Drinking In L.A.

Album: Glee (1997)
Charted: 3
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Songfacts®:

  • This was the Canadian band's first single. It was originally released in February 1997 in Canada, and the following year it peaked at #34 in the UK. The single was reissued in 1999 in the UK after being featured in a Rolling Rock TV advertisement.
  • On VH1's 100 Greatest One Hit Wonders, James Di Salvio said: "It's about me being in LA trying to make a movie and getting really bored with it and going out clubbing and DJ-ing, eventually taking the jump into making the record. It's kind of like falling out of love with one medium into the next. When you impose things in your life you have to do things because of your ego, you have to accomplish so much at a certain age and you want to so something else and you have to take the plunge and do it."
  • Glee won a Juno Award for best alternative album.
  • The seeds of the song were sown when Di Salvio woke up one morning face down on a lawn in West Hollywood after a night of drinking. "I'd wandered into this area with big houses – like the TV show 90210 – and was probably passed out for four or five hours in the hot sun with nobody bothering me," he told The Guardian. "I woke up and thought 'What the hell am I doing, drinking in LA at 26?'"

Comments: 2

  • Oto from SlovakiaI woke up again this morning with the sun in my eyes.... Very good music for waking up, nostalgic sound reminds me my high school times... Lazy morning with bag on my back heading to school.
  • Carmelo from Genova, ItalyThis song can be heard as the main titles track at the start of the film "Playing By Heart", starring Sean Connery, Geena Rowland and a very young Angelina Jolie.
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