2000 Great Songs #1345: Riding On The Rocket

When I first heard Shonen Knife back in college, they sounded like a novelty act, an all-girl Japanese Ramones singing in their native tongue. But 1992's Let's Knife gave them some mainstream attention in the US (sort of), their silly bubblegum pop-punk (now sung in heavily-accented English) not out of place in a post-Nirvana (but still pre-Green Day's Dookie) environment. The Ramones-crossed-with-the-Archies single "Riding On The Rocket" still felt like a novelty song, with its cutesy references to talking cats and marshmallows, but its unabashed joy and studied naivete (it's the rare rock song where the title does not come across as a double entendre) backed by musical crunch would carry them through another 3 decades (and counting) of like-minded albums. This particular track feels very much of-its-moment, and I tend to listen to listen to later records more than Knife, but it's a pretty damn fun way to transport yourself back to the early 90s.

Official video (low volume, unfortunately).

New remake, largely unchanged, for upcoming reissue:

Live in the studio 2018:

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