The Smash Mouth Guy, "All Star" and Magical Songs
A few years back, before COVID, I saw that The Spin Doctors AND Smash Mouth were playing the same Atlanta street festival on the same day. I was, as you might imagine, overjoyed. As a Gen Xer, those bands have an importance and a significance to me only marginally related to the quality of their music.
I wouldn't describe myself as a fan of Smash Mouth or The Spin Doctors but I very much wanted to be at that festival so that I could sing along loudly, proudly and unashamedly to their big song.
I dragged my family to this festival because I wanted to experience the communal joy of a massive sing-along to "Two Princes” and “All Star" respectively.
“All Star" is a stupid fucking song but that does not keep it from being a magical song. Magical songs are hit songs by definition but not every hit is a magical song.
Magical songs are songs that everybody knows in their hearts and souls as well as their minds. They’re anthems. They get older but they never go away. Instead they grow bigger and more ubiquitous with time. That’s because anthems and huge hits become magical songs through the awesome power of nostalgia. Our connection to these songs is intense and spiritual but also fundamentally rooted in nostalgia and the role they have played in our lives, individually and collectively.
I will always associate “Two Princes” with movies from the 1990s because for a solid two years it seemed like a good twenty percent of all trailers were set to the song, particularly romantic comedies. And "All Star" will forever be associated with Shrek, Mystery Men and Rat Race, where the band performs it over the end credits while Cuba Gooding Jr. breakdances. Ah, the millennium. What a stupid, stupid, wonderful time.
Magical songs get people’s asses moving at Bar Mitzvahs and weddings, receive endless play on Oldies channels and figure prominently in movies and television shows in a way that further solidifies their central place in pop culture.
Andre 3000’s “Hey Ya" is a magical song. Warren G’s “Regulate" is a magical song. “Flowers” is shaping up to be a magical song. And “All Star" and "Two Princes" are magic songs.
Smash Mouth’s “Walking on the Sun” was a hit. It reached number two on the Billboard charts but it has not endured the way that "All Star” has.
That's not because it’s not catchy. "Walking on the Sun" is incredibly catchy but it lacks the ineffable X factor that separates garden variety hits from incredibly rare magical songs.
One of the many things that fascinate me about Smash Mouth is that its former frontman, the late Steve Harwell, did not write any of the songs. He didn’t write the lyrics or the music. He didn’t play an instrument. He wasn’t particularly attractive. Heck, he didn’t even have a particularly good voice.
In other words, Harwell wasn’t anywhere near as important to the band’s sound as former member Greg Camp, who wrote its hits and played guitar. Yet when you think about Smash Mouth and “All Star”, which you do often, as you are only human, it’s Steve Harwell’s beefy frame that pops up in your mind.
That’s the nature of frontmen. Even if they don’t write songs or play instruments they’re nevertheless almost invariably the face of a band.
That’s Harwell but it's also Chris Barron, the hippified lead singer of Spin Doctors. I got to live out my dumb dream of hearing "Two Princes” performed live that afternoon of destiny. You better believe that I yelled “Just go ahead now!”
My youngest son was a year and a half old at the time however, so when he got cranky under the hot sun we left before we could see Smash Mouth and, by extension, hear and see "All Star” performed live.
That may be the biggest regret of my my life and brother I have a few!
So a few years later when I saw that a Shrek-themed rave was coming to Atlanta I knew that I had to attend even though I'd never been to a rave before and am a feeble old man.
I'm not going to lie: I went primarily so that I could experience the communal rapture of hearing "All Star” played repeatedly while on a large amount of drugs. This time I was not frustrated. I enjoyed that idiotic experience more than is probably sane but our connection to magical songs is anything but logical.
POV: The last thing you see before you die.
I rocked out repeatedly to a generational anthem that might not have been written by Harwell but will always be his song all the same.
“All Star" will be Harwell’s enduring legacy. If you're going to be remembered for A song, and Smash Mouth will forever be known for a single song despite having several hits it might as well be a magical one. After all, the pop charts are full of hits but magical songs are as rare as four leaf clovers and honest politicians.
Harwell died a tragic, premature death related to his alcoholism but through a strange bit of magic this troubled man who lived a hard life and died relatively young will always be known for a song that makes people happy, even joyful.
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