When you go to a Toad the Wet Sprocket show, you hear a blend of songs from their 1990s commercial heyday and their two most recent albums, Starting Now and New Constellation. One certainty is you will hear several songs from their fourth album Dulcinea. As the only Toad the Wet Sprocket album to reach the Top 40 of the Billboard 200 (peaking at No. 34) and receive Platinum certification, it’s a crowd-pleaser.
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Released on May 24, 1994, Dulcinea is on the cusp of its 30th anniversary. That means the band is also close to 30 years removed from the one time they had a song reach the top of a Billboard chart. “Fall Down,” the lead single from Dulcinea, hit No. 1 on the Alternative Airplay chart on June 18, 1994. Only Morrissey’s “The More You Ignore Me, the Closer I Get” had a longer stay at No. 1 during 1994 than “Fall Down’s” six-week stay.
It’s one of Toad the Wet Sprocket’s wordier songs, and lead singer Glen Phillips’ hurried delivery conveys the angst inherent in “Fall Down’s” message as much as the lyrics themselves. While the song focuses on one particular character, its refrain When will we fall down? suggests its message may be relevant to many of us.
Nothing Left to Lose
The opening lines of “Fall Down” conjure an image similar to the one Kris Kristofferson evoked when he wrote “Me and Bobby McGee.” Phillips’ character, much like the one Janis Joplin made famous in Kristofferson’s song, has “nothing left to lose.” His character’s response to that situation, however, entails more nervous energy than sadness.
She said, “I’m fine, I’m okay,” cover up your tremblin’ hands
There’s indecision when you know you ain’t got nothin’ left
Aside from a slight hint offered later in the song, Phillips doesn’t explain why his character has nothin’ left, but he clarified this in an interview for Songfacts. He said “Fall Down” was “loosely based on a woman—a girl at the time—in high school, who was rebelling against and living out people’s worst expectations of her.” This character’s sense of lacking, then, stems from the negative judgments of others or, alternatively, the absence of validation from others that she was hoping to get.
Leaning into Bad Decisions
One way to cope with the disappointment of others not meeting your needs is to distract yourself with an escape. But Phillips shows us this strategy doesn’t work out in this case, as he sings, Well, the good times never stay / And the cheap thrills always seem to fade away.
So what’s left when cheap thrills don’t take the edge off the pain that people’s judgments cause? You can lean into those judgments, and in the second verse, we learn this is exactly what Phillips’ character does.
She hates her life, she hates her skin, she even hates her friends
Tries to hold on to all the reputations she can’t mend
And there’s some chance we could fail
But the last time, someone was always there for bail
The second line, Tries to hold on to all the reputations she can’t mend, is the one allusion Phillips makes to why his character feels like she ain’t got nothin’ left. Since she can’t mend her reputation, she is going to make decisions that align with other people’s perceptions of who she is. She also perceives that acting badly is not likely to have any real consequences, since someone will probably bail her out.
The Fall Finally Comes
Whether or not she gets rescued from her bad decisions, the third verse suggests she still has something to lose. The verse begins with the same lines that open the song, but this time, it appears that it’s feelings of guilt—and not anger and disappointment—that causes her hands to tremble.
For the last time conscience calls
For a good friend, I was never there at all
By failing her friend, she finally has an answer to the question, When will we fall down? It’s also worth noting that Phillips wrote the refrain in the plural form instead of as “When will I fall down?” Maybe it just sounded better. Or perhaps Phillips was reminding us that we can all be susceptible to making bad decisions. As he noted in his Songfacts interview, “I think when you’re misunderstood, there’s an urge sometimes to self-destruct as a form of rebellion.”
The Impact of “Fall Down”
“Fall Down” is Toad the Wet Sprocket’s highest-charting song on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock chart, reaching No. 5, as well as their only No. 1 song on the Alternative Airplay chart. It also became their third song to rank within the Hot 100, peaking at No. 33. With more than 15 million streams, “Fall Down” is the band’s third-most popular song on Spotify, trailing “All I Want” and “Walk on the Ocean.” It also ranks behind those two tracks from the Fear album as Toad the Wet Sprocket’s third-most frequently played song in concerts.
“Fall Down” also recently got a boost from a placement in a TV series. The song was used in a 2003 episode of Billions. (Phillips has been a friend of the show’s co-creator, Brian Koppleman, since Toad the Wet Sprocket’s early years.) According to the band’s website, “Fall Down” appeared on Shazam’s chart for the most-searched songs on the app the week after the episode aired.
“Fall Down” has been around for 30 years, but it remains relevant as a reminder of what we are capable of when we have lost something we value. After all, “Me and Bobby McGee” has remained popular more than 50 years after its release. In putting a different spin on a similar theme, “Fall Down” has reason to remain in the cultural consciousness for decades to come.
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Photo by Rick Diamond/Getty Images for IEBA
