The History Of The Mystery Track – Lauryn Hill Covers Frankie Valli

On August 8, 1997, a new film opened in theatres. Released by Warner Bros., Conspiracy Theory is a comic thriller about a paranoid cabbie who produces a regular newsletter filled with his outlandish ideas about government malfeasance. One such theory, however, turns out to be dead-on accurate suddenly putting his life in danger.

Early on in the film there’s a scene where he’s sitting in his cab. With tiny binoculars he watches a young woman through her window in her apartment building singing along while running on a treadmill. He figures she’s listening to the radio so he flips through the stations in his car hoping to match what he’s hearing to what she’s singing.

In the original script written by Brian Helgeland, the song was supposed to be Blue Moon, an old Rodgers & Hart number from 1934. Instead of securing the rights to the original recording, Helgeland wanted the song covered by Annie Lennox who conveniently was riding high at the time with her hit covers album Medusa. (The screenplay was completed in 1995.)

But by the time Conspiracy Theory had reached the post-production stage of completion in mid-1997, producers ultimately wanted a younger, hotter talent to cover a different song from a more contemporary era.

In February 1996, The Fugees released their second album, The Score. One of the big singles was Killing Me Softly, an uptempo cover of an old Roberta Flack ballad, vocalized by the charismatic 21-year-old Lauryn Hill. Along with other original hits like Fu-Gee-La and Ready Or Not, The Score would go to sell more than 20 million copies worldwide.

But complicated personal entanglements and internal struggles for outside creative freedom involving two members of the trio would ultimately derail the band just as they finally figured out how to get over with a mass audience.

Hill was having an affair with Jean and they were both cheating on each other. Jean actually married his other lover while Hill was having what would become a longterm common law relationship with one of Bob Marley’s sons, the father of their eventual five children.

The final straw was Jean’s refusal to support Hill’s desire to work on her own music outside the group, an idea she had openly expressed internally for a while but denied publicly to the press. At one point, probably realizing this might be the end of the band, Jean then offered to produce her but she refused. By 1997, Hill, Jean and their bandmate Pras would all focus exclusively on their own separate solo projects. Despite occasional live reunions in the 2000s and at least one single, there would be no collective follow-up to The Score.

By the time the producers of Conspiracy Theory came calling, Hill was in the third trimester of her first pregnancy and already working on her first batch of individual songs.

“The recording took about a year and a half,” Commissioner Gordon Williams, the engineer of that eventual solo debut told Rolling Stone magazine in 2008. “Sony never wanted her to make a solo record; they wanted her to make another Fugees record.”

In the midst of all of this, Hill agreed to record a cover for Conspiracy Theory. With Blue Moon discarded as the possible song that Julia Roberts sings along to while Mel Gibson spies on her, producers had cleared another tune that had already been redone by countless artists before.

In 1966, Bob Crewe had suggested a title to his songwriting partner Bob Gaudio. From there, the two worked out a musical scenario, based very loosely on various real-life situations Gaudio knew about and personally experienced, involving a guy madly in love with a woman so beautiful he cannot look away, he is completely transfixed. Rather than record this new song with his vocal quartet The Four Seasons (which included Gaudio as a founding member), the song was constructed strictly for lead singer Frankie Valli who released it under his own name.

Delayed for a full year, after a slow start, Can’t Take My Eyes Off You would go on to become a legitimate smash in 1967, peaking at number two on the Billboard Hot 100. Eleven years later, cast members of The Deer Hunter would sing along to its famous chorus in a scene before they get shipped off to Vietnam, a moment which eventually inspired the Broadway musical Jersey Boys.

Unfortunately, Lauryn Hill had a big problem as the deadline to complete the sessions for her album was fast approaching.

“She called me and said she was behind and had to get it done.” Commissioner Gordon told Rolling Stone. “She didn’t know how the arrangement of the song went, so we went and got a copy from Coconuts or Sam Goody.”

From there, Hill and her creative team quickly put together their own version of the song, updating the arrangement with a more consistent, hip-swiveling gallop without losing any of its heart or soul. The famous horn and string sections from the Motown-inspired original may be gone (although that sure sounds like a slight sample of the former before the first chorus) but in its place is a funky contemporary take on the basic framework. There’s imitative Bobby McFerrinesque instrumentation, beatboxing, an old-timey organ and a smooth, laidback vocal from Hill who name checks the Warner Bros. film that commissioned this performance.

