A story about first listening to Ween and using humor to confront the absurdities of life.

Written by Sophia Pappalau

In 2018, I sat on the floor of my sister’s bedroom as she explained that all the best musical artists had made a semi-ironic country album. Or something. I can’t say for certain, because I’m not sure I understood what she meant. She played a song for me from Ween’s country album, “Piss Up a Rope,” which I had never heard before. It sounded ridiculous and juvenile, but we agreed that it was genius.

Around that time, I was going to school out of my home state and taking classes I hated. I had a habit of excessive introspection and spent a significant portion of that year just staring at my shoes. Obviously, things were happening, but they seemed either too trivial to warrant attention or so extreme that I was driven inwards, incapable of reacting at all.

The self-referential, tongue-in-cheek humor of Ween is what drew me in during that time. Ween is probably best known for inspiring “SpongeBob SquarePants.” The humorous stylings of their nautical-themed album “The Mollusk” caught the attention of a marine biologist named Stephen Hillenburg, also known as the creator of “SpongeBob SquarePants,” and the rest is history.

Their music was like a welcome respite from things that were otherwise impossible to understand.

Ween was formed in New Hope, Pennsylvania, by Aaron Freeman and Mickey Melchiondo in 1984. They undertook the names Gene and Dean Ween, respectively, and created weirdly eclectic music.

They were labeled as a “gag act” by critics for their humor. “Push Th’ Little Daisies,” their biggest hit single, is a deliberately annoying and gimmicky reggae tune, except that it shifts up the pitch, giving the lyrics — “Push th’ little daisies and make ’em come up” — a real sense of urgency.

Like “GodWeenSatan: The Oneness,” their early records feel like they were made to sound bad on purpose. The sixth track on that record, “Cold and Wet,” is like listening to someone bang two rocks against each other. It contains lines that are almost like music to my ears:

How many times do I has to tell ya that I’m cold and wet?

Hot and dizzy you got me in a tizzy honey

Hot and dizzy you better get busy and make me some soup

Oh before I get sick

The song is a simple, gleeful parody of songs about lovesickness. It is quite literally about having a fever. I went to school in a tiny town in the state of Washington where it rains 150 days per year, and all I can say is that whenever I was cold and wet, I thought of this song.

It would be remiss not to mention that Ween worked on music in the ’90s when sincerity was out, politics were a joke and the tradition of irony flourished. Enter the grunge scene.

Across the divide, select TV and movies showed a more humorous skepticism toward life’s contradictions. A famous example is “The Simpsons,” a family sitcom that took jabs at the conventions of, well, family sitcoms.

Music mocked modern life and culture, instead extolling cleverness, adaptability and all things stupid.

It was an attitude I came to admire. Why not respond to the absurd with an equal display of absurdity? I certainly felt that college was absurd: 8:00 a.m. rise, breakfast, four hours in class, lunch, four hours in the library, dinner, sleep, Monday through Saturday. Plus, it rained a lot.

That’s what made Ween so compelling. Their delivery was equally devoted to sincerity as to stupidity. It wasn’t a deference to absurdity, but a revolt against it. Their songs are a mix of fine musicianship and disregard for convention, equal parts noise and poise; a sense of humor falls all around the music in a cogent clatter.

The result is a music catalog with a broad emotional spectrum: sentimental songs, abrasive songs, sophisticated songs, calypso, sea-shanties, ragtime and so on. They are sometimes crude and almost always irreverent but never self-deprecating or unduly hostile. Their country album, “12 Golden Country Greats,” mocks country tropes while showing reverence for the genre’s pioneers in Nashville.

It’s 2021 now, and I think I finally understand what my sister meant about good musicians and semi-ironic country albums. Maybe I’ll write about Arthur Russell next.

It all strikes me as profoundly moving. It’s so tempting to treat everything like a joke these days. It’s 2021, and nothing makes sense. COVID-19 spread around the world. What felt like weeks of spiraling insanity brought on by the 24-hour news cycle turned into years of mundanity defined by non-stories, baloney issued by celebrities with little else to do.

Despite it all, the situation does not warrant hopelessness or complete ironic detachment. It is possible to proceed with a sense of humor, despite the obstacles. It’s part of the fun of life, and a few daft gags can go a long way.