Two Princes

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."