Commissioner Gordon “had a little one-room 16-track studio in my apartment in Jersey. Lauryn was eight months pregnant, laying on her back on the floor, half asleep, holding a handheld mike. She did all of those vocals off the top of her head pretty much in one take, with the beat box and all of that. That blew me away.”

When the song was completed, it was sent to Warner Bros. and quickly forgotten about. Hill gave birth to her son Zion four days after Conspiracy Theory began its late summer theatrical run.

Around the same time of the film’s cinematic debut, the soundtrack was released. Curiously, Hill’s new cover was not included. In fact, there are no pop songs on the album, just 40 minutes or so of composer Carter Burwell’s classical score. Whether Sony, Hill’s label, played any role in Can’t Take My Eyes Off You being left off the record is unclear.

Regardless, Hill told Muse magazine in 1998 that it was “a song that was never intended for radio play or even release.” With a new baby in her life and a solo album still to complete, Hill was too preoccupied with more important matters.

Five months after Conspiracy Theory’s disappointing stint in North American theatres (it didn’t even make back its 80 million dollar budget), the movie debuted on home video and in February 1998, it started playing on pay-per-view and became available on satellite channels like DirecTV.

It had been nearly two years since the arrival of The Score. At the tail end of 1997, Wyclef Jean was the first ex-Fugee out of the gate with a solo album. The Carnival would spawn the Top 10 hit Gone Til November and ultimately go double platinum.

But fans were starved for more. Pras’ Ghetto Supastar album (the title song would get a huge boost from its association with Warren Beatty’s political satire Bulworth in the summer of 1998) wouldn’t be available until the autumn.

Lauryn Hill’s debut was still many months away at the start of the new year. But some of her more enterprising supporters were so impatient for this collection of new music to arrive, realizing there already was something out there in the public domain, they took matters into their own hands.

In the May 9, 1998 edition of Billboard Magazine, writer Datu Faison had a small entry in his regular Rhythm Section column under the header Bootleggers.

“There’s a new recording from Fugees diva Lauryn Hill titled ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You’ that has everyone scratching their heads. The single was not serviced to radio by Ruffhouse/Columbia [Hill’s label which is owned by Sony], yet managed to garner 188 R&B spins according to Broadcast Data Systems (BDS).” BDS is the official Neilsen ratings system for radio.

According to the brief report, some unknown parties had managed to tape the song as it plays during the middle of Conspiracy Theory’s closing credits. (It begins right after a snipped reprise of Frankie Valli’s original starts to fade at exactly two hours and eleven minutes.)

“[S]omehow a pirate recording was made that was pressed onto CD and DAT [Digital Audio Tape]. It is also possible that someone who had access to the recording and/or master tapes could have also made pirate copies,” Faison speculated not unreasonably in Billboard since the full song is presented through the rest of the remaining end titles.

According to BDS employee Lana Goodman, somehow, a bootleg copy of the song first ended up at KMEL, a San Francisco station. This was confirmed by another industry insider in the May 29, 1998 issue of Entertainment Weekly:

“According to Michelle Santosuosso, program director at Los Angeles’ KKBT, some enterprising soul(s) taped it from the satellite dish when the movie made its pay-per-view television premiere recently and got the bootleg into the hands of deejays, who jumped at the chance to play the phantom single.”

Once KMEL started playing this cover of Can’t Take My Eyes Off You, it created a gradual domino effect. According to Faison’s Billboard column, “The song was aired again in April on top 40/rhythm [station] KUBE Seattle, and additional patterns were assigned.”

Southern outlets like WBHJ in Birmingham, Alabama and Baton Rouge, Louisiana’s KTBT ended up playing the song far more than the California stations on the west coast: 140 spins altogether compared to the measly 48 accumulated in San Francisco and Los Angeles. And that was just the beginning. Within a short period of time, the song was added to more and more playlists across the country and even on stations in neighbouring Canada. When all was said and done, the track modestly peaked at #35 on Billboard’s Hot 100 Radio Airplay chart but reached a far more impressive #2 on its Rhythmic chart.

This unexpected development greatly concerned Sony who had already drawn up big plans for Hill’s solo album. It had already been decided that Doo Wop (That Thing) was going to be the first single. (It would drop in June.) They feared it would be overshadowed by Can’t Take My Eyes Off You and therefore not as popular, a silly fear in retrospect since Doo Wop debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and would be the biggest of all the singles from The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.

Hill, on the other hand, had a different reaction. She told Entertainment Weekly in their May 29, 1998 issue that it was “flattering that they’re playing [the song]…” She told Muse that same year, “I thought it was kind of funny, another cover version taking off like that.” (According to the official Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons website, there are at least 200 remakes in existence.)

