Day After Day #120: She Says What She Means

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

She Says What She Means (1998)

If a band has two singer-songwriters contributing, that's pretty good. When there's three people bringing quality songs to the table, that's a blessing. But when all four members contribute songs to every album and they're all talented, well, that's above and beyond. There aren't too many bands that can make that boast, but Sloan is one of them.

The band was started in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1991 by Chris Murphy (vocals/bass/drums), Jay Ferguson (vocals/guitar/bass), Patrick Pentland (vocals/guitar) and Andrew Scott (vocals/drums/guitar). They had been playing in other Halifax bands previously and decided to team up. Geffen signed them in the summer of '92 and their first album, 1992's Smeared, reflected their interest in bands like My Bloody Valentine and Sonic Youth, shoegazy grunge but with a pop sensibility. In early '93, the album was released in the U.S. and the single "Underwhelmed" got some airplay on MTV's 120 Minutes and on alternative stations. Murphy was serving as the de facto frontman during this time, although Pentland and Scott both contributed songs to the debut.

But when Sloan recorded their second album, 1994's Twice Removed, they veered away from the feedback-laden sound of their first album and leaned into quieter, Beatles-inspired power pop. Geffen asked the band to re-record the album and when Sloan refused, the label pulled promotional support for it. The album did well in Canada but was a blip in the U.S. The band split up briefly in late 1995 but decided to release another album to boost their Murderecords label; they asked to be released from their Geffen deal and then recorded the power poppy One Chord to Another in 1996. The album was very successful in Canada, scoring three hit singles and earning the band a Juno award the following year. Their profile was lower in the U.S. but they did some small tours; I saw them in Cambridge. 

By this point, all four members were contributing at least two songs to each album and were finding their own niches: Murphy wrote clever lyrics and McCartney-esque melodies, Pentland delivered catchy hard rockers, Ferguson came up with dream pop songs that would have been at home on AM Gold stations in the '70s and Scott wrote songs that were simultaneously melodic and off-kilter. 

Sloan's fourth album was 1998's Navy Blues, which found the band leaning into '70s rock influences in addition to their Beatles fixation. By this point, the band had relocated to Toronto. Pentland's riff rocker "Money City Maniacs" is probably the band's most popular song, but I'm going with the album's lead track and second single, Murphy's "She Says What She Means." 

It starts with a cough leading into a chugging riff and then Murphy launches into the vocal.

"When in the world?/I'm gonna get it together/I'm telling you, girl/I'm gonna make it all better/But I don't know how I'm going to/'Cause I don't know what she is going through/What I know is that's even mean for me/'Cause she means what she says and she says what she means."

The song stacks hooks upon hooks as Murphy and Scott play guitar instead of Pentland and Ferguson. In an interview with Chart Attack magazine back in '98, Murphy said the song was the last one recorded for the album.

"Patrick had 'Money City Maniacs' and 'Iggy and Angus,' which I was jealous of. Me and Andrew are playing guitar all the way through, so I think it's the one with the most over-the-top soloing, but it's not the guitar players. I wanted to make a hard rock song because I felt that Patrick was kicking my ass."

"What is the word?/It's like you don't even know me/Haven't you heard?/This sort of thing is below me/But I don't know what I would stoop to/Have you got another jump I could hoop through/Now I don't even know if that's meant for me/'Cause she means what she says and she says what she means/When she says that I'm mean, does she mean what she says?"

The song races to its conclusion as Murphy pleads for forgiveness.

"Whenever you want me, whenever you need me/I know that you're angry, you know that I'm sorry/But this situation has come back to haunt me/Whenever you need me, whenever you want me."

I saw Sloan again on this tour, as I would for pretty much every time they came through Boston in the subsequent years. Despite their incessant catchiness and chops, the band never became more than a cult favorite in the U.S. They've released nine studio albums since then, as well as archival box sets. They're much of an established act in Canada, where they play theaters and the occasional arena, whereas here they're playing small clubs. But that's good for Sloan nerdz like me because I can see them at Brighton Music Hall or the Paradise and get right up front. They've managed to keep their sound fresh and fairly timeless, thanks to that four-man songwriting machine.