How Levi’s Gave Us Stiltskin – A One Hit Wonder & Guilty Pleasure

For a period during the late 80s and early 90s it seemed that our Number One records were decided by either Stock, Aitkin and Waterman or by a jeans manufacturers. Hard to believe I know but it’s true! It did bring a number of classic tracks back into the public eye that maybe didn’t get to number one first time round, these included:

• The Clash – Should I Stay Or Should I Go
• T Rex – 20th Century Boy
• Steve Miller – The Joker
• Ben E. King - Stand By Me
• Marvin Gaye - I Heard It Through The Grapevine
• Bad Company - Can't Get Enough 
• Percy Sledge - When A Man Loves A Woman

There were also new bands that would probably have not given the charts a look in without Levi’s involvement like the truly awful Spaceman by Babylon Zoo. - And then there was Stiltskin who got to Number One with the wonderfully grungy ‘Inside’.

Levi’s were proudly trend-hopping, usually focussed on depicting some bygone era to reflect the authenticity and durability of their product. The grunge sound was just another example, the advert being evidence, if any were needed that by 1994 grunge was already history. Indeed in a sad coincidence Kurt Cobain’s body was found in his garage a couple of weeks before “Inside” was released.

Stiltskin
Rumour has it that Levi’s wanted a Smashing Pumpkins song (Today) for the advert but were turned down. The advert itself was known as ‘Creek’, it’s worth a watch on YouTube and is a bit old-timey, women, jeans, bathing hunk, twisted ending type of ad – admittedly though, it is a great commercial!
Songwriter Peter Lawlor wrote the track ‘Inside’ specifically for the advert. He needed a singer and somehow found Scotsman Ray Wilson, a guy who looks like the product of crossing Bono with Fish out of Marillion. It’s Ray’s clench-arsed voice you hear being “broken minded” on the track. Lawlor himself played all the remaining instruments on the recording.  

Stiltskin the band weren’t some hyper-cool bunch of grunge misfits from Seattle. They actually looked like a bunch of competent, uncharismatic, session musicians who turned up at their studio’s fancy-dress party dressed as a grunge band. - This is because basically, they were! Lawlor pulled them together at the last minute when he realised he needed a band to go out and promote ‘Inside’. They were, in many ways, the antithesis of what grunge stood for.

But what of the song? Well, it’s lyrics are a bit daft (more of that later)  and it has a choral bit at the start for no obvious reason, but it does have nice bit of crunching guitar that you don’t get at the top of the charts very often. Smashing Pumpkins were definitely the reference point for ‘Inside’. There was some decent riffs on there, you can detect elements of the Smashing Pumpkins tracks as well as sections that seem to have come directly from the Hendrix track, ‘Hey Joe’. Then there’s that bit where the first heavy riff kicks which is just fantastic. 

Those Lyrics!! - What Was ‘Inside’ All About?
Well pick your favourite – “Seam in a fusion mine / Like a nursing rhyme / Fat man starts to fall” – note - nursing rhyme, not nursery rhyme, then there’s “Ring out in a bruised postcard / In a shooting yard”. Maybe the best lyric might be “strong words in a ganja sky”. Is it just nonsense of the highest order or do they mean something as some of those lyrics are absolutely priceless?

To some reviewers I’ve read they speak of a good time turned bad (see it turn to rust), and a struggle to come to terms and accept what has come to pass for the writer. Lines like "Strong words in a ganges sky, I have to lie, Shadows move in pairs" maybe there is an allusion toward imprisonment, perhaps a reference to where prisoners are shackled together, and inmates keep themselves to themselves? “Broken minded” could speak of mental illness especially if it’s to do with the imprisonment? Personally though I just think it’s a load of nonsense phrases all joined up into a lyric! 

Guilty Pleasure
‘Inside’ is the song we all pretend to like ironically, but in actual fact, we all really like it. To me it’s was and always will be a guilty pleasure.

At the time I liked the idea of grunge but being in my mid-20s was that bit too old for it and Nirvana apart it produced few songs that really stood the test of time. Back then I could see that glam/heavy metal was dying and something needed to replace it. Unlike its predecessor though, Grunge wasn’t fun. I still can’t listen to any of the major grunge acts, great though they may be, without feeling slightly shameful, it’s like I’m listening to the music that stopped rock and roll being fun. Because of its lyrics, the way it was put together and that advert, in many ways ‘Inside’ went against the grunge grain and was a bit tongue-in-cheek style fun.

A couple of years after this I noticed whilst watching pub bands around town that a lot of them had assimilated ‘Inside’ into their sets. Whether because they recognised Stiltskin as one of their own or because it was easy to play I couldn’t really say.

There was a whole Stiltskin album, 'The Minds Eye' released in the wake of ‘Inside’ which, rather than crashing and burning as might be expected for a group who had quite literally no following; no history; or anything else to grab hold of went top five. Of course the album was panned by the critics, but then it was always going to be.

In many ways I’m glad that Kurt Cobain didn’t live to hear this ransacking of his soul; realistically I wish he could have kept going somehow, but then I wasn’t him and never will be; the fact that Ray Wilson went on to join a short-lived post-Phil Collins Genesis proves that he knew and believed it all inside.

BTW. In truth I actually prefer the "Live and Acoustic" version from Ray’s solo album of a few years ago to the Stiltskin original – look it up, you might be pleasantly surprised.