A Mighty Mighty hard tribute to the band that changed my life

We all have that one band. The one band whose songs felt like they were directly speaking to us. The one band that marked major events and important points in your life wherein you could mark them by when an album came out or a tour or show came around. That one band who you went ape shit for when they went on stage and played that deeper track that only the hardcore fans could know and appreciate and yet still get down with the hits.

For me, that band has been there my entire life, until now. That band for me was THE MIGHTY MIGHTY BOSSTONES. After nearly 4 decades of putting out music, playing club gig after club gig, festival after festival, the band officially announced they are breaking up.

I have seen them more than any other band in my vast concert going history. I don't keep tabs close enough to know the actual number but I know its more than 20. They are the only band I have seen in 4 different countries. I have also seen them in 7 different states. They are also the only band I have ever left a festival for after seeing them, paying really only to see them.

Listen I have experienced enough loss in my life to know that this one is a bit superficial but it doesn't mean I don't feel it. I also know it happens and truth be told in another blog post I actually wrote but never posted I had done a comprehensive review of the last Bosstones' Album. Which is pretty mute now since I am going to be writing about in a moment. In that review I had mentioned how the entire album felt like a goodbye. I certainly conjectured that I didn't want to believe that or feel like ultimately that was the case but in your gut when you know something you know something.


However rather than dwell on the sadness that this news is for me I want to celebrate a band that may not be Indie in the practical sense (a couple albums with major labels aside), but they were as DIY as you could get, and a lot of what they did, they did on their own.

While most would say The Specials, The Toasters, or even Madness really are the pioneers and Godfathers of Ska, I would argue no one had more influence on not just the Ska genre but on punk and hardcore as well. The Bosstones were a band that took bands like Voodoo Glow Skulls, Rancid, Jughead's Revenge, The Dropkick Murphys, The Pietasters, and many, many more out on the road and introduced them to a willing audience. They championed Ska and Punk bands, encouraged music education, and waved the flag for their hometown proudly and boldly. Doing a 3 night gig for nearly 10 years every Christmas, and introducing a brand new album at the club that started it all for them for nearly every release.

A lot of people know them as the "Knock on Wood" band. Which in truth always pissed me off because #1 that's not even the name of the song, it's "The Impression That I Get" and #2 that wasn't their 1st or only hit either. Billboard can suck it for that statement alone.

So in honor and celebration of one of my favorite bands I am going to rank every album here and give you a list of my Top 10 favorite The Mighty Mighty Bosstones' songs (just FYI The Impression That I Get doesn't even make the list- not that its a bad song or being punished because it was a hit mind you).

Let me preface by saying not a single one of these do I consider a bad album.

13. MORE NOISE AND OTHER DISTURBANCES (1992)





The 2nd album, in which most would say is the one where The Mighty Mighty got put into the Bosstones. It features their very 1st hit in WHERE'D YOU GO? and spoiler alert you will be hearing more about that song as you read on. For me though while the songs are good, they aren't like the other albums, in that their are some great ones. Only the aforementioned WHERE'D YOU GO? has that distinction for me. Thus this album really is them just starting to find themselves but also them finding my playlists. A tough task indeed.


12. QUESTION THE ANSWERS (1994)





This was the hardest part of the list for me because what you get with this album is 2 amazing things. First off HELL OF A HAT is arguably one of the biggest hits outside of "The Impression That I Get" and "Rascal King". It catapulted this album to charts and it solidified that the Bosstones could never be considered a 1 hit wonder again, even though they weren't that anyway. The other thing about this album is its the last bastion of the band's hardcore routes. Every album beyond this they slowly transition into a more punk-ska band. Like with HELL OF A HAT this album has some of the most notable Bosstones playlist/set list songs on it from A SAD SILENCE to KINDER WORDS. This album really is so much different than any Bosstones album there is because the heaviness of it is more in totality.


