Leatherette Tears

The Seattle band Truly released their first full-length album, Fast Stories... From Kid Coma, in 1995 during the waning years of Grunge. Thanks to a combination of record company politics and industry disinterest, they never caught on, but did build a dedicated following. Led by guitarist/vocalist Robert Roth, the band is rounded out by bass player Hiro Yamamoto and drummer Mark Pickerel. Roth told us the story behind this song, which is one of Truly's most popular: This is one of those songs that came to me more than once. On the third or fourth time I started paying attention. Truly was in the middle of a second consecutive lap around the US, playing mostly material from Fast Stories... From Kid Coma where the songs were all in self-invented alternate tunings. I would leave this 12-string electric Fender Coronado out of its case in the van, and every time I picked it up the chords and melody for this song just kept stepping up. I remember it came bursting out of the guitar fully dressed as a "song" while I was playing the Coronado in the van in the parking lot at Spaceland in L.A. The lyrics were about an old girlfriend... a very long and intense "first relationship." This song was the opposite... a very casual send-off and my way of saying to myself that I really was over this person and could see things for what they were. A little light after a lot of dark. After finishing the very long tour at the Whiskey, I brought my new sunny-california pop song with me the following week to Europe. I remember finishing it in the promoter's office before our show in Munich and playing it for the first time at soundcheck in Perugia, Italy. Hiro and Mark loved it and we even considered playing it that night. I always thought this song had a real Phil Spector - Ronettes thing. I'm sure it confused a lot of Truly fans, but a lot of people and reviews seemed to like it and think of it as an instant classic. We hadn't done any thing quite this poppy since "Married in the Playground" from our first Sup Pop EP. Capitol Records thought it was a potential huge hit and put a lot of pressure on us to make an entire record of songs just like this.