Six Pennies for Your Thoughts

Hello, all.

Hope everyone is enjoying the weekend.

Kind of a freakishly warm day here in the New York area today, approaching 60 degrees. As many of you know, I’m very much a spring and summer guy, so today’s weather conditions are my kind of anomaly.

Anyway, and speaking of the number 6, there’s a band that had its heyday close to 25 years ago. They had an interesting combo, sort of a hybrid between indie rock with a British invasion influence. The band, a four-person act out of New Braunfels, TX (near San Antonio) called themselves Six Pence None the Richer (a reference to a book by Irish scholar and author C.S. Lewis), and they hit the music scene in 1992.

After some moderate success in their early years, the band hit the big time with a ballad called “Kiss Me,’ which climbed all the way to #2 on the Billboard charts in May 1999.

While the song wasn’t actually part of the original movie soundtrack for She’s All That (1999, Miramax), “Kiss Me” became the song that chronicled the meteoric rise of a shy, misunderstood girl named Laney Boggs (Rachel Cook), who sheds her ugly duckling image to become her high school’s prom queen. The teen drama was highly regarded, and became the focal point of a high school movie parody Not Another Teen Movie (2001).

And after all these years, Sixpence none the richer went on to moderate success after that, but the song is still played frequently. In fact, it’s a staple on XM Radio’s Indie rock station, channel 35.

As for the meaning of the group’s name, like so many things in the music realm, there’s nothing definitive. Given one possibility, though, with sixpence none the richer essentially meaning to have engaged in an unprofitable endeavor (literally not even sixpence richer than before), the potential irony in that from our Day 6 heroes is duly noted.

Just five days left.

JFish

@Copyright 2023 by John L. Fischer

 

Scroll to Top