Uncertain at first about how to proceed, Sony was left with few options. They could ignore the whole situation and let the bootleg airings continue until the hoopla died down which was ridiculous considering how popular the song was getting. They could demand radio stations stop playing the song altogether which would have resulted in bad publicity and a fan backlash. As a reasonable alternative, they could simply release an official version as a CD single.

With The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill scheduled for an August release in the United States (September in Canada), Sony ultimately came to an obvious conclusion. With expectations growing to a fever pitch, that damn Conspiracy Theory track had to go on the album. (There would be no single release after all (although Sony would send promo copies to radio stations all over the world), hence its absence from the Hot 100 which only counted physical commercial releases at the time.) It had unwittingly become an effective marketing tool.

With the artwork and packaging already completed, and far too expensive to replace, Can’t Take My Eyes Off You would become a Stickered Bonus Track. (It would otherwise go completely unmentioned in the liner notes and track listing.) Even print ads would prominently promote the song making note of its unlisted status. (You’ll find it on track 15. It actually runs six seconds shorter than the movie version and rather than fading out, it ends cold.) As she later told Muse Magazine, Hill was far from happy about the decision:

“I hadn’t intended to have a cover on the album at all…Naturally there was some record company pressure, but if I had my way it wouldn’t be on it at all.”

By this point, Hill was in the middle trimester of her second pregnancy and probably not in any real condition to put up a significant fight. (She would give birth to her second child, a daughter, that November.)

In early January 1999, the nominations for the 41st annual Grammy Awards were announced. Lauryn Hill would make history by securing ten, the most ever for an individual woman. One of those nominations was for Best Pop Vocal Female Performance. Her version of Can’t Take My Eyes Off You, a song that was only supposed to be heard during the end titles of a bad movie, was now in contention for a major prize. It had marked the first time a mystery track had secured a nomination since the full version of I’ll Be There For You by The Rembrandts just a few years earlier.

A month later at the actual ceremony, Hill would bat .500 overall. Besides taking the golden gramophone for Best R&B Album, The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill was also named Album Of The Year beating out the likes of Garbage and Madonna. Hill would also win Best New Artist over The Backstreet Boys and The Dixie Chicks. Despite being denied nominations for Song and Single Of The Year, Doo Wop still managed to win Best R&B Song and Best Female R&B Vocal Performance.

Interestingly, Hill found herself competing with her ex-boyfriend and bandmate in the Best Rap Solo Performance category. It was Wyclef Jean’s Gone Til November vs. her diss track of him, Lost Ones, another Miseducation song that initially got an unauthorized pre-album release. In the end, Will Smith’s Gettin’ Jiggy With It proved too irresistible for Grammy voters to deny.

When the winner was announced for Best Pop Vocal Female Performance, Hill’s Can’t Take My Eyes Off You was beaten by Celine Dion’s unstoppable Titanic anthem, My Heart Will Go On, already an Oscar winner from the previous year. Still, five for ten was a very good night for the former member of The Fugees.

Five months later, the song would find its way in an episode of the short-lived NBC daytime soap opera Sunset Beach. In the final quarter of its July 6, 1999 noon hour broadcast, journalist Vanessa (Sherri Saum) and her rescuer Michael (Jason Winston George) have a romantic picnic while Hill’s cover plays throughout. There’s no dialogue as the couple make out and walk around. On the final episode of the series, which aired on New Year’s Eve that same year, they were married.

Two months before that at the 26th Annual Daytime Emmys in May, Hill’s version of Can’t Take My Eyes Off You played in the background throughout a clip montage showcasing past winners of the Best Actor and Best Actress in a Dramatic Series categories. At the 27th ceremony in 2000, a taped bit involving Susan Lucci spending the day with her long sought after Emmy (she had famously lost eighteen times in a row before winning in 1999) was scored curiously to Frankie Valli’s original.

In 2008, ten years after its official release on The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill, an unauthorized remix started circulating exclusively in Europe.

In 2016, Hill’s cover would re-appear in the romantic comedy How To Be Single, albeit for a mere 75 seconds. It pops up at the 99-minute mark near the end of the scene when Dakota Johnson visits “best friend” Rebel Wilson and realizes she’s “super rich”. (If you listen closely, you can hear the shout-out to Conspiracy Theory when the girls sit down on the floor to eat.) Four members of the film’s cast, including Johnson, sing the song a cappella in a couple of scenes. (Damon Wayans Jr.’s on-screen daughter refers to it as the “Eyes Of You” song.) Hill’s Grammy-nominated version, however, was curiously left off the soundtrack. Conspicuously absent from the film, another remake by Walk Off The Earth, replaced it on the CD. (In the movie, an instrumental organ version chimes in just as the Hill version fades out.) In 2020, Hill’s take popped up again in the straight-to-streaming Disney+ sports feature Safety.

With the definitive Valli classic already a standard for more than 30 years and Hill’s song reviving interest near the end of the millennium, Can’t Take My Eyes Off You would continue to be covered in the decades to come and sometimes by the most unlikely people.

The late Heath Ledger would woo bitchy Julia Stiles with an a cappella version in the 1999 romantic comedy 10 Things I Hate About You, a modernized take on Shakespeare’s Taming Of The Shrew. The late Andy Williams, best known for singing the Christmas staple It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year, covered the song in 1968 and many years later it found its way in Bridget Jones’s Diary in 2001. He re-recorded it as a duet with Broadway star Denise Van Outen (Chicago) the following year.

In a deleted scene from the 2002 live action Scooby Doo remake, Linda Cardellini’s Velma has a go Michelle Pfeiffer-style while the bald-headed villain tickles the ivories. In the 2005 sequel Son Of The Mask, there are multiple genre versions (rap, disco, country) heard during the Halloween party sequence, most of them sung by Jamie Kennedy.

Even Howard Stern favourite Mr. Methane, the gonzo comedian who can fart on command, has attempted his own unique spin on Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.

On a March 2021 episode of her self-named daytime talk show, the first American Idol winner Kelly Clarkson covered Hill’s version as part of her regular Kellyoke segment where she performs famous remakes with a backing band. In 96 seconds, she more than holds her own as she confidentally rolls through the first verse and chorus in this shortened version. Her back-up singers even recreate the “bah dah” bit near the end.

Interestingly, this is not the first time Clarkson has performed Hill’s R&B recreation. During a live gig in February 2019, before performing a complete version of Can’t Take My Eyes Off You, she dedicated the song to her then-husband. Nineteen months later, after seven years of marriage, they would be divorced.

While it’s not exactly clear what Frankie Valli thinks of Hill’s rendition (his official website only acknowledges its “hip-hop makeover”, although in the very next sentence, which offers celebrity testimonials, she appears to be obliquely referenced as one of the “many other great recording artists” his band “influenced”), co-writer and former bandmate Bob Gaudio is most definitely a fan. When asked by Songfacts.com for his opinion, he offered the following:

“I love the record, it’s one of my favorite versions.”

And although initially disappointed by the absence of the famous horn section, Gaudio realized Hill’s version didn’t really need it to succeed:

“But when I first heard it I thought she had the audacity to do this song without the horns. How dare she? [Laughing]

Songfacts: That’s such a big part of the song, right?

Gaudio: I thought it was when I first wrote it. That was my big assignment: take the verse, which was soft and sweet and melodic, and then kick into the drums of the chorus. How do I bridge that gap? And the horns was the filler. I thought building with the horns to get to the chorus was the setup. And she comes along and doesn’t use the horns. But it still worked. So it was quite an interesting lesson for me.”

Why are there so many versions of Can’t Take My Eyes Off You? Valli offered his theory to Songfacts:

“It’s a very, very tough song to do badly. When the song is that strong to start off with, that’s the kind of song you look for.”

Lauryn Hill proved him right.

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Thursday, May 27, 2021
3:41 a.m.

The History Of The Mystery Track – Alanis Morissette Fantasizes About Stalking Her Ex

There are two mystery tracks on Jagged Little Pill, both found on track 13. The Jimmy The Saint Blend of You Oughta Know runs 4 minutes and 11 seconds. After 61 seconds of silence, Alanis takes a big breath and starts singing a new song.

Most of the material on the album is autobiographical, but not Your House, at least, not entirely.

Co-written by producer Glen Ballard, it tells a mostly fictional tale about Alanis literally breaking into her ex-boyfriend’s place. (“I went to your house/walked up the stairs/I opened your door without ringing the bell”)

Once inside, knowing full well what she’s doing is wrong, she can’t help but go further:

“I walked down the hall/into your room/where I could smell you/And I shouldn’t be here/without permission/I shouldn’t be here”

Her actions are compulsive and needy. She’s not ready to completely let go yet:

“Would you forgive me, love/if I danced in your shower?/Would you forgive me, love/if I laid in your bed?/Would you forgive, love/if I stayed all afternoon?”

“Some of that was fictional obviously,” Morissette told CBC.ca in 2015, “I’m not that creepy, but some of it was based on my having stayed at this person’s house, whom I was dating, and just how awkward I felt being in this person’s house and everything was so vulnerable and out in the open.”

In an interview with Spotify, Alanis revealed that the guy would let her stay at her home while he was away which was “often”.

“I was interested in this gentleman, so I didn’t want to look anywhere, but I did want to look. It felt like I was invading, but at the same time, I’d been welcomed.”

“I was staying in this guy’s house in Hollywood and he wasn’t there for a week.” Morissette recalled to Spin for their November 1995 cover story. “I remember being overly curious and sleeping in his bed. It felt eerie and unnerving; I also had kind of a crush on him.”

Who the mystery guy is in this instance is not as clear as You Oughta Know. All we know from Paul Cantin’s 1997 biography is that he lived in Hollywood and the relationship was not nearly as intense and serious as the one she had with Dave Coulier.

Lingering uncomfortably in his home, Alanis continues to do inappropriate things with her ex’s belongings:

“I took off my clothes/put on your robe/I went through your drawers/and found your cologne”

Done with snooping in his bedroom, she then proceeds elsewhere:

“Went down to the den/found your CDs/And I played your Joni”

Morissette is a fan of Joni Mitchell and so was her ex. He really did have some of her music in his CD collection.

However, Mitchell is not a fan of Alanis.

In the July 1996 issue of Details Magazine, she declared, “I am an arrogant artist…I get really arrogant when they start pitting me against people and saying something or someone’s like me when that something is mediocre!”

Mitchell must’ve read David Wild’s 1995 Rolling Stone cover story on Alanis where he described her as “a sort of twentysomething Joni Mitchell backed by thrashy guitar.”

“I’m a musical explorer,” she continued in Details, “and not just a pop songwriter or an occasional writer of a song or half a song, like these other women. Alanis Morissette writes words, someone else helps set it to music, and then she’s kind of stylized into the part.”

It’s bad enough she minimizes Morissette’s own personal songwriting contributions (she didn’t just write lyrics), it’s even worse that she doesn’t hold the same rigid standards for men. Are Lennon/McCartney and Jagger/Richards “mediocre” as well because for the most part they wrote many of their classics together? She’s arrogant, alright. And a misogynist.

Furthermore, some of Mitchell’s own compositions were co-written with others. Like The Hissing Of Summer Lawns from 1975, The Tenth World from Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter (1977), almost half of her 1979 collaboration with Charlie Mingus, two songs from 1985’s Dog Eat Dog, half of Chalk Mark in a Rain Storm (1988), two songs from Night Ride Home (1991), Yvette In English from Turbulent Indigo (1994) and The Crazy Cries Of Love from Taming The Tiger (1998). Her opposition to Morissette is clearly not principled.

Speaking of Taming The Tiger, although not mentioned by name, the title song expands on Mitchell’s disdain for the Canadian singer/songwriter. Pointed lyrics like “I’m a runaway from the record biz/From the hoods in the hood and the whiny white kids/Boring” and “As the radio blared so bland…Every song just a one-night stand/Formula music, girly guile/Genuine junk food for juveniles” also make her alienation from contemporary music in the late 90s very clear. It wasn’t just the Ottawa superstar she detested and rejected.

Five months after panning her work, in the December 1st, 1996 edition of the New York Times, Alanis reportedly “wept after reading Mitchell’s comments” in Details. Incredibly, for a time she was considered to personally induct her into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 1997. Although this didn’t happen (the honour went to Shawn Colvin), it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. Mitchell was a no-show that night.

Greatly worried about being caught by her ex (“And I shouldn’t stay long/you might be home soon/I shouldn’t stay long”), following a reprise of the chorus, it’s time for this stalker to disrobe:

“I burned your incense/I ran a bath”

And then reality hits. There’s someone else:

“I noticed a letter that sat on your desk/It said, ‘Hello, love/I love you so, love/meet me at midnight’/And no, it wasn’t my writing/I’d better go soon/it wasn’t my writing”

Completely broken by this revelation, Alanis breaks down:

“So, forgive me, love/if I cry in your shower/so, forgive me, love/for the salt in your bed/so, forgive me, love/if I cry all afternoon”

“I get burned at the end of the song,” she explained to Spin in 1995, “because if I had really snooped around as much as I wanted to, it would have been wrong. I probably would have found something I didn’t want to find. I deserved it.”

