Throwback Thursday – The Wallflowers ‘One Headlight’ (1997)

The Wallflowers are playing at The Sioux Empire Fair this Saturday, so I figured it made perfect sense to make them today's Throwback Thursday song.

"One Headlight" was the second single from The Wallflowers album, Bringing Down the Horse. The song was written by lead singer, Jakob Dylan and produced by T-Bone Burnett.

If you really listen to the lyrics, it doesn't totally make sense and Jakob Dylan tried to explain the point of the song. According to Wikipedia, Jakob explained the song was about:

 "the death of ideas"^[2] and that the many metaphors and images in the lyrics were not meant to be taken literally. Dylan explains that he and the band had very little support when they were putting together the record, hence the shout-out "c'mon try a little." The last two lines of the chorus "we can drive it home / with one headlight" are a reference to how the band were able to get through with their ideas despite being hindered (i.e. with one headlight) by the lack of support.

 

The song earned The Wallflowers a Grammy for Best Rock Song and Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group.

In 2000, the song landed at #58 on Rolling Stone and MTVs list of "100 Greatest Pop Songs of All Time."

The song also performed pretty well on multiple Billboard charts. According to Wikipedia:

Although the song did not chart on the Billboard Hot 100 due to the chart rules at the time, the song was a significant radio hit in the US. It spent five weeks at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 Airplay chart and a total of 59 weeks on this ranking. It also was the first song to top these three Billboard airplay charts: Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks, Hot Modern Rock Tracks, and Hot Adult Top 40 Tracks.^[5]