Ranking MJ Lenderman’s Wettest Songs
/
While 2023 seems to be the year that Wednesday is poised to take over the world, last year belonged to MJ Lenderman. Around this time in 2022, my Boat Songs fandom was reaching an absolute fever pitch, timed almost perfectly to coincide with a four-day weekend, a wave of incredible weather, and a diet consisting almost exclusively of BBQ hot dogs. If there ever was a perfect confluence of MJ Lenderman listening conditions, it was last summer.
I’ve spent the better part of the last two years immersing myself in the discographies of both Wednesday and MJ Lenderman, including weird one-off tracks, contributions to compilations, and early releases they’re now too embarrassed to have on streaming. In absorbing MJ Lenderman’s body of work specifically, a shocking trend began to emerge: dude can’t stop singing about water. Swimming pools, water parks, boat trips, it’s all here. Let’s take a closer look at all of these songs and rank them for their summer vibes based on totally arbitrary measures.
1. “You Are Every Girl To Me”
A huge water slide. Why isn’t everyone talking about this? And not just a water slide, but also a community swimming pool? Lenderman is really covering all of his bases with this song. Between the now-iconic Jackass reference and descending guitar riff that feels like shooting down a water slide, this track is absolutely overflowing with good vibes. A love song for the ages that also happens to get wet in a way that’s sensible and refreshing.
Five Otter Pops (red) out of five.
2. “Infinity Pool”
A druggy and fucked-up monologue of a song that lands somewhere between Ween’s “Pollo Asado” and the lo-fi scramble of early Car Seat Headrest. In this song, the subject is shit-faced, the stars are out, and our narrator is on top of the world, so spirits are obviously high. This feels more like a falling-into-the-pool-fully-clothed scenario, but our hero seems unbothered by this development, content to take in the view of the city's night skyline and the exactly one thousand stars in the sky. In MJ’s own words, “It's a beautiful night, life is good.”
One Brandon Cronenberg-directed Mia Goth handjob out of one.
3. “You Don’t Know The Shape I’m In”
If there’s one thing MJ Lenderman is gonna do, it’s sing about a goddamn water park. One of my favorite non-streaming MJ songs, this track is an upbeat, sun-coated bop that opens Through The Soil II, a compilation for The Trevor Project featuring the likes of Wednesday, Faye Webster, and Julien Baker, to name a few. After a brief warmup, the track gets up to speed, and MJ sets the tone by singing about romantic separation, “Some say distance grows the heart / But I know sometimes we just drift apart.” Guitar still swishing beneath him, he goes on to make an uncharacteristic biblical reference, singing, “Everybody's walking in twos leaving Noah's Ark / And it's Sunday at the water park.” Hell yeah, brother, sounds like a great way to spend the last bit of your weekend. Does this lyric also imply that the animals on Noah’s Ark were having a good time out on the water? We can only hope.
Two of every animal ever to exist out of two.
4. “House Pool”
Over the past year, I’ve been fascinated to watch “How Do You Let Love Into The Heart That Isn't Split Wide Open” climb the charts of both Wednesday and MJ’s “popular songs” chart on Spotify. Elsewhere on the 2018 EP, you’ll find a Smashing Pumpkins cover given new life on their 2022 covers album and the dreamy “House Pool.” On this track, the dirtbag duo cut straight to the chase, lamenting, “Stand at the edge / Of the steep end house pool / No diving pool for barbecue / No one swims / No one barbecues.” So you’re telling me there is a pool and a barbeque, but neither are being used? Truly a fate worse than death. Sidebar, but do we think this song fits into the MJ Lenderman Grill Expanded Universe? Discuss in the comments below.
One pack of tragically-untouched hot dog buns out of one.
5. “Six Flags”
While not a pool or a water park, the final track off Boat Songs opens with a woozy 90-second guitar riff and (most pertinent to this countdown) mention of a log ride. The song is sad, slow-moving, and lyrically sparse, giving the impression that this particular trip to a Texas Six Flags was not as jubilant as that dancing old man would lead you to believe. Even still, Mr. Lenderman explains that the log ride got him “dripping wet,” which, in the context of this article, means there’s enough water involved for me to consider. Minus one pont only because it’s a bummer.
Five flags out of six.
