Mann attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston, but dropped out to sing with her first punk rock band, the Young Snakes; the band released the EP Bark Along with the Young Snakes in 1982, and a compilation album was issued in 2004. In 1983, seeking a return to "sweetness and melody", she co-founded with Berklee classmate and boyfriend Michael Hausman the new wave band 'Til Tuesday, which achieved minor success in 1985 with its first album, Voices Carry. The title song is said to be inspired by Hausman and Mann's breakup; the video became an MTV staple, winning the MTV Video Music Award for Best New Artist, though Mann's signature spiky hair would lead some to dismiss the group. Mann performed with the rock band Rush on the song "Time Stand Still" (from Hold Your Fire, 1987), singing backup vocals and appearing in the music video. With Mann playing an increasingly important role in songwriting, 'Til Tuesday released two more albums, Welcome Home and Everything's Different Now. On the final album and tour, musician Jon Brion joined the band, which broke up in 1990 when Mann left to start her solo career.
Around the time of the first album's release, Mann began a romantic relationship with Jules Shear; they broke up before the final 'Til Tuesday album, which contained the song "J For Jules". Professional relationships from the band would continue: Hausman later became Mann's manager, and Brion produced her first two solo albums.
Solo career
In 1993, Mann released Whatever, her first solo album. Promotion suffered due to the collapse of her label, Imago. While only a small hit, the album was critically praised, and paved the way for her next release, 1995's I'm with Stupid, through Geffen Records. Again, reviews were positive, but sales were weak.
Mann had met musician Michael Penn in the 1980s and with comparable songwriting styles and record-industry woes to share, they struck up a friendship during the recording of Stupid, which blossomed into romance and their 1997 marriage. Around this time Brion produced her album Bachelor No. 2, but Geffen saw no hit singles in the material and ordered her back to the studio. The album languished while Mann and the label fought.
Meanwhile, iconoclastic film auteur Paul Thomas Anderson, for whom Penn and Brion had composed a soundtrack, became a close friend. Mann gained greater public recognition in 1999 — indeed, more than anything else since "Voices Carry" — when she contributed eight songs to the soundtrack of Anderson's Magnolia, including the Academy Award-nominated song, "Save Me". Anderson deliberately worked from Mann's lyrics to create the film's characters and situations. Due to this exposure, Mann became sought after to contribute to soundtracks, a success made ironic by the music industry's indifference.
Independence
Fed up with both ineffectual promotion and artistic meddling by her record label, an experience documented in her song "Calling It Quits", she struck out on her own and founded SuperEgo Records in 1999. Mann self-released Bachelor No. 2 in 2000 (see 2000 in music), having negotiated a contract release from Geffen, and though initially only sold at concerts and via her website, the album became successful, allowing her to secure retail distribution through SuperEgo. The album, which included some songs from Magnolia and new material, was widely admired and Mann's "more indie than indie" success was carefully noted by other musicians.
Mann, Penn, Brion, Fiona Apple, and other musicians had by this time developed a subculture around the Largo nightclub in L.A. Penn and Mann formed a concept called Acoustic Vaudeville to recreate it on tour in California and eventually on an irregular, ongoing national tour. The Acoustic Vaudeville shows intermix music and stand-up comedy; among the comedians joining them for individual shows were Janeane Garofalo, Patton Oswalt, and David Cross.
Aimee continued her solo career with Lost in Space (2002), a somewhat more sombre album in the same vein as Bachelor No. 2. In 2004 her website released the Lost in Space Special Edition, which featured a second disc containing six live recordings, as well two B-sides and two previously unreleased songs. In November of that year Live at St. Ann's Warehouse, a live album and DVD recorded at a series of July 2004 shows in Brooklyn, came out; the two discs were sold packaged together in either a CD jewel case or a DVD case.
Mann described her next album, The Forgotten Arm (2005) as a concept album set in the '70s about two lovers who meet at the Virginia state fair and are now on the run. The Joe Henry-produced album, which was recorded mostly live and has few overdubs, was released May 3, 2005. The album reflects Mann's interest in boxing in its illustrations as well as its title, derived from a boxing move in which one arm is used to hit the opponent, causing him to "forget" about the other arm, which is then used to deliver a harsher blow. The album received weaker reviews overall, with critics impressed at the totality but unimpressed with any individual songs.
In October 2006 Aimee released 'One More Drifter in The Snow', an album of Christmas songs. All bar one of the songs, 'Calling on Mary' were covers of holiday classics.
Mann's independence from the industry led her to more explicit political stances. She joined Artists Against Piracy, a group formed to act against the illegal downloading and file sharing of copyrighted music from the Internet. Mann, Penn and Hausman took their experience with SuperEgo to found the independent music collective United Musicians, which is based on the principle that every artist should be able to retain copyright ownership of the work he or she has created, in contrast to normal music industry contracts.
June 2008 brought the release of '@#%&*! Smilers,' a collection of songs featuring greater use of keyboards. Aimee's set at the Bonnaroo Music Festival in the same month featured a number of selections from the new album as well as a number of her concert standards. Aimee and her band covered Elton John's 'My Father's Gun' as part of the set.
