Hop Along – Second Name
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Salinas Records
Tuesdays have been wild in 2025. When I started doing Swim Selects earlier this year as a way to keep myself writing about new music regularly, I didn’t quite realize that Mondays and Tuesdays are when most bands drop their singles, music videos, and album announcements, so I usually have no shortage of fresh music to discuss. The truth is, it was arbitrary; Tuesday was exactly one week into the year, and plotting a weekly thing around that felt like a nice nod to when new music used to drop. Outside of a few assists from members of the Swim Team, I’ve largely kept to my schedule, updating this feed every Tuesday with some recent obsession of mine. It turns out that Tuesday happens to have contained a couple of holidays this year, like April Fool’s Day and today, my dang birthday.
Since today is my birthday, I figured rather than write about any new songs that have dropped in recent weeks, I’d like to break format and talk about one of my favorite songs of all time. This is done solely in the hopes that more people will listen to it; if you give me no other gift this year, please just listen to this song. Enter “Second Name” by Hop Along. This track isn’t available on any streaming services, but it is on YouTube, it can be downloaded, and it is worth hunting down to experience in its full eleven-and-a-half-minute glory. There’s also a cool live session version of the track recorded for posterity in all its 2009-era glory.
Photo by Joe Viola
For whatever reason, Hop Along is a band I often find myself drawn to at the precipice of summer. Over the past few years, I’ve made a little tradition of going for a walk on the solstice while listening to Get Disowned, and while that is one of my favorite albums of all time, “Second Name” stands completely alone.
Maybe it’s just due to the behemoth double-digit length, the song’s multiple movements, or the raw emotional heft, but “Second Name” feels like an ordeal to listen to in the best way. It’s raw power, some of the most striking lyricism, piercing deliveries, and masterful instrumental builds I’ve ever heard. This is a song that picks you up and rings you out. “Cathartic” doesn’t even begin to describe it. “Impactful” is an undersell. “One of the single greatest pieces of music ever written” … I suppose that gets close.
“Second Name” is a song composed of three distinct parts that all lean and weave into each other as the band builds up to a complete outpouring. Even outside of these broader instrumental movements, each densely packed verse sees some new instrumental addition or shift, and it’s a true marvel to behold and pure exhilaration at every turn.
The whole thing starts with this weird bass drop that feels like a centering call to action. We’re hit with some jangly guitar strums to set the tone and pace. Then an ascendant guitar slide shoots through everything, and we’re off.
Bandleader Frances Quinlan enters the fray with some surprisingly queer foreshadowing, rasping out, “Call me by my second name / I suppose I'll still be the same.” Beneath them, the drums march on with a steady bounce. By verse two, a second, higher guitar jangles through as time starts to move in rapid succession. Summer and winter pass by in single lines as we see our hero’s heart spread out across space and time.
In the third verse, they add a tambourine, making the bounciness of the drums even more prominent as Quinlan introduces one of the song’s core lyrical pillars, singing with Fiona Apple-like inflection, “But you too can be cruel / And I don't live in no cave / I just sleep in the dark like most people do / Why can't you?”
At this point, the band shifts from forward propulsion to a slightly more jagged groove, as scenes of “Rock Star Bars” contain revelations of being just as normal, just as special, and just as fucked up as everybody else. Quinlan sticks the first dagger in, cooing, “Hungry woman, do you cling to your pain? / Oh yes, oh yes…” trailing off for a single beat before the band launches back to life. A few bars later, double-tracked vocals soar for a celebratory New Year's Eve feel, “Hey baby, pretty baby / Happy two thousand and nine.”
There’s a brief instrumental break before scenes of debt and secret sweetness threaten to swallow us whole. A warning is issued as Quinlan snarls, “Don't indulge me / Don't say baby one day maybe / You know it ain't no good.” By the end of the passage, we return to the cave motif, this time rendered as a full-band group chant as the band shouts, “We work in our caves / We live in the dark!”
Five minutes in, things slow to an aged crawl as the lyrics offer a menacing peek into a possible future, “I'll corner you in the old folks home when I'm not quite dead yet / I'll kick back your wheelchair, kiss your wrinkled forehead / Hand you your last cigarette / How about an idle threat? / Baby I will get you yet…” After another brief pause, Quinlan elaborates over a tasteful guitar slide, “Baby, I'll make your life miserable if you don't make me your wife / Or I'll just float through space for the rest of my life.”
The band emerges from the haze with a loud, rattling guitar note and heavy drumming as the narrator lays out the self-inflicting stakes, “And anyway, you'll only make your life miserable if you bring anyone home / Since you love only half-hearted / You'll always wake up alone.” A few lines later, another piercing lyric finds Frances near screaming, “So when you touch her villainous body, do you feel like a fake? / As you look at your lover and your lover looks away.” We’ve lost count of the daggers at this point.
Things slow down to a hush as our attention is brought to a group of kids playing outside. All we hear is Quinlan’s voice and a light guitar strum. An invitation is extended. Our narrator brushes things off, calling themself crazy. Suddenly, the devil is at their door, throwing bad cards and asking, “Honey, would you like some more?”
This line is repeated and built into a caterwaul, with the whole band singing, “I know you've been down that road before / Honey, would you like some more?” and launching into a meditative, soul-saving riff. It’s all out on the table, and there’s nothing left but peace on the other side.
