Album Retrospectives 001: Rubberneck by Toadies

Dissecting and reflecting on my favorite albums from yesteryear

Deep in my darkest depths of Weezer fandom in my sophomore year of high school, I followed a girl on Xanga who, unbeknownst to her, became my musical sherpa. It started with a mutual love of Weezer and a parasocial relationship with Rivers Cuomo before that became a thing. I devoured every mundane blog post about her life, her aloof attitude toward hanging out outside convenience stores and casual hookups. I admired her style and tried to emulate her thick, black-rimmed glasses, perfectly blunt bangs, and collared rugby shirts. From there, she’d help me to expand my musical horizons and discover other alt-rock bands. I don’t know what it was that made Toadies stand out to me, maybe it was how much I loved blasting “Possum Kingdom” whenever I’d be able to find a clear signal on my mom’s dated casette player, but whatever it was she’d said about this band and this album in particular gave me reason to zoom over to Sam Goody and take a chance on it. And I’m glad I did, as it would soon become one of my favorite albums of all time.

Almost none of those words I just wrote are in the Bible. But the Bible does come up a lot in this album. And with that, here’s a retrospective on every song on Toadies’ Rubberneck, released on August 23, 1994.

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Track 01 – “Mexican Hairless”

The screeching guitar that makes way for chugging rhythms and lightning quick drum beats already tells you that “Possum Kingdom” is a bit of a deception. This is not what I signed up for—and yet, it’s more than that. The frantic-ness of the lead guitar with scant screams in the background tells a frenzied story that feels like someone trying to escape a room with walls closing in, only to burst outside and run for their lives against a sweltering summer day.

Track 02 – “Mister Love”

Are you gonna save? Can you save me?

Driving guitar, limited screeching vocals, words that sound like pleas for help yet really don’t make that much sense or tell enough of a story. The frantic-ness that was set up in “Mexican Hairless” continues here, albeit tempered. The distorted speech through a megaphone-effect is so decidedly ‘90s it’s almost painful, toeing the line of corny but managing to avoid it once the drums build to a neat guitar part. Is this an album about nothing? Two songs in and it might just be, how also decidedly ‘90s.

Track 03 – “Backslider”

I was thinking of all the things my daddy told me of, sin and salvation…

Things calm down a bit three tracks in, with what might be my favorite track on the whole album. This is yet another song that really feels like it’s about something important, but I can’t quite place my finger on what that something is. Is it about growing up in Texas? Trying yet failing to escape toxic masculinity? Struggling with a loss of faith? Jesus is mentioned a lot here and will be in the next track.

Whatever it is, the lead singer sounds like it’s paining him, but in a fun way. Man, those fuzzy/chugging guitars are great.

Track 04 – “Possum Kingdom”

Do you wanna die?

Here it is, the piece de le resistance. The reason I, and probably most people, know of Toadies. “Possum Kingdom” got its fair share of radio play on K-Rock in the early 2000s and there was something so catching in its very creepy message. It’s got a great rhythm, the lead singer’s voice manages to toe the line of being strained yet sexy, and there’s a love story. Maybe. Or maybe not.

But after thousands of listens, I still must ask—what the Hell is this song about? As foreshadowed in “Backslider,” there’s a lot of Jesus references. What I presumed was a love song I’m starting to think is something more sinister. Do you wanna be my angel? Promises of eternal beauty, asking about death, I’m starting to think this is more a story of a cult leader enticing a devotee.

If so, that makes it rule so much harder.

Track 05 – “Quitter”

Didn't I take you where you want to be? Didn't I make you feel just like a queen?

And we’re back to frenzied, chugging guitars and hard drumbeats. This is offset by lead singer Vaden Todd Lewis’ more subdued singing, which makes it even more interesting. Again, to my 16-year-old self, this sounded like a song of a couple nearing the end of their relationship. Lover? You happy now?

This is so much darker than that. This is a man possessed, unable to differentiate between his lover/followers’ needs and what little he’s provided.

Track 06 – “Away”

I know in my heart, there is a Heaven.

We’re given a bit of a reprieve with track six. Things slow down considerably here, even more so than “Possum Kingdom.” It’s groovy, it’s funky, it’s creepy as hell. Mentions of a heaven once more. The religious themes are strong in this one, more so than I ever realized. The when I’m awake refrain is beautiful despite it all.

I feel like I never gave this song its fair due, relistening to it, I’m finding myself enjoying it more than ever. Is this nearing the top of the list for me? I think it might be.

