The Spin Doctors are a New York group led by Chris Barron, who rocked a very disheveled look at the time. They were tagged an "alternative" band, which was good for marketing purposes, since it made them sound edgy. Really, they were a rock band with pop appeal, and in 1993 there was a huge demand for their sound, especially among Top 40 radio stations who were pushing back against the tide of hip-hop. Their first single, "Little Miss Can't Be Wrong," was a modest hit, climbing to #17 in the US. "Two Princes" did far better, becoming their biggest hit and best-known song. Both songs were composed by the entire band: Baron, Aaron Comess, Eric Schenkman and Mark White.
In this song, Chris Barron takes the voice of a poor prince (must be a pretty lame kingdom) trying to convince a girl that she should marry him instead of his wealthy counterpart. The underdog theme shows up a lot in Barron's lyrics; something he attributes to his itinerant childhood - he spent time in Australia and Europe before settling in New Jersey.
Chris Barron is a literature fanatic, which played a part in this song. In a Songfacts interview, he explained: "I loved The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. I was really into fantasy fiction and stuff like that. I wrote that song when I was 19, so I was still coming out of childhood, and as a child I loved wizards and kings and queens and princess and princesses and stuff like that. And I loved Shakespeare - I already was way into Shakespeare. So I gravitated towards that kind of imagery just because I liked books and poems from that period of time."
See your Spotify stats (with number of plays and minutes listened) and discover new music.
Music data, artist images, album covers, and song previews are provided by Spotify. Spotify is a trademark of Spotify AB.