Tonic, "If You Could Only See"

I once saw a horrible cover of this song by some anonymous bar band. The original is hardly any kind of zenith in rock history and holds its place amongst the many pop-rock tunes floating along on adult contemporary radio, but watching a group of hacks try and Creed it all up was still really a shame.
“If You Could Only See” won’t ever be considered one of the 90s’ most clever, thoughtful, or consciousness-raising songs, but you won’t find many other full-on rock songs that charted with this much raw sappy sincerity. Tonic’s radio-friendly rock popped up on the charts a few times in the 90s and early 00s, this one landing higher than the rest. Emerson Hart’s vocals waver somewhere between coffee shop singer-songwriter and the post-grunge growl as he tries to convince some unnamed listener that he definitely should do the vague “what I must do.” The video, with all the thin melodrama of a youth group skit or an episode of Melrose Place, leads us to believe that perhaps murder is the case. Without the video, “If you could only see how blue her eyes can be when she says she loves me” doesn’t make a whole lot of sense upon first, second, or three hundredth listen, but it resonates when you’re a teenager whose hormones surge and crest the same way as those slide guitars. As a result, the song soon became vastly overplayed, perhaps as an attempt by deejays to counter the boy band takeover.

Arrested Development's "People Everyday"

One of three Arrested Development singles to wiggle into the Billboard Top Ten charts in 1992, “People Everyday” features Speech’s loose, near-rambling MC style a la De La Soul over peaceful samples, basic beats, a strummed guitar, gospel-style call and response, and handclaps. These elements present a folksy approach to what many would see as just another violent inner city episode; it’s a feel-good song on the surface that ends with an admonition in line with AD’s overall philosophies of community and Afro-centrism.
The original version (appearing on the album 3 Years, 5 Months and 2 Days in the Life of…) gives listeners a different angle to the same story. Dub/Reggae seasoning mixes with tough urban funk samples and scratches behind Speech’s best attempts to sound “hard,” somewhat of an anomaly on the album as a whole.
Speech has pointed out that before releasing his semi-autobiographical “People Everyday” as a single, they remixed it to reflect their trademark sound that had already brought them success with “Tennessee.” The two different versions magnify the tension present in the song. Even while providing an alternative to the then-prevalent hardcore gangster rap and championing positive lyrics – according to Speech, a direct influence of Public Enemy) – Arrested Development and this song itself seems to admit that sometimes even if you “ain’t Ice Cube,” a guy’s just got to “take a brother out for being rude,” unabashedly using the n-word to distinguish between different lifestyles and behaviors. Knowledgeable hip-hop scholars and artists alike explore these tensions constantly, and truth be told, the issue existed amongst black poets, essayists, and novelists for decades before hip-hop came along. When Arrested Development takes on the topic, however, we also get a video that includes the MC wearing such a great straw hat.

P.S. They're back!