From an interview on Modern Rock Live:

Robin: "We were asked to contribute a song to the Wayne's World 2 soundtrack and we decided to write something all together in the middle of the tour in our hotel room. We had just been carrying around this title for a song, we knew we were going to write a song called 'Pretty Good Day Job' and we didn't have anything else to write about that night. Bill and I went down to the bus and we wrote the lyrics down there. And what we were thinking about... I think we were just trying to say we're lucky to be where we're at and it could be worse."

FOLLOW YOU DOWN

From an interview on Rockline:

Robin: "Well, it's kind of a general, vague sort of a thing about just kind of being addicted to somebody who you know is bad for you."

SEEING STARS

From an America Online "chat" with Robin:

Question: I was wondering what you had in mind when you wrote "Seeing Stars." What is it about, and why didn't you guys put it on Congratulations I'm Sorry?
Robin: The song is a hypothetical conversation between myself and my friend Doug. As for why it didn't make the record, we had other songs we liked more. We saved it for b-sides.

FOUND OUT ABOUT YOU

From a 1989 interview with Doug Hopkins on Phoenix radio station KASR, talking about an ex-girlfriend:

"It was July 29th of 1985. I went to see REM at the Palace West Theatre. And after the concert, I see her and I turn to walk away. And she runs up from behind me--she was a black stripe in Tae Kwan Do--and she nailed me one. Put me in the hospital for a week and a half. Shattered cheekbone, shattered occipital lobe. I still have scars from this folks! Aw, man. Anyway it's about her."

ALLISON ROAD

From a radio interview with Robin and Bill:

Robin: What I'm trying to say in the song is that I knew this girl was perfect for me but I just didn't have the courage to take the next step. And that's really what I mean when I say "I didn't know I was lost at the time" and whatever.
Bill: Who was she?
Robin: That was Shannon. "Fools in the rain," that whole thing, we were in Sedona and it was raining and we were, like, making love next to the stream in the rain...
Bill: Really?
Robin: Yeah, it was great, that's "fools in the rain, the sun gets through" and all that...and then the line...
Bill: Sleeping bag?
Robin: I think we had like a towel or a blanket. There was sand up my butt like you wouldn't believe.

UNTIL I FALL AWAY

From an interview with Robin for MTV's Weekend Revolution:

"There was just this black cloud hanging over the band, and for a while we were very unhappy and it just always seemed to me like any second the ground was just gonna open up and swallow us up. And that's what I was writing about. I don't really feel that way anymore. I don't think I could write that song today if I tried."

MRS. RITA

From an interview on Rockline: Jesse: "Where we're from in downtown Tempe there's an old woman who reads tarot cards for a living. She has this big handpainted sign out front and I used to walk past it every day to the convenience store... I don't know, I just wrote the song. I know if you're in Tempe and you've got an extra forty bucks to spend she can really straighten you out." (Photograph © Erin Harty.)

CHEATIN'

From the Faces magazine interview with Phillip:

"That song was a joke too. It is a parody of all the cheesy country music out there today. 'Hair dark as midnight? Can't call it cheatin, because she reminds me of you?' Come on! That song was a goof. We knew we were stretching it just a bit. We figured, 'What the hell... it's not like it's going to be a single or anything!' "

KELI RICHARDS

Keli Richards was a porn star who starred in such film epics as "Caught From Behind II." The song Keli Richards is probably the closest thing there is to a Gin Blossoms "classic"--you can find it on the Up and Crumbling EP, and on Dusted.