’93-’13: Hey Jealousy, Gin Blossoms

A series highlighting great (but critically-ignored) songs from the past twenty years.

Hey Jealousy is the ultimate ode to resigned depression, written by a man who would kill himself as the single was certified Gold.

All this is very easy to miss though, should you choose to let the jangly major chords and abundance of hooks wash over you. There’s a reason commercial radio have played this song on regular rotation for the last twenty years, and it isn’t due to its empty, drunken promises and defeated stance. The opening lyrics set the scene perfectly, our hero intoxicated and uninvited at an ex-lover’s house: “Tell me do you think it’d be all right, if I could just crash here tonight? You can see I’m in no shape for driving, and anyway I’ve got no place to go.”

Songwriter Doug Hopkins battled severe depression which he self-medicated with alcohol, leading to a freefall from which he found no safety net. Hopkins had been an alcoholic for numerous years, and dealing with the band’s label A&M proved trying and soul-crushing – driving him to drink even more. The band, tired of Hopkins’ inability to function at recording sessions, fired him before the release of New Miserbale Experience, the album which houses the track. The band and A&M forced Hopkins to sign over half of his songwriting royalties, in order to free up funds Hopkins needed in order to survive.

Hey Jealousy sadly provided a prescient string of regrets for Hopkins to muse over as the Gin Blossoms’ career quickly rose off the back of the song’s radio success. It’s tempting to recast the lines, “If I hadn’t blown the whole thing years ago I might be here with you” and, “If you don’t expect too much from me, you might not be let down” as Hopkins watched his band enjoy the fruits of his songwriting labours, however the song’s lyrics are much more depressing in their original mould, as a desperate, defeated plea to a past lover, with the heartbreakingly hopeful: “The past is gone but something might be found to take its place” and, “You know it might not be that bad” sounding like the last gasps from a man who had already given up any hope of reconciliation.

“Cause all I really want is to be with you
Feeling like I matter too
If I hadn’t blown the whole thing years ago
I might be here with you.”

In late 1993, Hopkins received a Gold plaque for the track, signalling it had sold half a million copies in the US. He hung it in his apartment for roughly a fortnight, before removing it from the wall and destroying it. Hopkins took his own life nine days later.