Nostalgic Music Video of the Day: Flaming Lips - "She Don't Use Jelly"

Its been a while since we've done one of these, hasn't it? Long enough for I Guess I'm Floating to steal our idea (sort of).

Lately I've been on a medium sized Flaming Lips kick (for larger Flaming Lips kicks see last summer, and Fall of 2003). I even recently got together with fellow blogger Nicole and our respective significant others for a Zaireeka listening party, which I assure you is more fun than it probably sounds (so much so that I considered an entire blog on just how amazing that album, and the experience of listening to that album, truly is). As a result, I found it fitting to come back with the most famous Lips song and video: She Don't Use Jelly.

What I find so fascinating about this song, and the band, is that this song represents the middle period of the Flaming Lips perfectly. It is not as sloppy and loud as their pre-Warner days, yet not nearly as majestic and tight as they would become later, though traces of both the early and later phases are noticeable. The Flaming Lips, perhaps more than any other band, released albums that grew on one another to the point that after two decades of making music the sounds are entirely different. Yet, if you listened to each album in order of their release, it would all make perfect sense.

As for the video, its pretty standard 90s. Band plays somewhere indoors, outdoors, cut to scenes that vaguely relate to the song in some fashion, and scene. One thing I remember is that when I was young, I used to have a crush on the girl in the tub. I wonder who she is and where she is now? Was she a relative of Wayne's? A friend perhaps? It does seem like the only way to be in a Flaming Lips video is to be a friend of the band's, or Spongebob.

One more thing that I have to ask before I go is this: Why the hell is it necessary to take your unplugged electric instruments, a snare drum, and pretend to play them in the video? I mean, you could bring a high hat and and practice amp too if you want, but don't go out of your way to convince me that you're actually playing the song or anything. This is certainly not the only video where you'll see it, of course. I just felt that some attention needed to be brought to the matter. It wasn't until "Hardest Button to Button" that anyone finally got it right.

Well, without further ado, here's the Flaming Lips: