The Lemonheads - It's a Shame About Ray (1992)

**1/2 (of four)


Apparently, Lemonheads frontman Evan Dando was a teen heartthrob in his time, a dapper, dorkier version of Black Crowes singer Chris Robinson. I don't know much about all that, but I've always had a passive kind of fondness for the band's 1992 hit "It's a Shame About Ray." Catchy, mid-tempo, jangly acoustic guitars, plaintive vocals and lyrics that you can stare at for five minutes and still not really figure out if they're about suicide or what. Help me out here, English majors.

The video takes place outside and around a house in the desert, where the band plays outside on the porch and Dando mopes around inside with heavy-lidded eyes. The camera just kind of meanders back and forth, and we keep seeing glimpses of a blonde girl who I believe is in the process of leaving Dando. Yeah, she is gone, because he just pulled her picture out of the frame and dropped it in a plastic garbage bag. And dropped the frame to the dusty hardwood floor in slow motion.

You could say this video is dated and too poppy and didn't even make sense to analytic stoners when it was released. I prefer to call it atmospheric and halfway decent.