Short Skirt/Long Jacket

"Short Skirt/Long Jacket"
Single by Cake
from the album Comfort Eagle
Released	August 14, 2001
Format	CD
Recorded	2000
Genre	Alternative rock, funk rock
Length	3:24
Label	Columbia
Songwriter(s)	John McCrea
Producer(s)	Cake
Cake singles chronology
"Sheep Go to Heaven" (2001) "Short Skirt/Long Jacket" (2001) "Arco Arena" (2001)
"Sheep Go to Heaven" (2001) "Short Skirt/Long Jacket" (2001) "Arco Arena" (2001)

"Short Skirt/Long Jacket" is the first single by American alternative rock band Cake from their 2001 album Comfort Eagle.

Lyrics

The lyrics begin to describe an ideal fantasy woman beginning with the simple desire for a woman with a short skirt and a long jacket and go on to become much more elaborate and very specific, as if to tell a story about a particular woman.

The details range from mundane (At Citibank we will meet accidentally/We'll start to talk when she borrows my pen) to archetypical and hyperbolically poetic (With fingernails that shine like justice/And a voice that is dark like tinted glass.). The woman is likened to an investment portfolio on the stock-market, in that she should have the "right allocations", "with uninterrupted prosperity", "with a smooth liquidation" and "good dividends". The lyrics suggest a girl who has left the party lifestyle and joined corporate America, switching from an expensive sports car to a more affordable family car. (She's changing her name from Kitty to Karen/She's trading her MG for a white Chrysler LeBaron).

John McCrea said the song was "about prosperity and depression" and the strange behavior of the human mating ritual.^[1]

Music video

The associated music vox pop video is composed entirely of people listening to the song on headphones and their reactions. Responses include enthusiasm, critique, and apathy; some dance, while one Ralph Walbridge, poet, gives the headphones back partway through, stating "uh... I've heard it all a million times, all the way back to all of the old records - which were much better - when they first came out, back in the 1940s." Other comments include Dr. Bruce L. Thiessen's (aka Dr. B.L.T.) "as a psychologist, I'd have to say it has therapeutic value because it releases something deep inside". The video was nominated for Groundbreaking Music Video of the Year at the 2002 MTV Video Music Awards, but the White Stripes ultimately secured the award.

MuchMusic released an official "Canadian" version of the video that uses footage of people in Toronto, near its headquarters. The video humorously censors some foreign words spoken by non-English speakers due to the words' strange pronunciations.

There were various versions of this music video. Additional versions were filmed after the record company suggested the first video would not hold up well to repeated viewing. The videos filmed for an estimated cost of less than $20,000.^[2] The Mexican version was directed by Alejandro "Chicle" and edited by Alejandro Davalos Cantu.

Track listing

Chart positions

Covers

• Hugh Sheridan covered this song on his 2009 debut album, Speak Love.^[5]

Uses in other media

• An instrumental version of "Short Skirt/Long Jacket" is used as the theme song for the NBC series Chuck.
• "Short Skirt/Long Jacket" was used in the film Waitress starring Keri Russell, Nathan Fillion, and Andy Griffith.
• The instrumental section (similar to its usage in Chuck) was used in the films All About Steve, The Change Up, and Date Night.
• Apple used the song in an advertisement for their 6th generation iPod nano.^[6]
• "Short Skirt/Long Jacket" was used in the 2001 episode of the TV series ER titled "Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magic".^[7]
• "Short Skirt/Long Jacket" was used in a Fastrack commercial for Summer Bags.
• "Short Skirt/Long Jacket" is a playable song in the video game Rock Band 4.

References

External links

• "Short Skirt/Long Jacket" Official music video on YouTube
• Lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics