Sadie Hawkins Dance

Relient K lead Singer Matt Thiessen explained in our interview that he's a very playful guy with a strong sense of humor and that, one way or another, this creeps into many of his songs. "Sadie Hawkins Dance" is a stellar example of this, turning a somewhat cliché situation (finding a date to a dance in high school) on its head, peppering it with jokes and absurd situations.

Traditionally, a Sadie Hawkins dance is one where the girl is encouraged to ask the boy to the dance. This is reflected in the line "Girls ask for guys, it's always a surprise."

Sadie Hawkins day was the creation of the cartoonist Al Capp, who described it in the 1930s in his comic strip Li'l Abner. The concept of girls pursuing guys on this special day spread to high schools and colleges, and the dances started cropping up.

The song is about a nameless high school narrator's humorous experiences while trying to find a date to the upcoming Sadie Hawkins Dance. The lyrics suggest that it might be an autobiographical song, as the narrator acknowledges a sense of humor as prominent as Thiessen's own with lines like "Told a funny joke got the whole class laughing, think I got a tan from the light which I was basking."

This song was released on The Anatomy of the Tongue in Cheek, the band's second album, in 2001. It cemented the band's reputation for having cheery music and enjoyable lyrics filled with humor, pop culture references, and Christian undertones. The record went gold with over 500,000 copies sold.