Hook - Blues Traveler

Quick, name some comedic, dorky, white guy bands: Tenacious D, the Barenaked Ladies, Flight of the Conchords. Did you even think to name Blues Traveler? Probably not, but you should have, though, because they're witty and hit it big before these other bands.

Let's be honest, if "Name Something You Associate with Blues Traveler" were a Family Feud category, "harmonica" and "morbid obesity" would be the top two answers. But "witty" should be up there, too. Maybe answer #4 after "questionable fashion."

I realized Blues Traveler's cleverness recently while listening to the song "Hook." As a preteen, I thoroughly enjoyed the tune, and assumed it was a sincere love song. But there's a line in the song that outright states, "I am being insincere." It's not a love song, it's a critique of pop music masquerading as a hit song that was so successful that it legitimately became a hit song. The lyrics tease the listener for being predictable and not paying attention, yet I never picked up on that.

Seeing now that the message wasn't even veiled, I have to admit I was a sucker. The same sucker who Blues Traveler is addressing. It's an epiphany that has literally blown my mind. There is so much mind dribbling out of my ears right now that I had to insert cotton swabs in order to maintain enough brain matter to compose this post.

But you've got to relisten to "Hook." I've posted a video featuring the lyrics so that you can more easily follow along and see how you were hoodwinked a decade and a half ago. It's also possible that you were a smarter kid than me and "got it" all along, in which case just go take your intellect to a higher-brow blog while the rest of us revel in the fact that we were duped by a harmonica-playing fat man.