Modern Rock Tracks No. 1s - Soul Asylum and "Somebody To Shove"
Soul Asylum had a terrific 1993 thanks to their breakout hit. That breakout hit was definitely NOT "Somebody To Shove," a fine rock song but hardly the impetus to a runaway train of popularity.
Soul Asylum - “Somebody To Shove”
Weeks atop the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart: 1 week (December 5, 1992)
Previous Modern Rock Track #1 hit: 10,000 Maniacs - “These Are Days”
Next Modern Rock Track #1 hit: Peter Gabriel - “Steam”
Billboard Hot 100 chart toppers during this time:
Whitney Houston - “I Will Always Love You” (2 total weeks, beginning 11/28/92)
Soul Asylum is one of the first bands to bring about my Musical Awakening™️ in the early 1990s. I wasn’t a big MTV fan at this time, and if I did have the channel on, it likely would have been to watch reruns of “Ren and Stimpy.” But every now and again, I’d turn the TV on and MTV would be the first channel, and I’d catch a couple of music videos.
For a time in early 1993 into the summer, it felt like every time I flipped past MTV, the video for “Runaway Train” would be playing. It’s a good gimmick for a video, if you’re looking for a way to bolster record sales while also doing a public service. In this case, the video would show images of missing people intermittently throughout while the band played.
The portion of the video that stuck out to me was at the end, where a random woman abducts a baby from its carriage while the mother turns away for a quick second to look at herself in the mirror. It’s pretty powerful imagery, to be sure, especially for kids my age at the time (tween to early teens) who were just old enough to avoid that type of consequence but still young enough for kidnapping to be a legitimate worry.
As a testament to the power of MTV to drive album sales and radio airplay, “Runaway Train” became a huge hit, topping out at #5 on the Hot 100 in August 1993 (its peak on the Modern Rock Tracks chart, interestingly, was just #13). Bolstered by the single’s success, the album “Grave Dancers Union” peaked at #11 on the Billboard 200 album chart and stayed on the charts for nearly a year and a half. Indeed, “Runaway Train” made Soul Asylum a household name, and the album that spawned it was certified 2x platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America in 1994. The song won a Grammy for Best Rock Song at the 1994 awards show.
Do you know which song did NOT create this level of success for Soul Asylum? “Somebody To Shove,” a single on the opposite end of the spectrum from “Runaway Train.” That single, the first released off “Grave Dancers Union,” managed to climb all the way to #1 on the MRT charts for a single week in 1992.
Hopefully I won’t come off as too harsh on this song; after a couple of spins of this track, I’m willing to appraise it more positively than I did after a first listen. There’s some really solid guitar work in this track, and if you ignore the vocal stylings during the verses, the skeleton of a great rock song is definitely there. This song is grunge-adjacent alt-rock during the great grunge ascendency, but is also the kind of track that bands like Goo Goo Dolls or Sugar Ray would employ to gain a foothold in the alt-rock space in advance of their pop crossover moment.
I don’t know if Soul Asylum was ready for the crossover success that “Runaway Train” brought them, for while it’s a beautifully constructed acoustic-heavy rock track, it’s so different from what they did musically prior to that point. Indeed “Somebody To Shove” fits in more with their previous Modern Rock Tracks hits: “Spinnin’,” which topped out at #15 in 1990, and “Easy Street,” which hit #26 on the MRT chart in the same year.
So if you’re an alt-rock fan in 1992, you’re probably craving the band’s sound from their previous album “And the Horse They Rode In On.” From that perspective, “Somebody To Shove” feels like an upgrade, a track that builds on the sound they were testing in their previous releases. I have to think, then, that “Runaway Train” must have felt like a tonal shift away from what made the band popular in alt-rock circles, which may explain why “Runaway Train” only hit #13 on the MRT charts, instead of climbing higher.
I’m not overly impressed with Dave Pirner’s vocals on this track, but it’s thankfully not Björk-level bad. The low-level, speaking-yet-singing cadence of the verses is distracting and takes me out of the song, though eventually it gives way to the refrain about wanting somebody to shove, which seems to fit better with the excellent rock riffs playing behind the voice.
