Upsetting Day: Too Old (Patreon)

If you made a list of the most controversial musical acts of the last century, The Barenaked Ladies would not crack the top 500. To most of the world, they are best known as the creators of the Big Bang Theory theme song. To Canadians, they have been beloved by young and old alike for their body of work that ranges in emotional tone from sincere to silly, often within the same song. They're not quite on the level of a Tragically Hip in terms of being national icons, but from Dawson City to Dildo, they're a household name.

Modern-day BNL is the definition of milquetoast. They haven't been considered remotely scandalous since 1991, when they were barred from a New Year's Eve show in Toronto for their name, which was considered "demeaning to women." Seems quaint today, doesn't it? In the current climate, a band called "Rapists Incorporated" would probably be on the richest man in the world's playlist. He'd brag about it, too!

BNL got significant media attention from their disinvitation, and in retrospect they might never have reached the level of success they did if it hadn't been for '90s political correctness. Since then, though, they've kept it on the straight and narrow. Their songs are mostly inoffensive earworms, and the only other real incident of note they've been embroiled in was when vocalist and writer Steven Page left the band in 2009 after he was arrested in New York for cocaine possession.

But Page leaving didn't stop the remaining members from carrying on. With the departure of their noble, principled co-frontman, who penned songs like "If I Had $1000000," "Pinch Me," and "Brian Wilson," BNL was unshackled from artistic pretensions. To use an era-appropriate anime metaphor, it was like on Dragon Ball Z when Vegeto tore Fat Buu out of Majin Buu and the loss of his moderating influence created the malevolent being of pure destruction, Kid Buu.

It was this incarnation of the group, now led entirely by Ed Robertson, which went on to write the TV theme that would define them for generations to come. And it was this incarnation which released a song titled "Too Old" in 2023. By the time this track dropped, it had been decades since I'd listened to a new BNL record. It snuck up on me like a protagonist in an open-world action game and then hit me with this stealth kill of an opening line.

This is going exactly where you think it's going. The Barenaked Ladies, the guys who did the novelty rap/rock song partly about jacking off to Sailor Moon, wrote a song about cancel culture. When Kid Rock did this shit it was embarrassing, but his whole brand was being an asshole. It was the kind of thing you'd expect from him, straight out of the right-wing asshole rockstar playbook laid down by Ted Nugent. When BNL did it, it was just baffling.

Imagine a Ziggy comic where in the middle of some cute greeting card bullshit about birds or whatever (I have sex so I haven't read Ziggy before) he turns directly to the viewer and says he's tired of being silenced for his views. Like, you weren't even thinking about Ziggy's political beliefs before, but now you're wondering, ok, which views exactly, Ziggy? Which views?

And hold on, I know we're still only on the first line, but "gilded glass house?" Ed, you literally have a million dollars! Like in the song! You should be building a tree fort in the yard or buying your wife a green dress (but not a real green dress, that's cruel), not doing whatever this is.

I mean, I didn't before, but now? I find you guilty of being a contemptible old Gen X bastard who drank from the hose and stayed out past when the streetlights came on. This is the quickest a song has ever made me openly despise its singer, and I've listened to Rapists Incorporated's "Foid Mulcher."

Ed, there is no quicker way to convince people that you're afraid of cancel culture than to write an entire song about how you're afraid of cancel culture. Imagine John Wayne doing this. Men used to go to war.

I didn't change the order of these two images. How does Bitcoin come into this? I'm starting to feel like "Too Old" is just the unspooling thought process of a mind succumbing to dementia and naming random things it doesn't understand in a world that has become frightening and alien. "I'm a big strong man you can't cancel me / Roblox, 67, TikTok, Skibbidy."

Trying to watch this music video is like attempting to fathom the non-Euclidian geometry of an ancient alien world. Your mind can't settle on any one thing. You're busy wondering about Bitcoin and then they hit you with something about a perfidious gnome. Is it usually little white guys who try to cancel people? Is this about Steven Page suing the group for part of the profits from the Big Bang Theory theme song? Let me check something.

