Funny Music is Good: a Ween Retrospective

Gene and Dean Ween, image sourced from: https://magnetmagazine.com/2010/02/23/the-overunder-ween/

While the Ween brothers weren’t the first to make silly music, I’d argue that they were the best. Aaron Freeman and Michael Melochiondo, known by their stage names Gene and Dean Ween, met in an eighth-grade computing class. They were not destined to be friends, coming from opposite ends of the jock-geek spectrum at their New Hope, Pennsylvania middle school, but they managed to find common ground in music. Dean and Gene ended up using class time to jot down the names of their first songs, despite the songs themselves remaining unwritten. They then proceeded to the “studio”—their childhood bedrooms—where they played and recorded demos on out-of-tune guitars and half a working drum set. Dean and Gene didn’t care, although they eventually invested in a drum machine. 

I first listened to Ween in the Spring of 2021. Like a lot of music that I’ve gotten into, Ween came at the recommendation of a girl I was kind of seeing at the time. Admittedly, I didn’t like it. At all. I found the “normal” songs generic and the “wacky” ones just plain unlistenable. The voice of Gene, who sings on most of the songs, took some getting used to. But I kept listening, not only because I really liked the girl and wanted her to think I was cool but because I realized that there was something about Ween that hooked me. They break the perception of what “sounds good” and make me realize that “serious” listening isn’t always the goal. Only then can you start to realize that just because it’s funny doesn’t mean it’s bad: in fact, it’s brilliant.

This does make it hard to recommend to people. To really get into it, it’s important to approach Ween’s discography from a specific angle, starting with the more “traditional” songs, only later proceeding onto their experimental tracks. This article will hopefully provide a guide to enter the universe of Ween.

The name “Ween” has just about as juvenile an origin as you can imagine: a combination of the words “wuss” and “penis”. Dean explained the origins in an interview with Sam Strzelec, “It somehow described this juvenile sound that we made, it was the perfect name for the band because at that time anyway the music was really designed to be obnoxious. We were just trying to do something that was weird.” After playing and recording solo for Ween’s first decade, the brothers teamed up with Claude Coleman Jr., Glenn McClelland, and David Dreiwitz for their live performances, eventually accompanied by many others in the studio.

The brothers received very mixed reactions when they came onto the scene in the 1990s. Despite signing to Elektra Records, one of the forefront labels for alternative music at the time, and putting out their first studio album with them in 1994, they were publicly ridiculed, most famously on a Beavis and Butthead episode. Narrating over the music video for “Push Th’ Little Daisies”, the animated pair announced to the audience watching that Ween “had no future.” Little did they know that the brothers would go on to record nine albums and would still sell out shows nearly thirty years later. 

The Ween brothers have played with genre throughout their career, from funk and prog rock to sea shanties. Prince especially has a treasured place in their musical hearts, as seen on tracks like “Monique The Freak”. Their imitations sometimes get taken as satire or parody but the brothers have fought against this criticism for years, most notably in a 1995 interview with Spin:

“If we sound like anybody, it just comes out like that,” Gene stresses. “We’d probably like to hang out with those people and work with them. We would never make fun of any of those people.” Dean [added]: “We’re not trying to parody music. We’re not trying to destroy music. We’re just trying to make good music.”

The balance of irreverence and deep respect for their musical forefathers that Ween perfected means that anybody can find something that they like in their discography, you just have to search a bit. Dean and Gene wrote some pretty good love songs too, with the silliness that peaks through being able to cut the potential corniness that thousands of other crooning tunes have suffered from (see “Someday” off Shinola Vol. 1).

Ween has also had some serious missteps, as any prolific band is bound to, including their infamous country album, 12 Golden Country Greats. Dean and Gene approached the writing and recording of this album with the same intensity applied to their other works, having some well-known country musicians in the studio with them, including the Jordanaires and Patsy Cline. In a further homage to old country, the Ween brothers lean on misogyny and homophobia in order to align themselves with these “country greats.” Most of the songs leave the listener with a bad taste in their mouth, especially when Gene and Dean drop the typical distortion of their voices, taking you out of the ironicism of the Ween universe. Are they poking fun, providing commentary, or is there something more sinister going on?

Many of their songs, as you may have guessed, were also written under the influence of drugs. Considering the heavy drug use by Gene, Dean, and the other rotating members of the band, it is hardly surprising that their mythology revolves around a god-like character named Boognish. Described on a fan website as, “a Demon God who has appeared thrice to the prophet brothers Dean and Gene Ween”, anything more about Boognish is probably best left up to a curious fan to investigate for themselves.

Like many of their musical influences, Ween’s stage presence is enrapturing. In one 2003 Chicago set (which has racked up nearly a million views on YouTube), Dean and Gene pair their established diverse musical choices with equally complicated (albeit necessary) instrumental backings. Switching back and forth from electric to acoustic guitars, the brothers are backed by a ridiculously tight rhythm section (a revolving group who served as a steady background throughout their years of touring and recording), who have their work cut out for them, alternating between different genres from song to song. On “Zoloft”, one of their sillier songs off Quebec, Gene shimmies slowly across the stage to the microphone, just stopping in time for his entrance. Bug-eyed, he starts singing about his newfound, doped-up happiness. The hypnotic nature of this song is meant to initially distract the listener from the larger social critique it is making, or it makes their audience question if they’re making a critique at all. Maybe Gene and Dean just really like Zoloft.

Despite their clear influences and well-executed homages, Ween is at their best when creating and playing their own sound, as seen on their eighth studio album Quebec. Ween was prolific during their recording years so discussing each of their albums and compilations would take far too much time, especially considering the 300 pages of reading I have due tomorrow for my Intro to Sociology class. There is a good case study to examine, however, in Quebec. Released in 2003 by Sanctuary Records, it was their eighth studio album and commemorated their return to an independent label after their contract with Elektra expired. Reviews following its release were varied, with some hailing it as the “most accessible” Ween album with others calling it “their strangest (and definitely most eclectic) in quite some time.” Eric Carr’s review in Pitchfork alternates between calling Ween boring and attacking their listeners (“half the people who really like Ween live in psycho wards”). The disagreement in the critical community of trying to ascertain Ween’s eccentricity is exactly the problem that they were trying (consciously or subconsciously) to fix. There is no definitive word for Quebec, no snapping two sentence review that could encapsulate the musical and lyrical genius that Dean and Gene possess. It’s dark and depressing yet hilarious and absurd; annoying at times, yes, but always addicting.

Quebec features “Tried and True”, their second most popular song after the infamous “Ocean Man”, but also some cult favorites such as “Happy Colored Marbles” and “Hey There Fancypants”, the latter of which has never failed to put me in a good mood, despite its underlying message of loneliness. The power of Quebec comes from its juxtaposition of upbeat melodies and gloomy themes.

Delving deeper into the increasingly depressing Quebec, “Transdermal Celebration” warns us of nuclear apocalypse (or maybe just chronicles a drug trip?) while “So Many People in the Neighborhood” warns us to “stay inside” and avoid strangers. Don’t even think of asking what “The Fucked Jam” is about.

However, sometimes they drop the façade and are completely earnest. “I Don’t Want It” off Quebec tells the heartbreaking story of a relationship that the narrator is leaving behind:

“I’ve let you drift so far from me now
But please, hold onto the memories
Before we really crash and burn
We’ve got ourselves so wrapped up
That we’ve forgotten how to learn”

While he mourns an old girlfriend and looks back on the past, the nostalgia isn’t enough to overcome the bitter taste in his mouth from how he was treated (or how they treated each other). It’s a song about moving on, even if you don’t want to or feel like you can’t. 

So, I fell in love with Ween while falling out of love with someone else. The brothers (along with Boognish) rescued me from the usual pretentious garbage that I listen to, showed me that there is a way to move on, and opened my eyes to the fact that music can and should be silly.

Gene and Dean are continuing to do their thing as Ween continues to tour across the US. See them play in Philadelphia in December, if you’re into that. I would highly recommend it.