REEL BIG FISH

Reel Big Fish is a ska punk band from Hunington Beach, California. The band is best known for their hit "Sell Out" from 1997. Thier album Turn the Radio Off gained the band alot of recognition in the mid-to-late 90's.

Reel Big Fish's song "Suckers" is a very pessimistic ska song. It is about a bad experience with relationships and for that reason is about how love never works: "It never works but we keep tryin' like fools learning and breaking the rules. At first your excited then you're less than delighted. By the end you wish they would drop dead it can't last, it's gone so fast". Clearly this song is very negative. However, like most ska songs, the lyrics of "Suckers" are very simple. They do not hold a lot of poetic qualities other than some alliteration and some imagery: "Lust turns to disgust. A heart of gold into rust, a soft touch to a slap in the face". These examples of imagery are also paradoxical to eachother in that they are contradicting. This part of the song is just about the only part that is significantly poetic. However, it is hard to describe what poetic devices are being used. This goes for most ska songs problably because it is a very simple, laid back music.

Reel Big Fish has many other songs but their lyrics are all very simple and insignificant.

BIG D *

Big D and The Kids Table is a ska/ punk band. They are not too popular but that is because their genre is not very popular. They are considered an underground band, like most ska/ punk bands including Less Than Jake and Reel Big Fish. Big D came together ten years ago when the band met in a college in Boston. They put on insane live, local shows in dorms, halls, clubs and basements all over New England. Big D formed their own label, Fork in Hand Records to put out their first album, Shot by Lemmi in 1997. The band has built a very vibrant punk/ska scene around themselves.
"Steady Riot" is the opener of Strictly Rude, which was released on March 20, 2007. The song is said to be dancy while it also has a few poetic qualities. "Steady Riot" is a very optimistic ska/ punk song. I involves the narrator praising his friends despite their downfalls: "My buddy Johnny, he can never get up, but it's him who should be admired not those fame driven shmucks". The narrator clearly admires his friends even though they are not perfect. The views of this song are extremely poisitve: "It's easy to get down when you view life as a stray, but my man he brings me up. I should tell him one of these days". These statements are very ironic. The chorus of this song is just one sentence, but it is a metaphor: "Music, a steady riot in my soul". Also, the name "Steady Riot" is a paradox. A riot is defined as noisy, violent, disorder caused by a group of people while steady means free from change or interruption. Clearly, these two things conradict eachother.
Big D and the Kid's Table is a very creative ska/punk band. They do a good job both intsrumentally and lyrically. Their songs seem very simple but when analyzed, their lyrics, surprisingly, hold some poetic value.

CAKE!!!

Cake is a band that formed in 1991 in Sacremento, California. Their music is classified as indie or alternatice rock, although it also combines other genres such as funk, ska, pop, jazz, rap, and coutnry. Cake's music has droll lyrics with wordplay. The lead vocalist and guitarist, John McCrea's, voice has a distorted rap-like stlye backed by "catchy, distorted guitar riffs". Cake's biggest hits have included "The Distance", "Never There", and "Short Skirt/Long Jacket", which is packed with poetic devices.
"Short Skirt/ Long Jacket" is a very catchy, yet poetic song. It depicts a desire for a woman with very specific qualitiest. The narrator uses a first person narration to describe the woman of his imagination that would be his ideal girlfriend. However, it is almost like he is just watching some girl that already exists and describing what she looks like and what she is doing. "Short Skirt/Long Jacket" has an extraordinarily significant rhyme scheme while it also includes many poetic devices. There are many similes in "Short Skirt/ Long Jacket" including; "a mind like a diamond", "eyes that burn like cigarettes", "a voice dark like tinted glass", and the repeated line, "She is fast, thorough, and sharp as a tack". In addition, the song also has some imagery in the lines; "She is playing with her jewlery, she is putting up her hair", and "she is trading her MG for a white Chrysler Lebaron".
Cake's very unique song "Short Skirt/ Long Jacket" is simple but also has some poetic merit. It also humorous. Cake's music is unlike any popular nads. they deserve credit and recognition for being original. "Short Skirt/ Long Jacket" is just one example of their creative sound. This specific song also holds alot of poetic content, which puts the icing on the cake.