This is a particular favorite of mine. I know it's not really as good as its predecessors, but I find myself playing it more than any of them. "Pineapple" may be the first time that there appears to be something slightly calculated about the whimsicality, but I just can't bring myself to care. It's about…well, it's pretty self-evident, really, and you have to love lyrics like "Got a contract for all of the schools/They will use it for all of their meals/Sure the kids will throw it real far/'Cause it ain't a milk chocolate bar/But you know it don't stain so bad./But won't they fling it at a friend and then shout:/Pineapple! Tastes too healthy to me/Pineapple! Filled with vitamin C/Pineapple! Fulfills very need."
And then there's the ever-great "Tits," where the guy's drinking with his friend who, it transpires, is cuckolding him; it's all about tits as an erotic versus nurturing signifier, as in "For months, for years, tits were once a source of fun and games at home/And now she says tits are only there to feed our little Joe/So that he'll grow." Great chorus; great song.
A particular shout-out must go to the endlessly charming "Under the Table with Her," about a young kid bored at a fancy dinner slipping under the table with his little girlfriend. Ron's really captured the tone of being a small child caught in an uninteresting, alien, adult world, I think. And how about "Without Using Hands," a song which seems to be about a bunch of bon vivants getting laid in Paris ("without using hands," get it? Okay)--until the end, where there's an explosion at the hotel, and the manager is literally "going to live his entire life without using hands"--all in the same sprightly tone. Macabre!
I could go on--"It Ain't 1918" and "Get in the Swing" are especially newsworthy--but hopefully the point has been made. I like this album a whooooole lot.
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