No, that's not it. Maybe Ed genuinely believes that there's a cancellation elf that sneaks into people's houses while they're asleep and posts allegations that threaten to destroy the lives of late-career Canadian rock musicians. Honestly, that would be more realistic than the idea that the Barenaked Ladies are controversial enough for someone to go after online. Or important enough, for that matter.

Oh. So maybe they think they are. Maybe this shit genuinely keeps them up at night. Maybe Ed Robertson has nightmares where he's Humpty Dumpty and wokeness pushes him to his death on the regular. Maybe this is him working through that.

Terrifying. I bet his therapist is sick of hearing about this. "Yeah, Ed, I know, the world is a scary place. That's why we're here. We're going to muster all the king's horses and all the king's men of dialectical behavioral therapy to put your fractured self-image back together again."

Out of curiosity, like what? What kinds of words and jokes aren't you allowed to say anymore? Go on, Ed. This is a safe space. Tell me. Is there a secret unreleased BNL demo about beating immigrants with hockey sticks? Did "Pinch Me" originally include the line "It's the perfect time of year / To go out and bash a queer?"

I'm sure it's strange to be in the band that wrote a theme song for a show that was bigger than six Seinfelds, while still being able to walk down the street in any American city without being recognized. But in many ways, that is the ideal kind of fame and success. And I refuse to believe that it has any real negative effect on Robertson's family. For one thing, his youngest child was old enough to drink in America when this track came out! And even if someone did dig up something racist he said twenty five years ago, he's the fucking Barenaked Ladies guy, he's not exactly iconic. Put on a pair of Oakleys and a baseball cap and he could pass as a dude who records Facebook videos about white replacement theory in his truck.

It's tempting to think that there might be a tape of Ed Robertson unloading every slur he knows rapid-fire on someone, just fanning the hammer on his racial six irons, but what seems more likely is that, like the song's title suggests, he just feels himself getting old. Fear has overtaken whimsy as his primary means of relating to the rest of the planet. He's convinced that "cancel culture" is real and strong and wants to take away his livelihood, which is cashing royalty checks from The Big Bang Theory theme song.

Here is a partial list of people with more reason to be concerned that their past decisions might come back to haunt them than the Barenaked Ladies:

Ted Danson, wacky grandfather figure, who wore blackface at the roast of his then-girlfriend Whoopi Goldberg.

Harrison Ford, cantankerous grandfather figure, who brought Roman Polanski his 2003 Oscar in Paris and called for his release after being arrested in Switzerland for raping a 13-year-old.

Jackie Chan, mischievous grandfather figure, who had an affair that resulted in the birth of a child whom he has never met or supported financially.

All of these guys are still near-universally beloved! Nobody made BNL do this. At the time, it was met with the kind of confused disgust typically reserved for encountering elaborately rendered images of Sonic the Hedgehog's bare feet. Like, it's gotta be for someone, right? But who?

Three years later, it's clear that BNL weren't getting out in front of anything, either. This was simply the work of a middle-aged man who spent too much time online and convinced himself that he was at the same risk of being laid low by the mob as Dave Chappelle.

I have to imagine that Steven Page saw this and, despite his difficult feelings about being out of the group he helped found, breathed a sigh of relief that he was no longer associated with them. But he, too, should heed this song's message. Countless people have been incarcerated for their wrongthink posts online.

A poignant reminder that exile and imprisonment fail to rehabilitate offenders or make us safer? A musing on the career of world heavyweight champion Max Schmeling, who was unjustly vilified for being friendly with Adolf Hitler? Or the desperate clawing of an artist past the peak of his relevancy, crowing about the hollowness of the left's moral superiority without even having the good sense to actually do something heinous beforehand?

Sorry, Ed. How can I help it if I think you're funny when you're mad? I'm trying hard not to smile, though I feel bad. I'm the kind of guy who laughs at a funeral. Can't understand what I mean? Well… you soon will.

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Justin B, who bought a million-dollar cancel-culture insurance policy and has spent the last three years begging strangers to ruin his career so he can collect.

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