Track 07 – “I Come From the Water”

I pray for shade and rain, I pray to live again.

Even as a teenager, this was a weird song to me. Is this about water birth? No, instead it sounds like the antithesis of everything else, where other songs speak of endings and promises of afterlife, this is the beginning—possibly the beginning of all existence. Or at least that’s what our protagonist wants you to believe. Once again, a man contemplating his own existence as a man.

Track 08 – “Tyler”

I hear her call out to me, I hear the fear in her voice.

Ok, full disclosure: this was probably my only “skip” song on this whole album. I’ve never given it its fair due, it was just too slow and melancholy for my liking. So, it’s time to give it the chance I never gave it before:

Holy shit, this song is dark!

Less dubiousness here, this is fully about a dude stalking a woman he believes he’s in love with and breaking into her apartment with intentions to kidnap her. But there’s something so beautiful in the way Vaden sings I will be with her tonight…

No, bad. This is a bad man doing bad things.

Man, this is a really dark album, isn’t it…?

Track 09 – “Happy Face”

I try to wish you away. I'll do more than wishin' someday…

This one always stood out to me. It’s got an almost white-boy-reggae/311 feel to the guitar and bass that really makes it stand out from the others. Despite that, this is an angry song. Vaden’s not being cheeky in his delivery or in his lyrics. At odds with the guitars, leading to a pseudo-nu metal vibe at the chorus. What a journey.

Well I’ll kill you, son of a bitch!

Message received.

Track 10 – “Velvet”

You hurt me, you fuck! You hurt me, you cunt!

Here it is, the penultimate chapter of this saga. And with that, we’re back to the frenzied nature of the first two tracks. Little in lyrics, but man, is this guy BIG MAD now. So mad, in fact, that most of this song is just expletives (I really didn’t know what he was saying when this was bumping in my CD player in high school) that’s a lot of c-words. This guy seems to be just mad at the world.

Track 11 – “I Burn”

Through the ages, we got stupid, now we must repent.

And so that brings us to the end of this twisted, distorted nightmare, with the most haunting song on the entire album and with what may have been my favorite track back then, and still is to this day. There’s no doubt about the fact that there’s a cult vibe to this whole thing as demonstrated in this final track. What stood out to teenage Jamie was how different this song was from the rest. It’s unnerving, clearly about something occult, something sinister... and with that, it’s easily the sexiest song on the whole album, too.

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Now that I’ve given this whole album a thorough revisit, I see a storyline (albeit not in chronological order) that permeates through it, told from potentially two or more different points of view. It starts at the beginning of time, when our male protagonist was born of the sea, or at least that’s what he believes. His delusions and sense of grandeur make him charming enough of a cult leader—but does he really have a hold over those who follow him? On the other end we have a follower, someone desperately trying to escape the restraints this belief system has placed on them. Much like the conservative Christianity found in Texas, these beliefs are strangling and restricting, and this person wants out. But as the cult leader blurs the lines between master and lover, things become even more confusing for both parties, and there’s no way this can end peacefully with them both still alive.

Like I said, friggin’ dark.

In doing some extra research (it’s funny how little I ever really looked into the meaning behind one of my favorite albums of all time), I ended up discovering this mini documentary on the making of Rubberneck, released for the album’s 20th anniversary. Much to my shock it turns out the story of this album is actually… well, nothing, really. It has a lot of improvised lyrics, and the meanings are up to the audience to infer.

Huh. And here I thought I cracked the code. I suppose if that’s what I believe it to be, though, then I’m still technically right.

However… on further inspection, I did find this little nugget on the album’s Wikipedia page:

The song's origins lie in folklore from the band's native state of Texas. Possum Kingdom Lake is a lake in North Texas near Fort Worth. In the documentary "Dark Secrets: The Stories of Rubberneck", vocalist Vaden Todd Lewis further elaborates that he intended "Possum Kingdom" to be a continuation of the story told in the song "I Burn". While he envisioned "I Burn" to be a story about cult members immolating themselves in order to ascend to a higher plane, "Possum Kingdom" was about one of the immolated people becoming "just smoke, and ...he goes to Possum Kingdom [Lake] and tries to find somebody to join him."^[6]

Damn, I’m good.

And to the girl from Xanga who led me here—thank you, wherever you are.

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If you liked Rubberneck by Toadies, you might also like:

• Fizzy, Fuzzy, Big & Buzzy - The Refreshments

• Self Titled - Presidents of the United States of America

• Trompe Le Monde - Pixies

• Pinkerton - Weezer