(Please press play before you continue reading, so we can take this journey together.)
Like Wet Hot American Summer, it's not quite clear what “Jane” is doing when it starts. "Jane," a 1979 song by Jefferson Starship, opens the 2001 movie Wet Hot American Summer as well as the Netflix's new prequel series for the show. "Jane" is used in every episode of the series in some fashion—and for every beat of its four minutes and ten seconds, “Jane” is a perfect, complex, trash-gem of a work of art.
If you are listening to "Jane," you are probably wondering: Could it be possible that this clangy, sweaty song is taking itself seriously? You will never stop wondering this. It’s the exact thought I had when I first watched the opening to Wet Hot American Summer. The intro to the original movie looks like it’s trying to be a hot, American summer movie. The intro to the Netflix series is nearly identical. There are beers and joints and Polaroids and a bonfire and making out. I remember thinking: Is this movie for real?
No. It wasn’t for real. It was a joke and it was such a good joke. Whether “Jane” is a joke has perplexed me my whole entire life, starting from when I first heard “Jane.”
Within its four minutes, “Jane” escalates insanely. This is particularly admirable because all the singers are yelling the whole time. If you could describe a guitar as yelling, this is the moment. Yet! It still has places to go. It starts at a 10 and makes up higher numbers as it goes along. (In fairness, “Jane” does slow its roll about two minutes into the piece to quietly introduce what sound like maracas for exactly fifteen seconds.) "Jane" is all excess on excess; it’s all the cherry on top. It’s so many cherries on top.
I don’t think it’s meant to be a parody. There is no way to know. Histories of the song “Jane” are unavailable, not for lack of searching. I understand this curiosity surrounds the lore of the band Jefferson Starship in general, but as I understand it, this obsession has been mainly focused on the 1985 single “We Built This City,” which has a lot more to work with, textually.
Textually, “Jane” is a small yet uncontained fire. The lyrics have straight-up mistakes. Here is one: “Jane, you’re playing a game called / called hard to get, by its real name.” There are three errors in this couplet. I will let you identify them, if you wish.*
There is a deep laziness in the writing,** which is saved because there is zero laziness in the performance. Everyone is trying their gosh darn hardest with this song. And PHEW GLORY, don't get me started on the keyboard. The whole thing is like someone told a high school garage band that they would play the last song ever heard before the world ends. The stakes are laughably high, but there is an abandonment as if there were no stakes at all.
None of this is to say that I want “Jane” to be a joke or even that I am making fun of “Jane.” I love “Jane.” I would probably be crushed if I found out that it was a joke and I would be crushed if I found out it wasn’t a joke. It occupies this perfectly shaky position of parody, where becomes the best version of the thing its parodying. I’m not even sure what it’s parodying! Did you get to this crazy guitar part yet? Hahah, I KNOW!
- If you just thought, I’m reading an article on the Internet not taking a fucking SAT, here are the mistakes, as I see them: repeating the word called without any emphasis, implying that the game of hard to get has a fake name, poorly aligning the words game and name so that the rhyme isn’t acknowledged by the beats.
**That being said, it is about someone playing games. I know how that goes, “Jane.” What game are you playing, “Jane”!