11. MEDIUM RARE (2007)





If it wasn't for DON'T WORRY DESMOND DEKKER this might have been bumped to the 13 spot. Honestly this is the least visited album of the entire collection for me. DON'T WORRY... though is a song you will be hearing more about as you go through this blog. This album is cool simply because these are all the b sides and those secret menu songs, super deep tracks I was mentioning that the real hardcore fans get excited to hear live or get the overseas copies of other albums for. This is one of two songs on this album that were created specifically for this album, all the others are like I said hidden gems. This album kind of highlights though why these songs weren't able to make the cuts on the respective B-sides they first appeared on.


10. JACKNIFE TO A SWAN (2002)



Quite honestly this is an underrated gem by The Bosstones. MR MORAN is an awesome song and probably their last hardcore song ever. This album is plagued by the transition of them trying to figure out where they want the next evolution of the band to go. There would be a massive soul searching period for the band following this album which always doesn't bode well and can be really heard in its execution as well. That being said so many of these songs are super surprises listening back to it over the past few years and its kind of their fine wine album. Something that has only gotten better with age even with the underlying problems.

9. DON'T KNOW HOW TO PARTY (1993)




This is where we get into the commercial slant of the band. This release by one of the biggest labels at the time in Mercury Records was technically the "3rd album", but really the 4th one, and even more really honestly there first really heavily produced LP and unfortunately often that takes the sting from its effectiveness. Like all Bosstones' Albums though, when they are on, they are FUCKING ON! LAST DEAD MOUSE, ALMOST ANYTHING GOES, and arguably the 2nd hit of all time chronologically SOMEDAY I SUPPOSE save this album from being forgotten and being lower on the list. It's hard, as much I thought about where it needs to be on this list, denying the highest spot I could see it being when it has 3 legitimate Top 10 All Time songs for a lot of folks, you'll have to keep reading to see if any 1 of them makes the cut.


8. SKA-CORE, THE DEVIL, AND MORE EP (1993)





This is essentially a covers album of 6 songs but it holds significance to Bosstones' fans for 2 reasons. 1st its the actual first appearance of SOMEDAY I SUPPOSE. 2nd it has the kick ass cover of LIGHTS OUT on it that makes its appearance at several of the shows I saw over the years, including the very last show I saw in 2018. This is a cool hardcore, punk album with one Ska song really on it but its high on the list because it really does show the diversity of this band and its homage to music in general. It is only 1 of 2 Bosstones' albums I don't skip a song on either.

7. WHEN GOD WAS GREAT (2021)





The last ever (at least right now) Bosstones' Album. It feels like a warm hug and as I mentioned a long goodbye. That doesn't stop it from having some of the best songs they have done ever on it. CERTAIN THINGS is absolutely a masterpiece. The hits I DON'T BELIEVE IN ANYTHING and THE LAST PARADE (Ska's We Are The World Anthem) are also incredible tracks. This album is really good, bordering on great. It has a couple skips for me but it has also only been in the rotation less than a year. So I imagine if you ask me to redo this list in like 5 years from now, this might go higher. This has Tim Armstrong's (FROM RANCID and HELLCAT RECORDS - the label that put this out) fingerprints all over it. His mixing ear and his riff management on his bands poke through often in a few of these songs and that is a new wrinkle to the band's sound for sure. Ultimately what is so fucking incredible is if you look at the past 10 years only, you see this latter day evolution culminate with this album. They found it here, and that sucks for us fans.


6. LET'S FACE IT (1997)



Okay this is when I get really controversial. Most pundits doing this list and even some hardcore fans will have this album #1 or #2 on their lists and you know what I can't say they are wrong, this is the Bosstones Album. It's how the majority of fans found them. Moreover it is a GREAT, great fucking album. It really is, I just like the others more. Once you get past THE IMPRESSION THAT I GET and THE RASCAL KING there are some really solid hidden gems in here, 1-2-8, ROYAL OIL, THAT BUG BIT ME, and the hardcore slanted NUMBERED DAYS. All of those 4 songs at one point or another, depending on the day I would have written this blog, would be not only in the Top 10 but a couple of them would be #1, that's not excluding IMPRESSION OR RASCAL either. I love those songs too. This album has one small flaw, it has some fluff. The title track LET'S FACE IT and the opener NOISE BRIGADE are perfect examples of that. Not bad songs per say but a little less meatier than the above mentioned tracks.

