Jimmy Eat World

Welcome Back Jimmy Eat World

With the announcement of a new album and tour, I can’t help but get retrospective for one of my favorite bands, Jimmy Eat World. While I’d like to say I was cool enough to be a fan when the band first formed in 1993 and I was 10, it wasn’t until their album Clarity came out in 1999 that I discovered them. Still, I feel like maybe I did fall in love with their music a bit before the rest of the country since they are from Mesa, AZ and my hometown is Phoenix. Here are my favorite memories from their 20+ year career:

  • The first time I heard “Lucky Denver Mint” off Clarity on the radio, I thought it was one of the best and most unique songs I’d heard on my favorite station. I begged my cool and older neighbor friend to let me borrow her CD since I didn’t have money to buy it. I was 16 and jobless, lol.
  • Watching an episode of One Tree Hill, I was so distracted by the Jimmy Eat World song I’d never heard before, I missed what was happening on the show. I immediately went and downloaded the Stay on My Side EP and listened to “Disintegration” over and over.
  • I love the movie Van Wilder and especially love that “Bleed American” and “Authority Song,” two of my favorite songs off the 2001 album, Bleed American, are featured in the film. (Only “Bleed American” is listed on the soundtrack.)
  • While I might be an outlier, most people site Clarity as their favorite album, mine is 2004’s Futures. Maybe it just hit the right chords (haha) with me in college, but some of those songs are still my favorite today. “Pain,” “Night Drive,” “23,” and “Polaris” are my top songs, but I can listen to the whole album start to finish without skipping a track.
  • Someone on the One Tree Hill staff must have loved Jimmy Eat World. Not only did they play on the show, but “Gotta Be Somebody’s Blues” off 2007’s Chase This Light is also in an episode.
    Jimmy Eat World Guitar Pick
  • Sadly I didn’t see Jimmy Eat World live until later in their career. It was at my first show (that I went to by myself) that I realized how much I love the song “I Will Steal You Back” off of Damages. It was also at this show that I caught a signed guitar pick from Jim himself.
  • I may have played “Higher Devotion” off of 2010’s Invented over and over.
  • Hearing that there’s a new album, Integrity Blues, coming out in October 2016, I immediately listened to the first single “Get Right” and was not disappointed. Can’t wait for the full album!