The Shallow End Presents: An Inexplicably Close Look at an Obscure Song Lit "The Last Time Again"

You may remember Lit as the band that, in four minutes, completely encapsulated your sophomore year of college.



Or, you may remember Lit as that band that gratuitously made Pamela Anderson the subject of your nightmares.




Yes, the California quartet had a brief run at the top of the airwaves and Total Request Live playlists in the late '90s, which earned them consideration from the soundtrack for that wonderful film series of our youth, American Pie. "Last Time Again" was one of two tracks from the band that appeared in the second iteration of the series, joining the likes of Third Eye Blind's "Semi-Charmed Kind of Life," Harvey Danger's "Flagpole Sitta" and American Hi-Fi's "Flavor of the Weak."

Seriously. Looking back at it now, I can't remember one moment of an American Pie film where there wasn't some sort of ambient music playing behind the characters. I wonder if it was because Eddie Kaye Thomas had a flatulence problem. That might actually have improved the quality of the second film. I remember picking it up at a used DVD store a few years ago, marked down to $2. I bought a couple Ring Pops instead.

Which leads us to the sugary dulcet tones of the melodramatic "Last Time Again," the opening of which aims for a Donne-like ("Mark but this flea," you listener, you have no choice but to do as I say) dramatic opening in the parlance of a teenage comedy.

"I don't want to be an asshole anymore."

A laudable goal. And, given the fact that we know you've been sleeping with your clothes on, climbing through windows at all hours and leaving your car parked on the front lawn, perhaps the decision to no longer piss people off is a good first step in the right direction.

Of course, the rest of the song is an exposition detailing all the ways that this speech, presumably said to what Donne would call a lover or mistress and what the band members of Lit would call that girl with the tight shirt near the bass amp during last night's show, has been told in the past.

"Well, I don't want to be redundant anymore."

Was that before or after you crafted the title to this song?

"The Last Time Again" is a throwaway track with a nice guitar noise that sounds like some kind of an alarm. It was probably used in a scene where our hero Jim is walking into another socially awkward situation with some item attached in a painfully bizarre way to his penis. I've just saved you thirty minutes of whatever American Pie movie you were planning on watching next. Except American Wedding. That film actually takes the characters somewhere and has a decent, heartfelt plot.

Watch that film, use American Pie 2 as a coaster for your warm beverage on this cold November day and remember — if you keep waking up on the bathroom floor, platitudes to those who care probably aren't going to change their mind about your alcoholism and penchant for destroying their electronics.