5. PAY ATTENTION (2000)

Am I crazy? How does the most tumultuous periods of the band's history, in the most disjointed era of label issues and bandmates leaving or being unhappy have an album that follows up their most successful album be higher on this list? Well...allow me to retort. It's fucking great, that's how. Seriously beyond SO SAD TO SAY, which became the hit on the album, and a damn good song there is some of the best songs here. This is the 1st album that Dicky Barrett writes his most personal exposes on. This album really shows the heart of the man that we know as Dicky. ALL THINGS CONSIDERED and HIGH SCHOOL DANCE are easily considerable Top 10 song picks. FINALLY and I KNOW MORE while not as great, again they are Dicky's soul being put on an album, something that becomes a staple in the next decade for the band. This album sets the stage for what I feel like is its resurgence into why we love them and their evolution into near perfection.

4. DEVILS NIGHT OUT (1989)




It's the 1st and deserves a high spot in simply homage to the band's beginnings. Granted is the sloppiest and worst produced album of any on this list but the idea was there. Again when they got it, even at the very beginning, they got IT FUCKING RIGHT! THE BARTENDER'S SONG is a classic and until NAH NAH NAH and THE FINAL PARADE was their only real anthem song in their catalogue. Even NAH has nuances that kind of shave away the anthem idea. This is straight up raises your glasses and let's get pissed (drunk) bravado.

3. WHILE WE'RE AT IT (2018)

This is part of why I said what I said about WHEN GOD IS GREAT, because if I had done this list around the year or so after this album came out, it would have been on the bottom, easily. It never grabbed me until I heard the middle of the album and then I haven't stopped having one, if not 2 songs in particular in my rotation for punk or ska playlists. Those 2 songs THE CONSTANT and GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN are again REALLY FUCKING GOOD!! In fact one of them is my favorite Bosstones' song of all time now. You'll have to read on to find that out. DIVIDE and WALK LIKE A GHOST are also stellar songs. This album really is sneaky good if not sneaky great. If not for the single track they released WONDERFUL DAY FOR THE RACE one of only a couple misses for me on this album, this would have been higher, as it is at #3.


2. THE MAGIC OF YOUTH (2011)

This period in the band's history was 3 of the strongest live shows I had ever seen and I had been seeing them for a long, long time. When this album dropped it was the only time I had seen the band play mostly from the album that had just dropped and the only time in seeing them they did not play WHERE'D YOU GO and SOMEDAY I SUPPOSE. There were 2 shows I remember so well wherein this album had a lot of live play. That confirmed to me what I had been feeling, this was the beginning of something new for the band but also this was an album designed to play off of live and it has some of the most danceable tracks on it. It also has the continuation of what you will read about in a moment of Dicky Barrett's song writing skills blossoming. SUNDAY AFTERNOONS ON WISDOM AVE, OPEN AND HONEST, and THEY WILL NEED MUSIC are awesome, deep songs giving us a look at Dicky we have only had one other album do to this point. Plus this album opens like a fireball and just never let's go. It is the best arranged album of their catalogue easily. Only 1 issue I have is it is the follow up to the album I think is Perfect.


