Synopsis

Ben Folds Five perform the song in a stylized, performance-led video that mirrors its restless piano-rock energy and sarcastic attitude. The trio's playing is intercut with playful, offbeat imagery rather than a conventional storyline, keeping the focus on the band's chemistry and the song's portrait of fashionable apathy. The visual treatment reinforces the contrast at the heart of the track: an apparently indifferent character is described with such vivid detail that his boredom becomes its own kind of performance.

Factoids & Trivia

• The song was released as the lead single from Ben Folds Five's 1997 album Whatever and Ever Amen.

• Bassist Robert Sledge explained that the song grew out of the attitude he and the band encountered in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where acting bored and detached could become a competition for coolness.

• The album title comes from the song's lyric, linking the single directly to the record's title concept.

• The track reached No. 26 on the UK Singles Chart and No. 22 on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks chart.

• The video received substantial exposure during the band's 1997 breakthrough, including airplay on MTV and VH1. In the UK, it also appeared on programs including The Chart Show, Top of the Pops 2, and The O Zone.

• The video was produced through Bonfire Films of America, a company that also worked on music videos for acts including blink-182, 311, Cake, Incubus, and They Might Be Giants.

• The single's B-sides included the instrumental performance "Hava Nagila" and "For Those of Y'all Who Wear Fanny Packs," while the band also contributed a live cover of Oasis' "Champagne Supernova" to related releases.