It’s fitting that Your House shares track space with the superior version of You Oughta Know on Jagged Little Pill. It feels like a sequel despite it being about a different guy. No longer angry about being cast aside, the rage has now turned to deep sorrow as an unlawful entry has resulted in unwanted discovery. He’s moved on. She’s still struggling with boundaries. Curiosity did indeed kill the cat.

“I had really good boundaries back then in that sense,” Morissette told CBC.ca, noting her own personal self-control while cryptically adding, “but it was my fantasy of, unfortunately, things that wound up happening later, prophetically [laughs].”

She was much clearer to Entertainment Weekly in 2015. While discussing why she wrote You Oughta Know, she could’ve easily been talking about Your House.

“I wrote it so I wouldn’t get sick. It was the humble beginnings of my love addiction. The withdrawal from love addiction is probably the most excruciating pain. Having had many addictions in my life, that withdrawal is the most horrifying.”

Originally, Your House was set to music. But something didn’t feel right about the arrangement.

“I started to write that song with nothing, and we tried to envelop it with chords and music but it just didn’t quite denote that haunted combination of shame and fear and grief and hope and vulnerability.”

“I thought I had maybe played piano, and actually, it’s a song that I played electric guitar on and she sang to,” remembered Ballard, “and I just felt electric guitar didn’t sound right, we just took it out.”

Despite a slew of bonus cuts added to the 20th Anniversary box set of Jagged Little Pill, this particular version of the song wasn’t included. It remains unreleased.

Also locked in the vaults is a rare dance remix of the song by the British electronica outfit Hybrid, although a vinyl bootleg from 1999 has leaked out.

“It is not even synched up to the track,” Ballard told Paul Cantin about the a cappella version in his 1997 biography, You Oughta Know. “She’s not singing to a click track. It modulates up and down, up and down. And she was nailing it.”

“The whole song just wrote itself,” Alanis told Spotify.

It’s not clear when the song was actually written. Both Ballard and Morissette have noted that they generally wrote a song a day during their sessions on and off throughout 1994. Ballard told Stereogum in 2015 that the last song was written and recorded in January 1995, long after most of the album had been completed. Was Your House the last song they worked on? Again, it’s not certain.

During the year and a half long Jagged tour that began in the summer of 1995 and finally wrapped in December 1996, Your House was usually the encore. (A mix of performances of the song from various shows including the last one were edited together for the end of the 1997 Jagged Little Pill, Live video.) In the early days, her touring band would exit and she would sing the song like the studio recording. But as the tour progressed, Nick Lashey’s acoustic guitar would chime in during the second verse. On the international version of the You Learn CD single, a live take of the song from a gig in Tokyo, Japan was included as a bonus track.

When Alanis and her touring band visited the BBC studios in November 1998, for the first time the song was performed with full, proper accompaniment. It was released the following year as a B-Side to the Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie single Joining You.

Ten years after the mammoth success of Jagged Little Pill, Alanis first honoured its anniversary with an all-acoustic version of every song on the original record, including Your House. Once again, the song shares space with another on the very last track of the CD and is uncredited in the track listing. In this case, it’s Wake Up on track 12. This buried unplugged take begins with a little more than three and a half minutes left on the album.

Now featuring a piano and drums played with brushes, as well as an acoustic guitar, unfortunately it lacks the edge of the a cappella original. In fact, the soft, middling arrangement greatly dilutes the overall feel. Ballard and Morissette’s instincts the first time around were correct. Although the BBC version is actually quite good, Your House really didn’t need to be redone. They got it right the first time.

So why was the original Your House not listed on the original Jagged Little Pill? In an interview with WITZ radio, Morissette “thought it would sort of stick out like a sore thumb if it was in the middle of the record.”

Ballard told CBC.ca that “we wanted to scare people…you think it’s over, you’re thinking about something else, and you hear her singing. It’s spooky. It’s scared me a few times, I love it. We’re grateful to everybody who sticks around to hear it [laughs].”

25 years after its secret arrival, Your House lives on in the Jagged Little Pill Broadway musical in a key scene where a lesbian teen discovers her bisexual girlfriend in bed with a guy, their high school classmate, ultimately destroying their relationship. (A separate performance of You Oughta Know follows the betrayal.) Keeping with tradition, this abbreviated snippet isn’t given its own space on the 2019 soundtrack but it’s not a mystery track. Instead, it’s been paired with another song (in this case, Head Over Feet) as part of a medley, a common occurrence throughout the show.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the live music business, Morissette was still singing Your House in concert as recently as early 2020. At the time, she was doing a 25th Anniversary tour of Jagged. When the box set was re-released last year, a March 2020 gig from the UK was added to the collection. Ironically, Your House is the opening track.