I know Pirner can sing better than this, and he will prove that when we eventually talk about the band’s second MRT #1 hit. And lyrically, I appreciate both the depth and simplicity of someone just sitting at home, waiting to receive a phone call or invitation to do something.
It’s unclear if the narrator is waiting for a friend to call so they can go out and get into some kind of ruckus…
Hello, speak up, is there somebody there?
These hang-ups are getting me down
In a world frozen over with over-exposure
Let's talk it over, let's go out and paint the town
…or if he’s waiting for a significant other to “shove,” adding in whatever context you want to provide for what might be involved in consensual “shoving.”
I'm waiting by the phone
Waiting for you to call me up and tell me I'm not alone
Cause I want somebody to shove
I need somebody to shove
I want somebody to shove me
This is the dividing line for Soul Asylum as it existed prior to 1993 and after 1993. The band would chart another alt-rock single on the MRT chart, the #6 hit “Black Gold,” which is more of a bridge between the harder alt-rock stylings of “Somebody to Shove” and the mellow pop-rock stylings of “Runaway Train.” Honestly, I think “Black Gold” is the better of the three hit singles on this album, a mature mix of acoustic reflection and hard-rock edges. Pirner sings with more urgency and purpose, and the band really does a good job arranging the slow and fast flourishes in the song.
Your mileage may vary on “Somebody To Shove,” and I wouldn’t begrudge anyone who considers this to be one of the better tracks from the band. And there’s no shortage of available hit songs to consider from Soul Asylum: despite their push into the mainstream, the band will eventually amass 12 total singles on the MRT charts throughout the 1990s, though only three of them would be Hot 100 hits. The second of those Hot 100 hits will be the subject of our next exploration of Soul Asylum in this space, but not until 1995.
Rating: 5/10
Chart Check: A look at other notable MRT chart songs from this time period
I found a few interesting chart nuggets for this one week in December 1992, along with an acoustic version of the MRT chart topper. This week marks the chart peak for Bob Marley, more than a decade after he passed away, along with another top-five hit for INXS and the one and only charting single from the Supreme Love Gods.
“Somebody To Shove” by Soul Asylum (acoustic version): As was the style of the time, Soul Asylum made an appearance on “MTV Unplugged” and played a variety of songs, including their first MRT chart topper. I kinda like this one a little better.
“Taste It” by INXS (#5): Since I started “Chart Chat” in January 2023, I’ve learned a lot about different bands, so much so that I’ve now added a bunch of otherwise forgotten tracks into my regular rotation. I definitely knew about INXS, as their Hot 100 hits are mainstays in my music playlists, but I never got very far into their Modern Rock Tracks hits until now. “Taste It,” a song that peaked at #5 behind Soul Asylum, is a good example. It’s a really solid rock track, capitalizing on the musical elements that made the band great in their pop-crossover heyday, but also adding some 1990s flair that makes the song feel fresh. And that music video — hoo boy!
“Iron Lion Zion” by Bob Marley (#11): So it was interesting to see a Bob Marley song just outside the top 10 of the Modern Rock Tracks chart in 1992, more than a decade after Marley’s death. This track was released as part of the “Songs of Freedom” compilation from Bob Marley and Wailers, and managed to reach #11 on the MRT chart behind “Somebody To Shove.” It’s a decent track, to be sure, but more of a historically interesting footnote for a song originally released in 1973 to become a top-15 hit on the Billboard charts nearly two decades later.
“Souled Out” by Supreme Love Gods (#16): You’d be forgiven if you don’t remember Supreme Love Gods, as the band existed just long enough to release one album with one hit single, “Souled Out.” And, not gonna lie, this track isn’t terrible, though it only reached #16 on the MRT chart behind Soul Asylum in December 1992. The band broke up while creating their second album and moved on to other projects, but for that brief moment in 1992, they were the toast of Fresno, California.
Still managed to remind everyone how much you hate Bjork in this post
I’ve definitely found that mileage varies when discussing Soul Asylum. “Somebody To Shove” was always my favorite song on this album, mostly because it felt like a nod to the band they were leading up to this well-deserved cross over into the 90s mainstream. It is hard to explain what a fierce and scrappy live and studio band they were during the Twin Tone and A&M eras. Thanks for the thoughtful take.