Smash Mouth, the immortal Gods behind ‘All Star’, ‘Walkin’ on the Sun’ and their Shrek-skewed cover of The Monkees’ ‘I’m a Believer’, predicted the international inaction on global warming and its impending doom in the ‘90s and early 2000s but no one listened… we danced and memed instead.
‘All Star’ is a goddamn bop, it’s been featured in Shrek and the criminally underrated Mystery Men but much-alike OutKast’s ‘Hey Ya’, it’s deceptively happy. The song is both as a motivational war cry with:
Hey now! You’re a rock star, get the show on, get paid
Acting as the maraschino cherry on top of lines like:
The ice we skate is getting pretty thin
The water’s getting warm so you might as well swim
My world’s on fire, how about yours?
Which forecast the harsh reality that was setting in, holes in the ozone expanding and if we were to look at the current state of the Amazonian rainforest and the South East Coast of Australia, our world is literally on fire, but it had a catchy tune so we put it into a kids movie.
Their less remembered but banging, ‘Walkin’ on the Sun’ follows a similar vein with the opening lines declaring:
It ain’t no joke, I’d like to buy the world a toke
And teach the world to sing in perfect harmony
And teach the world to snuff the fires and the liars
Hey, I know it’s just a song but it’s spice for the recipe
As we look to our leaders for guidance about where we are heading as a civilisation on a global scale, it feels as if everyone is being left wanting more. The false promises from people in power are leading to protests which can without a doubt be our moment to “to snuff the fires and the liars”.
As a society, we need to reflect on the mistakes of the past to make sure that we don’t repeat them in the future. Smash Mouth were heralds with a message that we should’ve listened to but we not only ignored them we danced to the beat and we’re paying the price for our inaction.
Because “now I’m a believer, not a trace of doubt in my mind.”