By hiding it on the same track as the Jimmy The Saint Blend of You Oughta Know, Your House becomes the resigned sedative to the former’s unhinged histrionics. From the burning high of a finally released rage to the plunging depression following the unexpected revelation and deeply realized fear of being replaced, despite being about different situations – one very real, the other highly fictionalized – these lyrical connections are emotional mirror images of the same problem. Finding herself in unhealthy relationships where her insecurity is heightened when mutual goals are elusive and she’s on the losing end of the power struggle, she first lashes out in a way she couldn’t in real life and then in the imagined scenario where she stalks and invades, she weeps in final acceptance of her thorough rejection. Her nosiness is thoroughly punished.

Unlike Dave Coulier’s undeniable connection to You Oughta Know (despite his sudden distancing from it after years of free admission), we don’t know much about the real inspiration behind Your House. For once, Alanis successfully protected an ex’s privacy.

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Wednesday, May 19, 2021
12:07 a.m.

Back To School (1986)

In the movies, business tycoons are usually either raving tyrants with grand ambitions for world domination or they’re isolated loners deeply dependent on their considerable wealth to make friends and hook lovers.  Their personalities are almost secondary to their power and influence.

In Back To School, Rodney Dangerfield plays a character very much in the second category.  A widow of ten years in a bad marriage to a philandering trophy wife (a wasted Adrienne Barbeau), he has turned his father’s small tailor business into a lucrative, expanded empire.

It’s flatly obvious that were it not for his inheritance he would be nowhere.  A high school dropout with a perpetually goofy expression and an excessive tendency to roast even his customers, he is deeply unhappy.  Living in a house he hates with a cheating bitch who fully returns that loathing, his only friend appears to be his limo driver/bodyguard/masseuse Burt Young.

When he checks in on his son Jason (Keith Gordon), he has no idea how unhappy he is, too.  Jason’s in college but also only has one friend, a leftist punk played by a young, annoying Robert Downey Jr.  He misleads his dad into thinking he’s made the diving team.  He’s really just the towel boy.

Thinking seriously about dropping out altogether, Jason’s shocked to see his father arrive unexpectedly with Young.  While giving him an impromptu tour on campus, Dangerfield makes an impulsive gesture.  To convince his son to stay, he’ll become a student himself.

But Dangerfield never got his GED, so out comes the chequebook.  And therein lies a major problem with Back To School.  Deep down, the charmless, witless Dangerfield knows he’s not remotely qualified to be here.  But by digging deep into his pockets he can overcome any adversity.  Not exactly a great lesson for Jason who eventually blows up at him for cheating so much.

Dangerfield endears himself to this place by making dated wisecracks, inappropriately harassing young girls and throwing around his dough whenever necessary like offering to buy the students new textbooks instead of used ones and partying.  This isn’t wealth redistribution, it’s bribery.

But the fact of the matter is he’s a fucking creep.  Look at that scene where he thinks he’s visiting Jason’s fraternity.  We know he’s actually waltzing into a sorority house.  No one notices his presence until he walks into the bathroom, violently yanks the shower curtain to the side and spots a screaming naked woman.  Instead of just leaving, he pulls the curtain back one more time to tell the startled student that her tits are “perfect”.  I’m surprised it’s the only time he’s ever called a “jerk”.

When a cop arrives, he’s not angry at all at Dangerfield.  No sir, he was just “having a bad day”.  He made an “understandable mistake”.  An appreciative Dangerfield can’t help himself.  He throws him some dough which is not turned down.  During a later party scene in his now expanded dorm room he shares with Downey and Jason, when the cops arrive on this occasion they bring cases of beer.

Thinking about the movie now I can’t help but compare Dangerfield’s character to Ric Flair.  The Nature Boy has also been generous with his money to the point where he was actually starting to run out of it.  He, too, despite having a succession of wives and thousands of one-night stands, seemed unbearably lonely, especially while constantly traveling as a world champion professional wrestler.

The way Flair mainly ingratiated himself with strangers was to buy drinks for everyone and especially himself which of course lead eventually to his serious health crisis not that long ago.  It’s a miracle the man is still breathing.

Also like Dangerfield, both the character he plays in Back To School and the real guy, there have been numerous stories about Flair being a creep himself, mostly of the flashing variety.  Thankfully, Dangerfield doesn’t whip out his “longfellow” in the movie but many saw it, whether they wanted to or not, in the real world.

