Best of 2004, #13: Just A Kid by Wilco

Forget about A Ghost Is Born. Yeah, it's a great album, but if you want the best Wilco song of 2004, you had to buy the Spongebob Squarepants movie soundtrack. That's right. I said it. Or else buy the song from iTunes like I did. (The rest of the album definitely isn't all that.)

No, I'm not a Spongebob fan, to be honest, but I heard a great review of the soundtrack on NPR driving to work one Friday morning last year. They were talking about the Wilco and Flaming Lips songs, and I had to check those out. Both are good songs, but this song, Just A Kid, is epic!

It's got this Saturday morning in Heaven sort of feel... but with that Wilco cynicism and grown-up-ness twisted in there somewhere. It reminds me heartily of my favorite Wilco song, the guilty pleasure bubblegum secret song from Summerteeth -- Candy Floss. "I'm the boy with the poetry power, I'm the boy who smells like flowers." Man, it's so much better than it reads -- I promise. It's got this seriously flawed adult theme hidden in this terribly sugary, fluffy, cotton candy covering. It's brilliant!

Just A Kid is just the same -- it has it all -- a rockin' beat, a "don't wanna grow up" sort of attitude, a "well dammit, I guess I'd better just suck it up and live my life" finality that's very mature actually, and of course a rousing chorus sang by school children at the end. (a la Red Hot Chili Pepper's Aeroplane and many before them...) I don't care... I admit it -- I love that shit. There's even a Homestar Runner "everybody everybody everybody" homage! Seriously. "Too early, too early, too early, in the morning...." It's an adult themed-song hidden inside a Saturday morning theme song...

Pick this song up, damnit! Do it!