(Credits: Far Out / Chris Casella)
Mon 15 December 2025 4:00, UK
Anything made by The Melvins is thought to be the birthplace of 1990s grunge, with weighty lyrics to exude alienation in song form. But ‘Hooch’ doesn’t really have what you’d call lyrics.
Although it became one of The Melvins’ most popular songs, it drew a lot of uncertainty as to its meaning. It drew the interest of Kurt Cobain for production, so the jumble of words surely must have some kind of subtle significance. Sending ears straight into “Los ticka toe rest, Might like a sender doe ree,” listeners are confused from the opening notes.
Buzz Osborne reported that “Believe it or not, those are actually lyrics, even though it sounds like nonsense.”
The frontman had left his lyrics at home, “and I couldn’t for the life of me remember exactly what they said. I remember that day I was recording the vocal, I had to drive all the way back to my house and get them. I thought that was pretty funny.” Listening to the lyrics doesn’t quite entice someone to imagine Osborne made it to bringing them back to the studio.
The underground sound pioneers were more about the drums on this one. The intense atmosphere is built through Dale Crover’s heavy hand on the drums, seeping explosive energy out of the song’s darkness. Osborne said the band knew “the riff in and of itself wasn’t that interesting,” causing their focus and volume to be brought onto the great maker of heavy-metal depth: their drum kit.
This unfiltered version of authentic grunge sound didn’t go down so well on audiences, with little commercial success and an eventual dropping by their label, Atlantic Records. The band chose their footing in independent labels, and favoured selected success with an audience that really understood their music, following loyally throughout the band’s run.
‘Hooch’ embodies that metallic punk that drove so many bands to follow in The Melvins’ tracks: “They got really heavy, and then a lot of bands decided they would be really heavy, too,” Dan Peters of Mudhoney said. The song’s album Houdini was ahead of its time in 1993, with lasting effects in the grunge world and the largest sales of any Melvins’ albums.
The focus on the weight rather than a lyrical narrative doesn’t take away from the surrealistic imagery evoked by nonsensical verses and “Poor forty duck a pin”. The track’s absurdist humour is indeed difficult to follow, but Osborne has told fans not to worry about them too much, that the essence is in the music rather than the letters.
A lot of the meaning was put to inside jokes between the band, but a lot of it really is gibberish. It isn’t so much cryptic as it is absurd, so as to shift focus on the sludgy mood of the music.
In short, ‘Hooch’ is the classic example of The Melvins’ work: provocative of thought, intentionally ambiguous, heavy, and weird. I still want to know what “Pill pop a dope” means though.
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