1. PIN POINTS AND GIN JOINTS (2009)





I will admit I heard NAH NAH NAH before the album came out at a show they did about 6 months before the release. I was a bit concerned, even though live it was jumping, I could sense it was a bit lackluster in the caliber of songs that had been hits for the band. I could not have been more wrong because if you deep dive onto that song you find its nuances and its amazing, amazing self depreciating defiance. This album is so deep songwriting wise and yet still hooks you as only a Bosstones' album can. I don't know of an album I have listened to all the way through more in my life. It is as close to perfect as I feel an album can get. YOU LEFT RIGHT?, THE ROUTE THAT I TOOK, NOT TO ME ON THAT NIGHT, WASTED SUMMERS, SISTER MARY all are incredible tunes on their own. This album is bold, daring, and tries so many different things that the Bosstones had never done before. DEATH VALLEY VIPERS is a little rockabilly, little even Mariachi-esque, something they had never ventured into before and it works. Then there is the Crème de la Crème in I WROTE IT, a ballad, a slow song for the ages. More on that one below but this is THE ALBUM for me.

MY PERSONAL TOP 10 OF  THE MIGHTY MIGHTY BOSSTONES' SONGS 

10.   WHERE'D YOU GO? (More Noises...) Maybe the best chorus to a song ever, it's the moment live in which the entire place bounces, it has to be on this list, its 1 of 3 songs that really all deeper Bosstones fans would say have to be there
(tie) SUNDAY AFTERNOONS ON WISDOM AVE (The Magic...) 2nd coolest narrative in a Bosstones' song, its like a short story almost. Could easily have seen this be a cooler episode of the Wonder Years actually 

9.     HIGH SCHOOL DANCE (Pay Attention) Maybe the darkest song on this list, Dicky sticking up for those disenfranchised in High School and showing why you never burn a bridge

8.     GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN (While We're At It) This is what the Bosstones' do, the wit of these lyrics with the pacing of a dance song, cool call out to Ill Repute and Moon stomping in this one

7.     SOMEDAY I SUPPOSE (Ska-Core...) The 2nd of the 3 songs that needs to be on this list, the Fade In on this song, never had heard anything like it, as soon as Tim Bridewell and then later Chris Rhodes pull that first note, the crowd erupts.  
6.     ALL THINGS CONSIDERED (Pay Attention) One of the very few times Dicky's cultural references play into a song that isn't just a list of useless facts, this story has an incredible heart to it

5.     1-2-8 (Let's Face It) Another great chorus but vocally, maybe the best song the band sings. The harmonizing is second to none. Coolest left to your imagine song the band has ever done too. 

4.     DON'T WORRY DESMOND DEKKER (Medium Rare) Another great chorus (sensing a theme yet?) also great cultural references too, this song is the full package of what this band was meant to be

3.     ALMOST ANYTHING GOES (Don't Know How...) The 3rd of the must have on the list trilogy. It is the stage dive song I call it. I have seen more stage dives on this one than any of the others (and believe me that's saying something), great anthem vibe toward the end and its the song that everyone participates in other than "The Impression That I Get"
2.     I WROTE IT (Pin Points...) This has such a personal connection to me, a stream of conscious short story that has such a personal touch and deft beauty to it. "I wrote it with a pencil that I pulled out of my blazer" I used that line in my wedding vows, as I pulled out the pencil from my blazer. 
1.     THE CONSTANT (While We're At It) Not only is this song is perfect tonally but the chorus is such a powerful message about time and making the most of it, not letting anybody fucking take you down. It is the union fist waving song that is orchestrated with such precision and such beauty. 

Well this was a tough blog to write, to think about, and to publish too. I just have to say (even though they may never see this) thank you to the greatest live band I have ever seen, the band that I connected to personally more than any other ever. You changed my life, you saved my life, you even have fucked up my life (but I wouldn't have changed it because I learned from it) but then you corrected it a couple albums and songs later (or maybe it was that I finally understood them). 

THANK YOU TO THE MIGHTY MIGHTY BOSSTONES. You gave this fan everything I could have asked from you, sans maybe one more show but I have a feeling you might ultimately down the road give that to me too. If not though, I am not going to be ungrateful because I got a lot from you all already.