Lump – The Presidents of The United States of America

The first time I was introduced to this song was actually through one of my childhood heroes, Weird Al Yankovic. Before I heard Lump, I heard his parody, called “Gump”. About Forrest, of course, it is so well done that it’s sometimes hard to tell the two apart if you’re not paying enough attention to the lyrics. Al’s music video is amazing as well. He almost matches his with the original shot for shot. Weird Al had almost as much of an impact on my taste in music as the Beatles, and I say that with humor and seriousness.

Lump is one of my all-time favorite songs to come out of the ’90s. Simple, fun, it tells a great story that is straight to the point. It shows to a tee that in some cases “less is more”. It contains one of my favorite verses in all of music.

“Lump was lonely and needed a shove

Lump slipped on a kiss and tumbled into love

She spent her twenties between the sheets

Life limped along at subsonic speeds”

I honestly can’t tell you why I love that verse so much, but I genuinely look forward to it every time I listen to the song. I believe at one point I heard a radio host say that this song was written as the personification of a brain tumor, but in a semi-recent interview, the lead singer and bassist Chris Ballew said that the song was written just because he likes saying the word “Lump”.

Also, in doing a bit of research on the band and the song, I learned that he plays a bass with two strings, and original lead guitarist Dave Dederer played with only three strings. Wow. And I thought Keith Richards was wild for only using five. This is actually pretty noticable in the music video if you look for it.

Link to the song – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjwkXYB4nHs

Link to a live performance –https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhqN095y2mg

Link to “Gump” – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQwWaWFjd0Y