Godspeed thee, Grandaddy

Despite having just released a new album, Just Like The Fambly Cat, Grandaddy are no more. The band decided to disband earlier this year, after more than a decade of trying to stay independent of big label record companies and becoming poor as a result.

Grandaddy did not lose weight and get a stylist nor did they sing about their girlfriends. Having experienced similar financial frustration from making unsaleable work, I understand.

Low marketability aside, there is so much to love about Grandaddy. Their 2000 album, The Sophtware Slump, is one of my all-time favourites. The tunes are catchy as hell but the key to loving them is the lyrics. Grandaddy sings about alienated astronauts, lonely water treatment plant workers, neglected robots, and other equally sad and silly phenomena.

Here's a sample of songs from The Sophtware Slump:

Sit on the toaster like a rock
No need to worry about a shock
All of the microwaves are dead
Just like the salamander said
The refrigerators house the frogs
The conduit is the hollow log
Broken household appliance national Forest
Air conditioners in the woods
Broken household appliance national Forest
Mud and metal mixing good
-"Broken Household Appliance National Forest"

You said I'd wake up dead drunk
Alone in the park
I called you a liar
But how right you were
-"Jeddy's other poem (Beautiful
Ground)"

I found your house and I saw your car
But I've no idea where you are, from the Dial-a-view
Tire scraps on the federal roads
Look like crash landed crows, from the Dial-a-view
Hello welcome to dial-a-view. To locate the area in which you wish to observe
You must program in the longitude and the latitude
For a closer more detailed picture use either the zoom or the micro-zoom
controls
Good luck
-"Miner at the Dial-a-view"

Genius! Grandaddy will be missed.