Top Ten Songs on Barenaked Ladies' Gordon
Gordon is the first full-length album by Barenaked Ladies. It is considered by most critics and fans, myself included, to be their best work. It's a great mixture of acoustic, alternative, pop, and rock stylings. Feel free to add any songs that I may have missed.
Their best song, in my honest opinion. Steven Page wrote it by himself, about a man who is suffering from a mental breakdown. He compares his state to that of Brian Wilson in the 1980s when Wilson was controlled by his psychologist, Eugene Landy.
Steven Page and Ed Robertson came up with the song while attending a summer music camp. Ed played the song for the campers, who loved it. The response encouraged him to share it with Steven and create a finished version. As the name suggests, it's about the many things that a man would buy with a million dollars just to earn his girlfriend's love.
This song is about an older, fading musician whose prime era of their career has long passed them by. It critiques older musicians who put out box sets full of inessential material just to try to make some money from the fans they have left.
One of the album's more famous songs, it's a love song about a man who compares his relationship to that of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, saying he is glad to have her obsess over him.
The album opener, it's a mid-tempo acoustic song with jazzy textures. It describes the narrator's boredom with the city of Halifax, which at the time was going through an economic and cultural slump.
This song is about Steven Page's first relationship, although the name Enid came from a woman the band used to know who worked at a restaurant. Steven found it humorous because "Enid" spelled backward is "dine."
This song is about a loser who constantly tries to pick up women. He tries to act cool and tell the women that he has quite a claim to fame, such as being a famous singer or actor, but he always gets rejected.
One of the more whimsical tracks on the album, it's about the members' experiences in high school as freshmen. It's particularly notable because it contains snippets from Linus and Lucy by Vince Guaraldi and Tom Sawyer as well as The Spirit of Radio by Rush, performed by the band themselves.
As the name implies, it's Steven Page's attempt to poke fun at New Kids on the Block and other similar boy bands.
One of the softer, slower songs on the album, this song is a great showcase for the band's harmonies. On the face of it, it seems like a love ballad, but when you read the lyrics more closely, it's actually a murder ballad.