View Ben Folds Five song lyrics by popularity along with songs featured in, albums, videos and song meanings. We have 7 albums and 114 song lyrics in our database.
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When we last left our quirky rock heroes, they had released The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner which, while a change from their older material, had some great tunes and moderate commercial success. However, the success was short-lived.Don't Change Your Plans for Me: The End of Ben Folds FiveThe stress of constantly touring, the pressure from Sony for another “hit” album, and the unavoidable conflicts that result when three dynamic personalities are forced to comprise with one another took their toll. While some bitter BF5 fans like to throw the Yoko Ono theory at Ben’s wife Frally (he moved to Australia to marry her right before the breakup of the band), the most likely reason BF5 broke up is simply exhaustion. They announced their breakup in November 2000 and went their separate ways.In the words of VH-1, where are they now?I Don’t Think We’ll Be Having Barbeques Any Time Soon: Life After Ben Folds FiveDarren JesseThe Paul McCartney to Ben’s Lennon does well for himself these days.
Shortly after the breakup he formed Hotel Lights with ex-Archers of Loaf drummer Mark Price. They play 70’s influenced indie rock similar to The Shins. Their self-titled CD is available at or you can hear mp3s atRobert SledgeAfter the breakup he played bass for Tom Maxwell’s touring band and the Minor Drag.His biggest post-BF5 accomplishment (besides getting quite chunky, but that’s purely subjective) was the short-lived band International Orange.
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Formed in 2003 and featuring fellow Chapel Hill natives Django Haskins and Snuzz (long-time friend of BF5 and touring guitarist for Ben’s Rockin’ the Suburbs tour), the band released one EP called Spoon Box featuring two songs originally written for Ben Folds Five. “Prince Charming” didn’t do BF5’s version justice, but “Tell Me What I Did” is kooky pop greatness. The band lasted for almost two years before calling it quits earlier this year.note: the International Orange song is in the first Ben Folds zip.
Unfortunately I didn't have any Hotel Lights mp3s, but you can stream them on their siteBen FoldsBen’s solo career started a few years before the band broke up with 1998’s Fear of Pop Vol. A far cry from Ben Folds Five’s material, it contained spoken word tracks, techno noodling, and Moog jams. Most people are only familiar with his first Shatner collaboration “In Love,” but the album contains other gems too, like the oddly catchy “Avery M. Powers Memorial Beltway” and faux 70s cop show theme “Kops.” Before Ben Folds Five could legally bow out, Sony required Ben to finish off their contractual obligations by writing 4.6 songs. Ben released a six-song EP simply titled The B-Sides EP containing a song about the experience called “One Down” and the spew-your-milk dirty broadway theme “The Secret Life of Morgan Davis.”Shortly after this, Ben released Rockin’ the Suburbs, a glossy pop romp that utilized techniques he was reluctant to use in BF5. What should have been a chart-climbing album, though, had one fatal flaw: it, like TMBG’s Mink Car, was released on September 11, 2001, the day before Ben’s birthday. Despite this setback, the record found a niche audience with the help of college radio.
In addition to the aural bitchslap of a title track, this album contained the infectiously poppy “Zak and Sara,” the lovely Beach Boys harmonies of “Gone,” and “Not the Same,” a song too wonderful for my phony magazine journalism description.After touring to support the album, Ben decided to play a few shows with just him and his piano. These small venue shows had enormous reactions, so he extended the tour, dubbed it the Ben Folds and A Piano Tour, and invited Guster and Rufus Wainwright to co-headline with him. Select tracks from these shows were recorded and distributed as Ben Folds Live in 2002.
(A “clean” version with some Andy Kaufman-funny edits was also released.) This album really captures the experience of seeing him perform live and is a great introduction for the newbies. The best tracks are the audience participation numbers in which Ben gets the audience to sing the horn parts of “Army” and three part harmony backup on “Not the Same.”Between 2003 and 2004 Ben released a trilogy of EPs (Speed Graphic, Sunny 16, and Super D) which he compared to “good quality demos.” The EPs had covers, live tracks, rearranged versions of older songs, and stripped down early versions of newer songs (one of which, “Give Judy My Notice,” was redone for his newest album). Speed Graphic is my favorite, especially Ben's cover of the Cure’s “In Between Days,” but Sunny 16 was certainly good post-election pouting material with the politically snarky “All U Can Eat.” While Super D is my least favorite albums involving Ben, it does have the priceless piano rockin’ cover of the Darkness’s “Get Your Hands Off My Woman.”Between the releases of Sunny 16 and Super D, a casual encounter led to the Traveling Wilberrys of the indie rock set. Ben Lee (the adorably talented Australian indie pop sensation), a long time friend of Folds, introduced him to Ben Kweller (former lead singer of Radish, current indie rock heartthrob). Folds’s first thought was, “Hey, wouldn’t it be funny if we formed a band?” Finding that their schedules for that summer were pretty relaxed, they did just that.
The Bens spent four days recording an EP in Folds’s Nashville studio and then did a two-month tour of Australia.
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