The Scientist
Aimee Mann Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Tell you I'm sorry
You don't know how lovely you are
I had to find you...
Tell you I need you
Tell you I set you apart
Tell me your secrets
Oh let's go back to the start...
Running in circles; coming in tails
Heads on a silence apart
Nobody said it was easy
It's such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be this hard
Oh take me back to the start
I was just guessing at numbers and figures
Pulling your puzzles apart
Questions of science; science and progress
Do not speak as loud as my heart
Tell me you love me
Come back and haunt me
Oh and I rush to the start
Running in circles, chasing our tails
Coming back as we are
Nobody said it was easy
Oh it's such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be so hard
I'm going back to the start
Oh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh
X4
Aimee Mann's song The Scientist is a beautifully crafted melancholic ballad about love, heartbreak, and regret. The lyrics seem to be a conversation with a former lover, whom the singer is trying to win back. The opening lines, "Come up to meet you, tell you I'm sorry / You don't know how lovely you are, I had to find you," set the tone for the song with a sense of humility and earnestness. The singer is acknowledging their past mistakes and is seeking forgiveness while acknowledging the beauty in their partner. The lines "Tell me your secrets and ask me your questions, oh let's go back to the start," express the longing to rekindle the connection with the partner and start over anew.
The chorus "Nobody said it was easy / No one ever said it would be so hard / Oh take me back to the start" emphasizes the emotional weight of separation and how it is never easy to move on. The erratic behavior of running in circles and chasing their tails throughout the song represents the confusion and emotional turmoil of the breakup. The lines "Questions of science, science, and progress / Do not speak as loud as my heart" juxtapose the logical and practical side of the brain with the emotional side. The singer is essentially saying that even though they understand why the relationship didn't work on paper, their heart still longs for their partner.
Line by Line Meaning
Come up to meet you
I am finally making an effort to meet you
Tell you I'm sorry
I want to apologize for whatever has gone wrong between us
You don't know how lovely you are
You're beautiful but you're not aware of it
I had to find you...
I have been searching for you because you're important to me
Tell you I need you
I don't want to lose you because I need you in my life
Tell you I set you apart
Out of everyone in the world, you stand out to me and I want you to know it
Tell me your secrets
I want to know everything about you, the good and the bad
And ask me your questions
Ask me anything, I'm an open book
Oh let's go back to the start...
Let's start over, let's go back to the beginning when things were good
Running in circles; coming in tails
We're going nowhere, we're stuck in a loop
Heads on a silence apart
We're not communicating, we're staying silent
Nobody said it was easy
This is difficult and we should acknowledge that
It's such a shame for us to part
It's sad that we're breaking up, it's a loss for both of us
No one ever said it would be this hard
We didn't anticipate how difficult this would be
Oh take me back to the start
I want to go back and do things over again
I was just guessing at numbers and figures
I was trying to solve our problems with logic, but it wasn't working
Pulling your puzzles apart
I was trying to figure you out, like a puzzle
Questions of science; science and progress
Logic and progress can't fix everything
Do not speak as loud as my heart
My emotions are screaming louder than anything else
Tell me you love me
I need to hear that you love me to believe it
Come back and haunt me
Even if things didn't work out, I want you to be a part of my life
Running in circles, chasing our tails
We're stuck in the same pattern as before, we're not growing or changing
Coming back as we are
We're not improving, we're just staying the same
Oh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh
Repeating the chorus
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Written by: Christopher Anthony John Martin, Guy Rupert Berryman, Jonathan Mark Buckland, William Champion
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Stamango
One of the very few singers who can sing this with such beauty. Aimee really has a beautiful voice.
Tim R
Aimee Mann. She's a great singer/songwriter. Check out her album "Lost in Space" or the Magnolia soundtrack (she did 9 of the 12 songs on that...I think got an Academy Award nomination for a song, too). She was also in that band "til tuesday" from the early 90s. They had that song "Voices carry" which you might recognize. But, "Lost in Space" is a fantastic album. Highly recommended!
Rick B.
I've been having a serious musical relationship with Aimee Mann for a long time now. What an honor this cover is.
T Y
Many more years and decades unto thy 'musical relationship', dear Braindea Braindea !!!
Ken Langley
This woman, this artist, is such a rare blessing, and I am thankful for knowing about her gifts. And yes, so much better than Coldplay. Check out the film Magnolia, if you have not.
gergsar
Yes, it's a cover...but it's LIVE, and she did it because she likes the song...she's AIMEE MANN... she's got plenty of great songs, that she wrote. Plus, she brings something of herself to the song...
Jeff Willis
Aimee wrote and sang great songs and does covers better than the originals!
Jose Alberto Freitas
Agreed
regularperson
i agree but in this case thats just because it is coldplay
Morgan Markus
"Tell me you love me, come back and haunt me..."
The only thing that could make this song better is Aimee Mann's beautiful voice.