journalist, anyway…

*Mpofu, G. (2012, May 15). Music Review: Goo goo dolls, something for the rest of us. The Rockhaq Community. https://rockhaq.com/reviews/album-review-goo-goo-dolls-something-for-the-rest-of-us/

My name is Melissa Corrigan, and I’m a freelance writer/thought sharer/philosopher in coastal Virginia. I am a mom, a wife, a veteran, and so much more. I deeply enjoy sharing my thoughts and receiving feedback that sparks genuine, respectful conversation.

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