My Top 2000 Songs #1023: Red Dragon Tattoo

Fountains Of Wayne crafted some ridiculously detailed, poignant, slice-of-life songs; they also wrote some pretty funny ones. (At their best, these would overlap; see, e.g., "Hackensack.") The problem with the funny ones, of course, is that after a few listens the joke gets old--and who wants to listen to a funny/clever song once the joke is stale?

They walked the line pretty deftly on "Red Dragon Tattoo," from 1999's sophomore LP Utopia Parkway. Yes, the song about the nerdy guy getting some ink to impress the girl (ok, fine, Pete Townshend got there first) has a few lines more geared for chuckles than enduring art; and the pop culture references don't necessarily age well. ("Will you stop pretending I've never been born, now I look a little more like that guy from Korn?")

Still, I can't stop loving the song, because it's just so incredibly catchy. A few years before they reworked The Cars for "Stacy's Mom," they were all in here on the new wave power pop, complete with a Steve Miller Band-styled moog solo. The chorus hook alone is enough to have me comfortably singing, "I'm fit to be dyed, am I fit to have you?" long after the puns have worn out their welcome.

Live 2009:

Live acoustic 2004:

With Squeeze's Glenn Tilbrook: