Joppa Road
| "Joppa Road" | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | |||||
| Song by Ween | |||||
| from the album Chocolate and Cheese | |||||
| Released | September 27, 1994 | ||||
| Recorded | c. Fall 1993–Spring 1994 | ||||
| Length | 3:03 | ||||
| Label | Elektra | ||||
| Chocolate and Cheese track listing | |||||
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"Joppa Road" is a song by Ween from the 1994 album Chocolate and Cheese.
Appearances[edit | edit source]
- Chocolate and Cheese (1994)
Song Details[edit | edit source]
Recording and Composition[edit | edit source]
The studio version of "Joppa Road" revolves entirely around two chords, C#maj7 and F#maj7. For live performances, the progression is transposed down to Cmaj7 and Fmaj7. The song also features a bass solo towards the end, one of the only bass solos in Ween's discography (though live performances usually replace it with a keyboard solo by Glenn McClelland).
Joppa Road is a real road outside of Washington, D.C. that the band used to drive past on tour. Dean Ween said they wanted to make a song with that title because "it looks so fucking funny on a sign."[1]
Gene Ween sings the lead vocal.[2] Andrew Weiss plays bass on the album version.[3]
Live Performances[edit | edit source]
Despite appearing on 1994's Chocolate and Cheese, "Joppa Road" was not played live until 2002. It has never been a common live song, but has received at least occasional performances during most years of Ween. When preformed live, the song is slowed down and chord voices changed.[4]
Lyrics[edit | edit source]
Official lyrics were printed in the Chocolate and Cheese liner notes:
How would you feel, if I took you away
To a place I know, a place where we could stay
Called Joppa Road, a pretty place I know
Where we can go, called Joppa Road
The things I feel on Joppa Road
Can make me stay, and make me go
This old road where I long to go
Called Joppa Road, where we can go
Put your best dress on, there's a place I know
Where we can go, called Joppa Road
It's a little ways where the sun shines down
Where we drive real slow, on Joppa Road
Joppa Road, a pretty place I know
Where we can go, called Joppa Road
Hey, yo bro, that's a dude I know
Works on Joppa Road, at the Sunoco
If we drive down slow, with the top down low
We'll heel and toe on Joppa Road
Baby, you look great today[5]