Trivia / Ben Folds

• Black Sheep Hit:
  • Despite being their most popular song, the sombre ballad "Brick" is a far cry from Ben Folds Five's trademark punk sound and features Robert Sledge on a bowed double-bass instead of a distorted bass guitar. Several fans accused them of selling out as a result.
  • "Rockin' The Suburbs" is Ben's highest-charting solo single to date. It's also the complete opposite of a typical Ben Folds song in every way, not only for the presence of guitars but for it's compressed mixing and multi-tracking, made to sound like exactly the kind of corporate sell-out modern rock it's making fun of.
• Bury Your Art: Ben grew to dislike his "ironic" cover of "Bitches Ain't Shit," at first because he was getting sick of people calling him "...the 'Bitches' guy!" in front of his kids and, later, due to his own views on racial politics evolving to the point that he didn't find it appropriate for a white performer singing that song, ironically or not (especially since it drops a couple of n-bombs). In 2020, he went to far as to ask his label to pull it from all digital platforms.
• Creator Backlash: The 4.6 songs he had to write for a music publishing company, discussed in "One Down," were so awful that he's made no effort to even remember how they go.
• Executive Meddling: "Landed" was the result of the one and only time Ben's label asked him to write a radio single. They rejected over fifty song ideas before Ben simply asked "Which Elton John song do you want?" to which they responded "Tiny Dancer." Even after recording the song, Ben rejected the mix which added a string orchestra, after which his label never tried to make him write a single again.
• Foiler Footage: His band rerecorded alternate lyrics for all the songs on the Way to Normal album and leaked the "fake" versions on the internet.
• I Am the Band: Averted with Ben Folds Five, but played straight with most of his solo albums.
• Inspiration for the Work:
  • "Brick" is about a girlfriend he had when he was younger whom he had to get an abortion with.
  • "Not the Same". Ben Folds was at a friend's party, some guy did a lot of acid, climbed up a tree, and when he came down in the morning he was a born-again Christian. The only major difference is that the party took place at Darren Jessee's place, not Robert Sledge's. Ben said that the reason for this change was because he thought "at Robert Sledge's party" simply sounded better than "at Darren Jessee's party".
  • The final verse of "The Luckiest" was about his neighbors, an elderly couple who really did die a week apart from one another. He felt it was the most realistic depiction of romance he could think of.
  • A milder example is the title of the album The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner. Darren Jessee and a lot of his friends used that name on fake ID's when they were teenagers, and the band decided to use it in the title. They didn't know that it was the name of an actual person — a mountaineer who (among other things) was the first to climb Mount Everest unassisted, and also one half of a two-man team that was the first to do it without using a backup oxygen supply. After they found out, they added a thank-you to him in the liner notes.
• Missing Episode: As mentioned, his cover of Dr. Dre's "Bitches Ain't Shit" is no longer available to stream or download, due to Ben no longer feeling comfortable with the concept of it.
• One-Hit Wonder: Ben Folds Five only cracked the Top 40 with "Brick," and even then it had to be released as a single on four separate occasions to chart. Understandably, the band didn't bother to try and have a hit afterwards. As a solo act, Ben's highest-charting hit was "Rockin' The Suburbs." As mentioned above, neither of these songs are indicative of either act's typical sound.
• Promoted Fanboy: After hearing a university choir perform one of his songs, Ben Folds produced an album of university acapellas and put the school's cover on the album.
• Referenced by...: In Dear Evan Hansen, Evan has a poster for Ben Folds in his room.
• Teasing Creator: "Uncle Walter." When asked if the song was about a real person, Ben and the band would make up outrageous stories.
• Throw It In!:
  • While Ben Folds Five were recording a take of "Steven's Last Night In Town", a phone rang right at the end of the last repetition of the chorus - it happened to do so on rhythm, so it was left in. If you listen carefully, you can also hear Darren Jessee Corpsing in response.
  • Likewise on "Army", a laugh can be heard in the background after Ben sings "my redneck past is nipping at my heels". That's the album's producer, laughing in response to a lyric he hadn't heard before. The mic picked it up and they kept it in.
  • Ben's then-wife Frally happened to call his cellphone during the instrumental outro of "Dog", and he decided to actually pick up while still recording. The ensuing conversation was included on the Speed Graphic EP, but removed from The Not-Remix version included on the compilation The Supersunnyspeedgraphic LP.
• What Could Have Been:
  • "Brick" began as a more up-tempo pop rock song. Darren Jessee wrote what would become the chorus on guitar and brought it to Ben, who had just written a more sombre piano melody in the same key. They decided to combine the two.
  • "The Luckiest" was originally written for the finale of Loser (2000) and was even composed to match the beats of the scene. When the scene was cut, the producers offered to use it in another scene, but he politely declined. Years later, the song was prominently used in another movie, About Time.
  • Whatever and Ever Amen was the first Ben Folds Five album to have as many ballads as it did uptempo songs, and Ben was concerned about potential Mood Whiplash or listeners being unable to take certain songs seriously because of the more humorous ones on the album, so he briefly toyed with the idea of putting all of the slower songs on the second half of the album.
• Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: The "leaked" versions of the songs from "Way To Normal" were written and recorded in a span of about twelve hours.
• Write What You Know: "Late," his tribute to the late Elliott Smith, is a case of "what little you know." Ben didn't know him all that well personally, so it doesn't go into much more detail about him other than Ben's love of his music and Smith's love of basketball.