"Save Me" by Remy Zero, Thursday, June 17, 2021

Remy Zero is best known for their 2001 hit "Save Me," which was the title card song for the 10-season WB/CW DC Superhero drama, Smallville, a Superman origin story set in a small Kanas town, following the young adulthood of Clark Kent. Forming in 1989 in Birmingham, Alabama, the band's breakthrough was a tour with Radiohead. Their songs were featured on a number of early '00s TV shows and movies, including Garden State, Fanboys, and She's All That. "Save Me" wasn't especially popular, peaking at #27 on Billboard's Alternative Airplay chart. In 2003, the band called it quits after releasing three full length albums. In a Smallville actors' commentary of a season 3 episode, John Glover and Alison Mack banter about the theme song. Mack says that she heard that they broke up. Glover asks, "Who got the house?"

I DON'T CARE HOW YOU DO IT. I've talked about my channel flipping through the Christian music video stations and MuchMusic (later Fuse). Remy Zero was the kind of new alternative music I loved. Wall of sound guitars, higher than usual vocals, the band sounded like a cooler U2 for a new generation. Of course they never got that popular. Around 2003, ABC Family started playing old episodes of Smallville. My family saw the previews and we all said it looked dumb. Maybe we all secretly wanted to give it a chance because I did. Anyway, one night it was on after some old show we were watching on ABC Family and we didn't turn off the pilot. Then the theme song played, and I remembered the song from MuchMusic. There was also the Lifehouse song in that episode. In fact, it was the music that hooked everyone, except my mom who has a very low tolerance for supernatural dramas. Soon we were all hooked on the love triangles, the guest stars, twisting storylines, the villains, and of course the "freak of the week"--Smallville citizens who had been infected by kryptonite meteors that gave them superpowers that usually enhanced what started out as pure intentions but transformed the characters to a parable of the flawed human condition.

JUST STAY WITH ME...By season 6, music was no longer an integral part of Smallville's production. The storyline started declining as the writers changed, but my sisters and I were committed. The best seasons were when Clark and his friends were in high school, when Lex was fighting to not become evil, when his father was listening to opera, plotting the world's demise, when there was sexual tension between Clark, Lana, and Chloe before it got ridiculous. I found myself relating to Smallville on several levels. First, the characters were maybe a year older than me. Of course, like most shows, the actors were in their 20s and 30s. Second, the show was pretty moral but it had an edge to it. It was pretty relatable to a Christian school kid as the early episodes promoted waiting to have sex. And when characters acted promiscuous, there were often consequences for their actions.  In later seasons, as the characters grew up, the writers scrapped this morality plot device, but even into season 4, it was like watching Christian school kids and their moral slip ups. One other thing I related to watching Smallville was Clark's secret. The show time and time again showed that when people found out about Clark's secret powers, they tried to exploit him. Thus, he always tries to keep his powers a secret. I had secrets too. I shuttered to think what would happen to me if anyone found out about them. But I usually down played those secrets. It only affected my private time, and the rest of the time I was just Tyler, the kid who tried so hard to be like everyone else. I thought if I drown my identity with music and church, the other identity wouldn't be true. Funny, an extremely homoerotic show taught me about closeting myself. There was Lana and Chloe to make it seem okay, but really, a shirtless Tom Welling what it was all about.

https://genius.com/Remy-zero-save-me-lyrics