Songfacts®:

• Sweet recorded this song in 1990 as he was going through a brutal divorce. Around the same time, he met someone new, giving "Girlfriend" layers of emotional turmoil. The song finds him making an offer to a potential love interest: he's be her good friend if she'll be his girlfriend. At the end of the song, he gets a little possessive: "I'm never gonna set you free."
• This was Matthew Sweet's breakout single, but it nearly got binned along with the rest of the album. Born in Nebraska in 1964, Sweet attended the University of Georgia, located in the musical hotbed of Athens, Georgia, home of R.E.M. In 1983, he joined a band called Oh-OK, which included Michael Stipe's sister, Linda. This led to more musical connections and a gig playing with The Golden Palominos. Columbia Records signed him and released his first album, Inside, in 1986. He followed with Earth, on A&M Records, in 1989. His acclaim didn't translate to album sales, and A&M dropped him instead of releasing his Girlfriend album. Around the same time, his home was flooded, trashing his guitars and record collection. He was considering a career change when Zoo Records signed him and released the album in 1991. Their risk paid off: the album sold over 500,000 copies in America and established Sweet as a national act. He never went full rock star, but had a very successful career and continued to show up in high-profile collaborations, including a series of albums with Susanna Hoffs, starting with Under the Covers, Vol. 1 in 2006.
• The Akron, Ohio guitarist Robert Quine played on this track. Quine has appeared on albums by many acclaimed rockers, including Lou Reed, Tom Waits and Richard Hell & the Voidoids.
• The album cover is a photo of the movie star Tuesday Weld, which Sweet selected because "it looked cool." Weld, who started her career in the 1950s, is known for her roles in Pretty Poison (1968) and Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1972).
• Sweet released an alternate version of this song on his 1992 album Goodfriend (Another Take On "Girlfriend").
• The video was directed by Roman Coppola and is mainly comprised of scenes from the 1982 anime film Space Adventure Cobra.
• The lyrics to this and the other songs on the album were the framework for a musical called Girlfriend staged by the Berkeley Repertory Theatre in 2010. Set in Sweet's home state of Nebraska, the play is about two gay teens coming to terms with their sexuality. "I wanted the album to be really universal," Sweet told the LA Times regarding its use in the production. "The songs were very personal to me, but it makes me proud and makes me glad that other people could relate to it. That somebody who is gay could relate it - that's fantastic."