Frog 🐸 | 3 to 5 BOPS

Frog 🐸: 3 to 5 BOPS No. 39 (2023), features musical BOPS courtesy of 100 gecs, Alice in Chains, The Flaming Lips, Kermit the Frog 🐸, and MARINA. 

Ah, you know what time it is! It’s 3 to 5 BOPS time – WOO! On 3 to 5 BOPS, it’s all about brevity and sweetness… for the most part! There’s a theme/topic, 3, 4, or 5 songs, and a blurb – two paragraphs or less.  3 to 5 BOPS, hence, is a mini playlist that shouldn’t take much time to consume.  In the 39th edition of 3 to 5 BOPS (2023), we select songs that are associated with FROG 🐸 or FROGS 🐸 🐸 in some form or fashion. The BOPS arrive courtesy of 🎙 100 gecs, 🎙 Alice in Chains, 🎙 The Flaming Lips, 🎙 Kermit the Frog 🐸, and 🎙 MARINA. Okay, let’s get into it!

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1. 100 gecs, “Frog On The Floor”  

💿 10,000 gecs • 🏷 Dog Show / Atlantic • 🗓 2023

“Frog on the floor / Where’d he come from? / Nobody knows / Where he’ll go.” Ribbit, ribbit 🐸!   🎵 “Frog On The Floor” is an incredibly random song title. Furthermore, it is an utterly absurd song! It fits the left-of-center nature of 🎙️ 100 gecs perfectly. On this amphibious joint from their sophomore album, 💿 10,000 gecs, both 🎙 Laura Les and 🎙 Dylan Brady sing. Laura asserts in the second verse, “Hey, yeah I heard you met my friend the other weekend / I heard that he was telling croaks at the party.” Say what 🤦‍♂️? Interestingly, 100 gecs emphasize humane treatment of the amphibian (“Cause he was chasin’ flies around / And he was stuffing them in his mouth / Give him some space, he’s still workin’ it out”).  Likely, 100 gecs have a bigger picture in mind than a song about a frog 🐸 … maybe…  

2. MARINA, “Hermit the Frog” 

💿 The Family Jewels • 🏷 679 Recordings Ltd. • 📅 2010 

“They call him Hermit the Frog / He’s looking for a dog / Did you find your bitch in me?” Hmm, why would a frog 🐸 be looking for a dog? Food for thought.  Anyways, the frog doesn’t always get a favorable characterization. In the case of 🎵 “Hermit the Frog”, Hermit is sus – understatement.  To be fair, Hermit isn’t a frog – he’s a person.  While 🎙 MARINA isn’t crystal clear about what this highlight from her 2010 album, 💿 The Family Jewels is about, it seems to involve a relationship and potentially losing one’s virginity to the wrong person.  While Hermit has royally pissed off the singer – “They say, ‘You used to be so kind / I never knew you had such a dirty mind’” – there seems to be a bigger statement regarding how men view and treat women. In the chorus, she asserts, “When my heart just burst like a glass balloon / I let it fly too high and it shattered too soon / I was the wrong damn girl in the wrong damn room…” Clearly, that glass balloon is a metaphor, subject to multiple interpretations.  Eventually the “I” changes to “We” by the end of the song.  There’s a lot to unpack but clearly, in the case of “Hermit the Frog,” it’s only about a frog 🐸 in name only!  

3. The Flaming Lips, “Listening to the Frogs with Demon Eyes”  

💿 Oczy Mlody • 🏷 Warner • 📅 2017 

“Have you ever seen someone die / In the summertime, in the summertime?” That is the question 🎙 The Flaming Lips front man, 🎙 Wayne Coyne, asks on 🎵 “Listening to the Frogs with Demon Eyes.”  “Demon Eyes” is the longest song off the band’s 2017 album, 💿 Oczy Mlody. It clocks in at seven and half minutes 😮.  Despite its ambitious length, “Listening to the Frogs with Demon Eyes” ranks among the most intriguing listens 👍 💪.  Expectedly, given TFL’s penchant for being over-the-top, there are frogs 🐸 ribbitting 😏. It would’ve been disappointing without them, sigh 🤷🏾‍♂️. “Listening to the Frogs with Demon Eyes” masterfully avoids predictability – save for those frogs – by offering contrasting sections.  The verses, chorus, and bridge are all separate entities in effect.  Never change, The Flaming Lips!  Can I get a ribbit, ribbit?  

Appears in 🔻:  

• 11 Hella Sus, Demon 😈 Songs (2023)  

4. Alice in Chains, “Frogs” 

💿 Alice in Chains • 🏷 Sony Music Entertainment • 📅 1995 

“Don’t fuck with me again!” Whoa, whoa – sorry Mr. Frog 🐸 😬!!! It is worth noting that our amphibian friends aren’t specifically named on 🎵 “Frogs” aside from the title 😏. “Frogs” arrives as the lengthy 11th track on the 🎙 Alice in Chains’ 1995 self-titled LP. So, if our amphibian friends aren’t the subject of the song, why is it named after them? Well, per the liner notes, during a generally unproductive demo session in Bear Creek in a barn, the band happened to record loud frogs, which appear in the background of the song. So, I guess those frogs do get some love?

An intriguing listen from start to finish, the sound of “Frogs” – the accompaniment – is dark, depressed, enigmatic, foreboding, and suspect. WOO! With those specific characterizations, the Alice in Chains musical cues are firmly planted 🤘. The backdrop serves perfect soundtrack to the lyrics, which encompass friendships gone south, if they were ever legitimate, and loneliness. “What does friend mean to you?” Layne Staley sings in the opening lyric of the first verse, continuing, “A word so wrongfully abused.” Some have drawn deeper connections with “Frogs,” a song that naturally can lead you down a rabbit hole. The lyrics are poetic, so much so that they aren’t the easiest to decode.  “Innocence spins cold cocoon,” Staley sings in the third verse, adding, “Grow to see the pain too soon.” One clear cut lyric arrives during the expiration date driven outro section, where Staley references his 28th birthday… There is a lot to unpack with this ultra-fierce classic 1990s rock classic.   

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5. Kermit the Frog, “The Rainbow Connection” 

💿 The Muppet Movie • 🏷 Disney • 📅 1979 

“Someday we’ll find it, the rainbow connection / The lovers, the dreamers, and me.” Sigh, perhaps the greatest frog 🐸 song ever appeared in a Muppet movie 🤯! Fittingly, the 🏆 Academy Award-nominated song, 🎵 “The Rainbow Connection,” was performed by a frog 🐸 🤯! Not just any old frog would do either.  No, “The Rainbow Connection” required an extra special frog: 🐸 Kermit the Frog! If you are a Muppet enthusiast, there are two Muppets that are the stars: Kermit and, of course, Miss Piggy 🐷! Miss Piggy isn’t part of this joint, however.  Kermit slays on this iconic children’s song penned by 🎼 ✍ Paul Williams and Kenneth Ascher.  His tone is much better than anticipated from a amphibian, though, up until Kermit, did we really know what frog singing voices sounded like? Okay, this is getting utterly ridiculous at this point. “The Rainbow Connection,” a charming song performed by a legendary frog, speaks for itself. RIBBIT, RIBBIT 🐸!

Frog 🐸: 3 to 5 BOPS No. 39 (2023) [📷: Brent Faulkner / The Musical Hype; 679 Recordings Ltd., Atlantic, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner; Pixabay]