As he becomes the life of the party, the fictional Dangerfield starts attending classes with Jason. Daddy Big Bucks immediately becomes attracted to their lovely English professor Sally Kellerman who seems to like him back.  But for some reason, she’s dating the snooty economics professor (Paxton Whitehead) who views their own unconvincing relationship strictly through business terms.  Hot.

It’s not clear what she sees in him but that’s the point of these formulaic romantic comedies.  She needs to make a choice.  I didn’t like any of her options.

Jason also attracts the interest of a woman, in his case a really cute Terry Farrell who has a warm smile and a sweet personality.  For a brief moment, there appears to be a chemistry between them, giving the film some belated hope for improvement.  But of course she also has an obnoxious boyfriend, a blonde adonis named Chas (William Zabka) with chiselled features.  He’s exactly what Jason wants to be:  a respected diver.  But he can’t make the team.

Enter dear old daddo who buddies up with his coach (E. Emmet Walsh in a rare babyface part) and suddenly there’s his son again trying out once more.  Dangerfield’s character is a former diver himself (Walsh recognizes him from his circus days) although that’s clearly a stunt double.

Back To School is 35 years old now and oh my God, has it aged badly.  I didn’t laugh once.  Dangerfield’s not a character here, he’s a relentless joke machine, tossing off one-liners here and there, sometimes a whole breathless series in one shot, as though he’s still on stage doing a set that never ends.  But the material is instantly stale and often mean.  Overly reliant on ancient romantic comedy clichés the film fails to find a fresh angle.  Not content with just that kind of recycling, it delves into the underdog sports formula, as well.

Inevitably, during an early competition, Jason fucks up, which sets up his expected redemption in the finale.  When Kellerman’s boyfriend rightly calls out Dangerfield for hiring others to do his assignments for him (he’s already on his shitlist for buying his way into enrollment in the first place), the Fat & Tall clothing mogul has to withstand an oral examination from all his professors, including a screeching Sam Kinison, in order to remain a freshman.

After their expected row, a conciliatory Jason comes back to help prepare his father for the big test with a lot of help from Young, Downey and even Kellerman, despite her disappointment in catching Dangerfield in a hot tub cavorting with shapely young students in bikinis.

Still not satisfied with its lack of original ideas, Back To School is also a tired soap opera.  Farrell seems to like Jason but not enough to ask him out even though they suddenly declare their love for each other near the end without so much as having a date.  Their platonic walks and brief on-campus interactions notwithstanding.

But that doesn’t explain why she’s with Chas.  Instead of dumping blond guy, she cheats on him which does explain his own poor performance at the final diving competition.  If you ask me, the wrong guy gets punched.

Kellerman’s temporary, hypocritical disgust with Dangerfield is odd for two reasons.  She, too, doesn’t dump the English knob before making out with the tycoon, who she’s now tutoring, after their dinner date.  (She was supposed to be having food with her boyfriend that same night.)  And there’s no make-up scene explaining why she’s suddenly eager to help him pass his oral examination.

Early on in their courtship, the persistent Dangerfield wonders why she hasn’t returned any of his “hundred” calls, especially the several messages he leaves where he jokingly resorts to asking out her answering machine.  This isn’t a case of someone being worn down until they give in, as aggressive as Dangerfield undeniably is with his approach.  It’s about someone who can’t decide between two douchebags.  And by the end, it’s still not clear if she’s fully dumped her boyfriend.

Characters in Back To School are like wrestling heels you’re supposed to root for, like the Downey character during the final diving meet when he suddenly shoots off an airhorn or uses a tiny mirror reflecting the sun’s rays to distract his friend’s opponents so they’ll botch their dives.  This results in no instant disqualification because a “good guy” is the beneficiary and the event is happening at their school.  Jason doesn’t complain because he’s not exactly popular. Poor little rich bitch.

The economics professor, a supposed hard-ass and stickler for ethics, doesn’t practice what he preaches at all which undermines his fully reasonable opposition to the big guy clothing tycoon buying his way through.  When Dangerfield sends his secretary Edie McClurg to his class one day to take notes, English asshole reveals that no matter what the man does he’s going to fail him.

Then again, why would you need to test Dangerfield on his academic honesty at all when you already know he’s not doing the work?  What’s the point of the oral exam other than to give him a second chance to right his sinking ship? 

The most revealing scene in Back In School happens to take place in economics class.  Dangerfield channels his inner Donald Trump as he passes on his own wisdom onto the young students.  If they want to start a business, be prepared to pay off a whole slew of shady motherfuckers, including politicians. 

This is the hero of the story. No wonder Trump became President.

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Sunday, May 9, 2021
8:00 p.m.