Songoftheday 1/17/19 - Tell me do you think it'll be alright if I can crash here tonight, you can see I'm in no shape for driving and anyway I've got no place to go...

"Hey Jealousy" - Gin Blossoms
from the album New Miserable Experience (1992)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #25 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 11

Today's song of the day comes from the alternative rock band Gin Blossoms, who came together in the late 1980s in the Phoenix suburb of Tempe. Led by guitarist and songwriter Doug Hopkins along with original lead singer and guitarist Jesse Valenzuela, bass player Bill Leen, drummer Phillip Rhodes, and guitarist Robin Wilson, who would eventually assume lead vocal duties, the group gained a local reputation, and independently released an album, Dusted, in 1989 (some of the songs from the set would be redone for their big major-label gig). Getting signed to A&M Records, they first put out a stunted EP, Up And Crumbling, before finally getting it together to complete their second full-length record, New Miserable Experience. However that experience was rough, with Hopkins descending into depression and alcoholism to the point that A&M basically bought him out of the band, replacing him with Scott Johnson after the completion of the record to be able to tour. After the initial single "Lost Horizons" (originally on Dusted) went nowhere on the release of the album in 1992, it took seven months for them to regroup and send "Mrs. Rita" (an Up and Crumbling cut) to rock radio, where it became their first success, climbing to #36 on Billboard magazine's Mainstream Rock radio format chart. But on the third try is where the Gin Blossoms finally claimed success, with the track "Hey Jealousy". Penned solely by Hopkins, and produced by the band with engineer John Hampton, the jangle-pop masterpiece coasted on a stream of lyrics that were great to sing as painful as they are to think about...

"Hey Jealousy" became the Gin Blossoms' first top-40 pop hit in October of 1993. The song was a huge success on rock radio, climbing to #4 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock format list. Internationally, the single reached the top-40 in the UK (#24), Australia (#28), and Canada (#39). But there was tragedy looming, as Hopkins, upon the success of this and soon follow-up "Found Out About You", fell broken to his depression, taking his life in December of that year.

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Here's the band appearing live on the Jon Stewart Show to promote the single...