08 February 2021

8 February 2021 - Goo Goo Dolls - Name

This song is about Lisa Montgomery.  That one fact alone makes it worth a 2nd post in a day.  
"Name" was the first major hit by Buffalo's favorite band, the Goo Goo Dolls.  It was written by Johnny Rzeznik about his girlfriend, who was something of a household name at the time....  but if he walked around introducing his girlfriend as Lisa, it wouldn't raise an eyebrow.  Johnny, who wrote the song, never did say at the time who it was about.

She did, though. In her 2013 book, The Kennedy Chronicles.  It has come highly recommended to me.  I have not read it yet.  You see, she went by her middle name professionally - at the time, she was a VJ on MTV (she now hosts an excellent show on Fox Business), so, really, no one knew her name.  

Enough about the second best VJ MTV ever had (she's no Martha Quinn.  Let's be honest here).  Let's talk about the song. 

Those who knew the Goos from their early days called this song "wimpy".  It wasn't the straight-ahead rock the band had been known for throughout their career. It was an oddly-tuned ballad, that did have some lyrical complexity.  And it resonated with the American public.  At the time, it didn't resonate with me, but with age, I can appreciate that it was an excellently-written song.  

The song peaked at #5 on mainstream pop radio in the US, and, because of their history, still got alternative radio airplay - which was quite the achievement in the 1990s.  

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